Such a strong feeling, though it is not admitted by many, though is sometimes just under some mask either of the tough person or the victim that just doesn't want to be in charge of his/her life. Any form we find of this type of behavior would be strongly hurtful for all of us and yet at some or many points in our lives we have felt it, either because of some external trigger or just due to a past memory that was brought back by some near event which resembles what we have experienced in our story.
The core problem here is that there are many underlying layers that you have to start peeling off and of course it requires your commitment to find yourself as you really are, there will be some painful moments, yes they will be there, but the great news is that you will be given the opportunity to fall in love with yourself, accept every single "flaw" that you might have according of course to others and see it as a blessing for you.
Nevertheless, this journey shall begin with a humble heart and with the purpose of becoming free of self or external judgements, and not with the end result of growing your ego.
Thus to start defining and assigning steps, we can begin with your ego and your true self or identity.
We all have heard about the Ego component of our identity, as necessary as it seems, leads many people towards feeling hurt, undervalued, or hyper-valued and most of the times is based on external validations and events that define that layer of identity.
Our more inner component, and not many times visited, is our true identity or true self, which is the one we all should be concerned and mindful to develop and align with who we are currently at this moment, this true self is constantly evolving and is based on your true values, your inner consciousness of actions, your desires, expectations, perceptions and appreciations of pretty much everything that surrounds you (1).
However as we received so many messages, since childhood, and so many of these messages were processed with a less developed neural components that the ones that are required to properly integrate them into a healthy structure of who we are and a much healthier concept of our own inner self, we tend to have a disrupted, external influenced self based on all of those perceptions, beliefs and messages received since you were a child.
During childhood and of course still until adolescent years, we were bombarded with an incredible amount of messages which in our infant or childhood stage penetrated the deepest parts of our consciousness, even if we of course were not aware of that. Then, at the adolescent stage many of those message started to give rise to some conflicting beliefs, with some disturbed sense of our personality and of course of our identity which in turn rise and gave birth to our early adulthood sense of who we are.
Taking into account that our neural pathways are not fully developed in childhood and are submitted to a lot of plasticity during our adolescent years, then it is not surprising that some of our early 20's and sometimes part of our 30's are still showing symptoms and consequences of all that cascade and influence of messages, which most of the times are very harmful and disempowering and that is the main cause of not feeling enough, worthy or confident of your own value and your true abilities!
Now, the big question is ..
How do we construct a stronger self identity based on a complete new scheme of values, perceptions and with a core loved valence?
Even as the word "self" and more the one of "true self" can create a conflict in people's mind, due to the abstract concept, and the fact that anyone has ever witnessed or seen it, we can certainly assign some characteristics to it (2):
Ever present in the now;
Not affected by external influences;
Source of love, compassion, creativity, evolution, insights;
Self-regulated;
Timeless;
Divine made;
Aware;
Origin of the mind,
Not present in a physical form,
With all these assortment of divine characteristics is very hard to conceptualize that we sometimes feel we are not enough, and just by trying to go deeper into these divine traits that you do have, would make you feel that you're worthy, unique and able to rewire an old concept that was not even created by you!
To begin with the healing process..let's start:
Presence in the now.
There's no point at all to be living in the past which already happened as you finish reading this sentence and will not change, whether we want to accept it or not, nor focusing our energy on a future perspective which certainly has not happened yet.
In a physical realm, there's only one place where we can start producing changes and it is in the now! Every attempt, thought and action that we set our mind to in a present moment is an essential component of what will be happening in your life in the future.
The more you understand this concept that we ourselves make difficult to grasp, maybe because is so instantaneous that we immediately want to either go back or move forward, the easier our lives will be.
Setting our mind to a clock that only represents the now! This moment and taking more awareness of how, what and why are you thinking, behaving or reacting in certain way is the key to start acquiring leverage and momentum in your life.
Not affected by external influences.
Even as "impossible" as it sounds due to all the programming that all the external world is trying to convince us that we can be affected by external forces, in strict words only our physical characteristics and external envelope can be affected.
However, as proven by Dr. Viktor Frankl, our mind, which we also defined as a product of our self, cannot be affected by anything external.
With that concept in mind, you really can become anything you want within go course certain physical boundaries which we all have, but the way you think, are influenced or behave is certainly just your choice. It can be biased, yes of course and that's the purpose of many of the external sources, to lead you to where every business or individual want you to be directed to.
The stronger you become, knowing your values, defining your new beliefs, and acquiring more peace of mind and awareness with every day practice, the less influenced you will be and the freer you'll become!
Source of love, compassion, creativity, evolution, insights.
We certainly are full of these divine traits given since birth, however with advancement of technology, selfishness and external distractions we have become obliterated to them.
However, when you tend to look for a more centered, peaceful and mindful way of being in touch with your core, with your thoughts (even if at the beginning seem lousy or harmful), then you're acquiring the ability to touch base with your essence and witness by yourself the amount of love and compassion within you.
By allowing yourself, through any kind of mediation practice, to be in touch with your inner self, you will also access your greatness to be more creative, to start finding solutions and answer that only you could find. And yes, of course you needed the guidance, but the tools were just yours and were tailor made so you could find them.
When you get into this kind of practice, inevitably you will start evolving and not from a selfish point of view, but from a more mindful way of seeing the things as they truly are. Losing in the way, the disempowering messages of comparisons with others and just witnessing your own evolution to find yourself in a much better place that you were before attempting to do it.
Finally engaging in the deepest confinements of your soul and self will start unraveling plenty of insights that will now be recognized as a much clearer voice than the one you use to have, you will be able to hear a more fine tuned coherent voice which will come directly from the connection to your heart, and this same voice will allow you to be more connected as well with your internal health which will be very handy when feeling any kind of chaotic states such as deeper sadness, anxiety or even depression.
Self-regulated.
Yes, sounds like science fiction, but no, in fact is that self regulation the one asset that we're looking for, the one and only powerful tool that allows you to heal, to process food, to think and all the body and mind functions that you can imagine.
Nevertheless, the most powerful way to access this asset is by knowing more of how you function, what are the things that bother you, what are the messages that you might have imprinted in you, what are the limitations that others put in you, what are the things that you inherently love about you and what are the things that many others have put their effort to make you believe they are disadvantages.
It's not about thinking, that you're all mighty and powerful to fix everything, is more about being more conscious of all the things that you've been hiding under the rug, or that you've postponing to deal with.
As your awareness is raised towards a better understanding of your own unique characteristics, you will find an easier time to access the right tools and to start modulating your thoughts, your beliefs and your behaviors towards any kind of external trigger.
Timeless and Divine Made.
Hard to conceptualize, but there's not yet any other explanation for this kind of traits that are within your true self. Time is not passing through that kind of energy and it is an infinite energy source which can only have one origin, which is the divine in whatever name, appearance and concept you want to build for that word.
We all have an origin, we all have a source, and we all are in our own right to believe in that independently of any kind of man made belief.
Within the realm of the energetic universe, there's no concept of time and there's an ever ongoing process of renewal, of order and of course of destination that at least for the kind of energetic level where we are placed we don't even seem to conceptualize but we know that it exits!
Aware and the Origin of the Mind.
This self, is always alert even while you're asleep to sense, to perceive and to give you guidance in the physical realm.
It was designed to be your best GPS with coordinates that you will be marking, that you're also able to codify and moreover that you will be able to expand and sculpt in such a way that if you keep practicing knowing yourself you will no longer be at the expense of any external circumstance, as incredible as it may sound for you right now.
In addition to that great quality, it is the source of your mind and with that it entails and provides with all the machinery and plasticity that you want for it to create, however there's also the other road, you can keep acting recklessly, living in a victim mode and trying to look for excuses which will only take away all of its power.
The kryptonite to your mind and awareness are the distractions, selfishness, victimhood, and complaining behaviors that you also can choose to have.
Not present in a physical form.
No one yet as ever witnessed or have a clear image of the "self" but we all know we have it inside, there maybe claims and images of the soul in a sort of formless shape or intense light, however there's not a physical palpable form and that is the beauty of the self.
That's ever existent, that is omnipresent, that's timeless and with that comes the great joy to surrendering and stop looking or being afraid of leaving a physical form to become another one.
As attached as we are to our physical envelopes, the more independent we become from our envelopes, our "experience devices" that by the way were also amazingly designed to fulfill an incredible experience of this earth they will have to stay where they belong ...in the confinements of the physical earth and the physical realm.
However, our selves will be ever existent, will be ever malleable and able to give us the true power of believing more in our true and divine abilities instead of giving away our own unique gift to the external disposition and sometimes destruction of our own internal value.
In summary, we all can access a different, truer, more evolved concept of who we are, as well as a more driven, confident and love empowered image of ourselves, we all can leave the false beliefs, the imprinted programs and the external added limitations that we might have been subject to and start knowing, accessing, learning and thriving with a much more powerful sense of response ability to create a different present, to design a brighter and abundant future and to start being a higher evolved signature of the divine from which we were all created from!
References.
1. Ortega D. “Who is Your True Self?”. https://www.davidortegab.com/post/who-is-your-true-self. June 28th, 2019.
2. Chopra D, Kafatos C.M. "Solving the Mystery of the Self". https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/solving-mystery-self-deepak-chopra-md-official. May 13th, 2019.