Self Image by Xavier James L.S.

Reflection on Self-Image based on J. Maurus in Live with better self-image

A vivid and powerful guide to self-image by Xavier James L.S.

Self-Image

When you are ok, you are aware of yourself as both being and becoming. As BEING, you feel confident, live fully and enjoy the present. As BECOMING, you continue to develop, build and change. There is no doubt that your psychological growth is as real and important as your physical growth. In the book AM I OK? P.I. Philips and F.D. Cordell write: when you are a being-becoming person, you listen to yourself and others in a special way. You listen for the things that often slip by unnoticed. You listen to and accept your feelings. You deal with those feelings in a conscious way. You listen to your body tell you how it is after a long day’s work. When you listen to yourself for the first time, you will become conscious that you are embarrassed, fearful, disappointed, angry or confident. You will also realize other people in the same situation feel the same way. When you listen in that special way to others, you begin to see that sometimes even grownups have a child inside – playing, teasing or reaching out for love and understanding. Often that child reaches out in negative ways by – demanding, grasping or sulking. The child inside covers its fears with tough guy called Mask, its confusion with a mocking sureness. Sometimes the child covers its loneliness with defiance and its hurt with anger. When you listen, you hear that child reaching out. Then you do what makes both the growing and the child inside you happy.

Self Appreciation

A proverb says that we go where we are appreciated. This shows that appreciation is a deep craving of human nature. It is only through appreciation that your potentialities come into full being. Appreciation is the Sun that draws forth into blossom and fruitfulness what existed in you before only as a seed. Learn to appreciate what you are and what you have. And regarding appreciation towards other people, remember to hand them flowers whose fragrance they can enjoy.

Appreciate the gift of life

There are many ways of receiving the gift of life. The most effectual relates to the important things that count. C.Neil Strait writes on the subject of life, which you would do well reflect upon: Life is a gift from God to be invested for good not evil, to be shared not kept, to be helpful not indifferent. Life is not to be handled casually. It is potential that needs one’s best endeavours. If the best is not put into life, then life becomes a wasted possibility, a bore and a failure. Where life is taken seriously, there great and worthwhile causes beat the heart. Deep purposes motivate life onward and satisfying accomplishments result. Life is lived out in the arena of fear and faith. There is fear that tragedy will be set life’s plans and a faith that all that is dreamed and planned will bear fruit. Life unfolds along uncertain paths, experiencing the joyful and the sad, the ups and downs. Life needs a faith for all the moments that speak of help of assurance, of strength. Without such a faith, life can be threatening and frightening. Life flows best when it is lived out along the avenues of service and love. Life is God’s gift to us. Because it is a gift it is to be handled with respect, engaged in responsible pursuits and established on worthwhile values and causes.

Intimacy

Appreciation and praise are like sunshine to the human spirit. You cannot flower and grow without them. Mothers know instinctively that where children are concerned, an ounce of praise is worth a pound of scolding. Be ready to bask always in the warm sunshine of praise. Appreciation creates friendship, communion and communication between person and person. And both appreciation and praise contribute towards intimacy. Paul Hinnebusch writes: Intimacy means letting myself be fully known, without fear of rejection. It means my responding to another’s love by showing myself completely; trusting implicitly that the other will love what I show him/her. The fullness of intimacy requires that this appreciation be mutual. In the intimacy of friendship, I gradually become aware of my selfishness and weakness and how ungrateful I tend to be. Intimacy frees me from excessive preoccupation with self. Give joy by acquiring the goodness which others desire from me.