THE BIG THREE OF ME

I going to write for the next few days about what I call, THE BIG THREE OF ME.

The Big Three of Me consists of self-image, self-esteem, and self-worth. You possess The Big Three to one degree or another. Self-Image is our starting point because self-esteem and self-worth are determined by self-image.Your self-image is an incredibly important part of your life.There are very few things in your life that carry more power to affect you, positively or negatively, than the image you have of yourself..

 Self-Image is how you see yourself. When you look in a mirror you see an image of your body. How you see your physical apperance is a large part of your self-image. But, body image is only part of the picture. You are thinking all the time and your thinking begins and ends with you and your relationship with your environment. Self-Image is how you see yourself in relationship with your environment. Your environment has many facets. Your self-image is your opinion about you in relation to all those facets.

If someone asks you how you see yourself with regard to your intelligence, don't say, "I don't know." You do know. But, if you are like so many, and I include myself in that number at one point in my life, you may not think very much about what you think about. In other words, you are thinking but you are not alert or conscious of your thoughts. You have a self-image related to all things and you know what that image is.
Self-Image includes every area of your life. Are you good at math? Are you talented. Do you see yourself as a "people person?" Are you an affectionate person? Are you athletic? The list is endless. And the image is seldom a snapshot. It is a DVD, a movie.

You are not born with an image of yourself. Your self-image comes from the millions of messages that you receive from parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles, brothers and sisters, teachers, preachers, friends, enemies, books, television, movies and millions of other sources (including your own messages) of information about you in relation to your environment. Some
of these messages are true. Many are false. Examination and inventory of the messages is always a very good idea. I have heard individuals say, "But, I have always believed that about myself" or "People have always told me that I was (fill in the blank)." But, is it true?


Some of the self-images we have are true and we either have to accept them or change them. The Serenity Prayer carries a very  important idea in than regard.
                                                         God, grant me serenity to accept things I cannot change.
                                                         courage to change things I can,
                                                         and wisdom to know the difference.


That prayer would apply very well to your self-image. Your self-image carries your ideas and images of you. It is often the "Permission Center" for your daily life. It also can serve "Prohibitions on Dreams, Possibilities and Goals". It can be the biggest liar, illusionist and thief, or it can be best motivator and encourager you've ever known. Just make sure that it is telling you the truth.

Review: Self-Image is how you see your self. It is a movie more than a portrait. You are not born with it. You get it from everywhere, everything, everyone and yourself. Sometimes it is true and sometimes it isn't. IT MAKES A HUGE DIFFERENCE IN YOUR LIFE.

Some Pretty Darn Good Thoughts To Think

I found this on Stumbleupon and thought you might like it. Also interesting to discover how Geisel came to write his famous Dr. Seuss books. Check it out. Helping children learn how to think a certain way.

Here is a list of popular sayings or “Seuss-isms” from
Theodore Geisel “Dr. Seuss” (1904 – 1991) author and illustrator.
1. A person’s a person, no matter how small.
2. You have brains in your head. You have feet in your shoes. You can steer yourself, any direction you choose.
3. Today you are you, that is truer than true. There is no one alive who is youer than you.
4. From there to here, and here to there, funny things are everywhere.
5. Don’t cry because it’s over. Smile because it happened.
6. Today is your day! Your mountain is waiting. So… get on your way.
7. If you never did, you should. These things are fun, and fun is good.
8. I meant what I said, and I said what I meant. An elephant’s faithful, one hundred percent.
9. So the writer who breeds more words than he needs, is making a chore for the reader who reads.
10. And will you succeed? Yes indeed, yes indeed! Ninety-eight and three-quarters percent guaranteed.
11. Sometimes the questions are complicated and the answers are simple.
12. All alone! Whether you like it or not, alone is something you’ll be quite a lot. – Dr. Seuss
13. The more that you read, the more things you will know. The more that you learn, the more places you’ll go.
14. Today was good. Today was fun. Tomorrow is another one.
15. Think left and think right and think low and think high. Oh, the things you can think up if only you try!
16. Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better. It’s not.
17. I’m afraid sometimes you’ll play lonely games too, games you can’t win because you’ll play against you
18. I’m sorry to say so but, sadly it’s true that bang-ups and hang-ups can happen to you
19. I know up on the top you are seeing great sights, but down at the bottom we, too, should have rights.

Don't Tell Me You Don't Know What I'm Talking About

No, I did not write this. I copied it and pasted it because it is really helpful.


15 Styles of Distorted Thinking

1. Filtering: You take the negative details and magnify them, while filtering out all positive aspects of a situation. A single detail may be picked out, and the whole event becomes colored by this detail. When you pull negative things out of context, isolated from all the good experiences around you, you make them larger and more awful than they really are.
2. Polarized Thinking: The hallmark of this distortion is an insistence on dichotomous choices. Things are black or white, good or bad. You tend to perceive everything at the extremes, with very little room for a middle ground. The greatest danger in polarized thinking is its impact on how you judge yourself. For example-You have to be perfect or you're a failure.
3. Overgeneralization: You come to a general conclusion based on a single incident or piece of evidence. If something bad happens once, you expect it to happen over and over again. 'Always' and 'never' are cues that this style of thinking is being utilized. This distortion can lead to a restricted life, as you avoid future failures based on the single incident or event.
4. Mind Reading: Without their saying so, you know what people are feeling and why they act the way they do. In particular, you are able to divine how people are feeling toward you. Mind reading depends on a process called projection. You imagine that people feel the same way you do and react to things the same way you do. Therefore, you don't watch or listen carefully enough to notice that they are actually different. Mind readers jump to conclusions that are true for them, without checking whether they are true for the other person.
5. Catastrophizing: You expect disaster. You notice or hear about a problem and start "what if's." What if that happens to me? What if tragedy strikes? There are no limits to a really fertile catastrophic imagination. An underlying catalyst for this style of thinking is that you do not trust in yourself and your capacity to adapt to change.
6. Personalization: This is the tendency to relate everything around you to yourself. For example, thinking that everything people do or say is some kind of reaction to you. You also compare yourself to others, trying to determine who's smarter, better looking, etc. The underlying assumption is that your worth is in question. You are therefore continually forced to test your value as a person by measuring yourself against others. If you come out better, you get a moment's relief. If you come up short, you feel diminished. The basic thinking error is that you interpret each experience, each conversation, each look as a clue to your worth and value.
7. Control Fallacies: There are two ways you can distort your sense of power and control. If you feel externally controlled, you see yourself as helpless, a victim of fate. The fallacy of internal control has you responsible for the pain and happiness of everyone around you. Feeling externally controlled keeps you stuck. You don't believe you can really affect the basic shape of your life, let alone make any difference in the world. The truth of the matter is that we are constantly making decisions, and that every decision affects our lives. On the other hand, the fallacy of internal control leaves you exhausted as you attempt to fill the needs of everyone around you, and feel responsible in doing so (and guilty when you cannot).
8. Fallacy of Fairness: You feel resentful because you think you know what's fair, but other people won't agree with you. Fairness is so conveniently defined, so temptingly self-serving, that each person gets locked into his or her own point of view. It is tempting to make assumptions about how things would change if people were only fair or really valued you. But the other person hardly ever sees it that way, and you end up causing yourself a lot of pain and an ever-growing resentment.
9. Blaming: You hold other people responsible for your pain, or take the other tack and blame yourself for every problem. Blaming often involves making someone else responsible for choices and decisions that are actually our own responsibility. In blame systems, you deny your right (and responsibility) to assert your needs, say no, or go elsewhere for what you want.
10. Shoulds: You have a list of ironclad rules about how you and other people should act. People who break the rules anger you, and you feel guilty if you violate the rules. The rules are right and indisputable and, as a result, you are often in the position of judging and finding fault (in yourself and in others). Cue words indicating the presence of this distortion are should, ought, and must.
11. Emotional Reasoning: You believe that what you feel must be true-automatically. If you feel stupid or boring, then you must be stupid and boring. If you feel guilty, then you must have done something wrong. The problem with emotional reasoning is that our emotions interact and correlate with our thinking process. Therefore, if you have distorted thoughts and beliefs, your emotions will reflect these distortions.
12. Fallacy of Change: You expect that other people will change to suit you if you just pressure or cajole them enough. You need to change people because your hopes for happiness seem to depend entirely on them. The truth is the only person you can really control or have much hope of changing is yourself. The underlying assumption of this thinking style is that your happiness depends on the actions of others. Your happiness actually depends on the thousands of large and small choices you make in your life.
13. Global Labeling: You generalize one or two qualities (in yourself or others) into a negative global judgment. Global labeling ignores all contrary evidence, creating a view of the world that can be stereotyped and one-dimensional. Labeling yourself can have a negative and insidious impact upon your self-esteem; while labeling others can lead to snap-judgments, relationship problems, and prejudice.
14. Being Right: You feel continually on trial to prove that your opinions and actions are correct. Being wrong is unthinkable and you will go to any length to demonstrate your rightness. Having to be 'right' often makes you hard of hearing. You aren't interested in the possible veracity of a differing opinion, only in defending your own. Being right becomes more important than an honest and caring relationship.
15. Heaven's Reward Fallacy: You expect all your sacrifice and self-denial to pay off, as if there were someone keeping score. You fell bitter when the reward doesn't come as expected. The problem is that while you are always doing the 'right thing,' if your heart really isn't in it, you are physically and emotionally depleting yourself.

*FromThoughts & Feelingsby McKay, Davis, & Fanning. New Harbinger, 1981. These styles of thinking (or cognitive distortions) were gleaned from the work of several authors, including Albert Ellis, Aaron Beck, and David Burns, among others.