Lesson14 – How to win your war against negative feelings

“The change in their physical image meant nothing to them, so weak was their concept of themselves as people – so weak was their self-image.”

Dr Maltz studied the personality changes that took place in his patients after he had removed their scars or deformities through plastic surgery.

Some of his patients became happy, confident human beings after surgery, but many others remained as inferior, dejected and hostile as they had been before their operations!

“Deeply ingrained negative attitudes permeate our culture, and every day, people you know may try to submerge you in them. Your thoughts, your concepts, your images, are your most precious assets.”

Your self-image will sustain you in creative living if you learn to declare war on your negative feelings – and win the war in your mind. A person’s thoughts, his images are mightier than guns.

No goal is more vital than to de-hypnotise yourself from the false beliefs which paralyze you.

For example, have you spent your last fifteen years worrying about some catastrophe that has never happened?

Do you constantly criticize yourself for talking too much or not talking enough.

Is your self-blame so severe that your conversation has become contrived and dead?

Are you so worried about money that nothing else matters to you?

All these negative beliefs must be brought to light and exposed for what the are – negative beliefs, that pull us down from our true level as human beings, that disfigure our self-images, that destroy our aspirations for the happiness that is our reasonable expectation.

The secret of successful living is to rise above your failures.

Forget your errors, stop grieving over them. Have compassion on your own human fallibility, then, unburdened with guilt, you can step out determinedly into the world, seeing yourself at your best, formulating your goals and bringing out your success instincts.

Concentrate on the confidence from past successes, not past failures.

Banish negative beliefs. Let your strengthened self-image inspire you to move forward into a more vital way of life.

Believe in yourself!