Very early on, our brains create an image of ourselves that has its roots in our earliest life experiences. Our brain uses this self-image as a kind of roadmap to predict who we should be and how we should be in relationship to our environment, and others. This self-image directs how we move, talk, think, feel, and perceive ourselves in the world. It drives our behavior and relationships, and it shapes our model of the world.
As toddlers, we learned by trial and error what was safe to feel and express in order to receive love from our caregivers. We learned to suppress certain sensations and copy certain behaviors for fear of rejection. In other words, we learn early on who, how, and what we need to be to belong and be safe.
A self-image is a complex composition of image, movement, emotion, sensation, and perception. Depending on how it sees us in the world, it forms attentional habits that then act as a filter, a kind of glasses, distorting all our perceptions, images, emotions, thoughts, and sensations. And all those perceptions, emotions, thoughts, and sensations inform our neuro-biology about what the world inside and around us is like.
So you could say that our self-image colors our inner experience and our perception of the outside world. If this keeps repeating itself, it creates patterns in our neurobiology that in turn affect our lives, relationships, and well-being.
Suppose you have a negative self-image…This can become an endlessly repeating circle that culminates in hypervigilant attention habits that revolve around what is wrong and constantly reinforce our negative experiences. Resulting in our neuro-biology running survival programs that deplete our body systems of energy. We might not feel very well in our skin all-together which in turn reinforces our negative self-image. An endless circle…
How can you create a new self-image that matches who you really are in the heart of your being?
Our body tells our story. It’s like a history book. The way she stands, sits, moves, dances, and expresses inner movement. They are all expressions of how we are in the world and how we are in relationship with ourselves, and others. They also reveal how our nervous system has organized itself based on our self-image.
Our body also knows the way out of a negative self-image. That is out of neurobiological survival patterns rooted in negative attention habits. If we only dare to trust her and entrust us to her guidance, she will show us how to write a new story. A new story through the physical senses and how she receives the environment through them.
When we put our minds in the passenger seat and enjoy the ride of the eyes, ears, nose, tongue, and skin, we experience the world as it is. A world that is not necessarily about us. It’s neutral and it helps our brains map themselves into the here and now that isn’t colored by the attentional habits of our self-image. It gives our brain an accurate world map of the moment.
Our brain has the task of mapping out a route to the next moment that is as energy-saving, enjoyable, and pleasant as possible. This means that the brain makes a prediction and a strategy to face the future, the next moment. Our biology and body systems then use this information to do their magic. You can imagine that the uncolored objective reality of our senses provides a better roadmap for that route than the colored subjective negative world map created by the self-image.
And in time with the real-time roadmap of the senses and the updated strategies of our brain, our genius system starts to form a new self-image that is rooted in the here-and-now story of how we belong and are embedded in the greater web of life.
And then the circle starts again. Attention habits form that inform our biology which in turn informs us through how we move, feel, sense, give meaning, dream, and envision. Only this time the attention habits tell us about what is, and reflect our nature back to us by what we receive from the present world around us. And those will be messages of beauty, goodness, kindness, and ease that recalibrate our inner compass to our inner sparkle, to genuine well-being, and authenticity
And to have again an inner compass that guides us to our inner sparkle, to our north star, to the essence of who we are… That is what I wish for us all.
