You Don’t Need to Fix Yourself

DR JOHN DEMARTINI   -   Updated 2 years ago

Dr Demartini explains why you only want to fix yourself when you compare yourself to others. You are not here to compare yourself to others. You’re here to compare your own actions to your own highest values and your own highest objectives or mission and look at how congruent they are. So here’s what is wise to do instead.

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DR JOHN DEMARTINI - Updated 2 years ago

The majority of individuals are distracted by their comparisons to other individuals.

I’d like to share a story of a client of mine as a powerful example of what happens when you spend your life comparing yourself to others, and the resulting effect it can have.

This particular client was very attractive. However, while the individuals around her would often recognize and comment on her physical beauty, she just couldn’t see it, and expressed feelings of low self-esteem as a result.

After talking about it for a while, I quickly realized that she constantly compared herself to the other women in her life.

There was a particular woman whose hair she admired as being longer, thicker, shinier and healthier, and she felt that her hair seemed quite lackluster in comparison. As such, she self-depreciated herself in relation to her hair and put this other woman on a pedestal, not as a whole individual but for just that piece of her, the hair.

She didn’t stop there. She also noticed that someone else had flatter abs and began self-deprecating on her abs.

She also looked at her cheekbones and jaw and noticed some slight sagging when compared with a colleague who had a firmer jawline.

She kept going with the various women in her life and compared parts of her with parts of them. Not their whole as individuals, just parts of them.

As a result, she continued to put parts of them on a pedestal and minimize parts of herself and try to fix those parts of herself instead of honoring and appreciating herself as she was.

While others could see and acknowledge her beauty, she couldn’t see it. The subordination to and the admiration of others kept her from honoring and appreciating the magnificence of who she was and her unique beauty.

 

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Ralph Waldo Emerson said that envy is ignorance and imitation is suicide. 

You’ll destabilize your self-worth if you compare parts of yourself to parts of other individuals because each individual has a different set of advantages and disadvantages.

They may be physically attractive but not be the most interesting individual to talk to. They may have a brilliant mind but be socially awkward.

The opposite is also true – you can exaggerate yourself and think you have better parts than others. This, too, is not the wisest way to live.

Whether exaggerating or minimizing yourself, you are not being authentic.

Your real self is not an exaggeration or minimization. Those are facades and personas that you wear when comparing yourself to other individuals.

Neither is your true self.

 

Being loved for who you are

 

You want to be loved and appreciated for who you are as an individual, but it’s hard for others to do that when you’re not being who you are.

Whenever you put individuals on pedestals or in pits instead of putting them equally with equanimity in your heart, you can’t be loved for who you are because you’re not being who you are. You’re exaggerating or minimizing yourself relative to other individuals and exaggerating or minimizing them in return.

As long as you compare yourself to other individuals instead of comparing your own daily actions to what’s deeply meaningful to you, what’s truly a highest priority to you, you’re likely to be distracted by the exaggerated and minimized self.

Interestingly, you only want to fix yourself when you compare yourself to other individuals. 

  • You tend to think you make mistakes when you try to live in other individual’s values.
  • You tend to think other individuals make mistakes when you expect them to live in your values.

Other individual’s perceptions, decisions, or actions are based on their own values, and they don’t make a mistake in their own values. They evaluate according to the information they perceive and make a decision based on the data they have.

When you expect them to live in your values and they don’t, you tend to think they’re making a mistake. It’s the same if you expect yourself to live in someone else’s values or be someone you’re not; you’ll likely beat yourself up, think there’s something wrong with you, and want to try to fix yourself.

 

You don’t need to fix yourself 

 

What if you could look in the mirror and realize that whatever you perceive in others, you have in your own form according to your own values?

What if you realized that there is a magnificent part of yourself that you may not be honoring?

This dysmorphic response is not limited to looks but can be in many areas of your life.

You could compare yourself to somebody you think is more successful in business, minimize yourself, and judge yourself harshly in this area.

You might perceive that someone is wealthier than you and exaggerate them and minimize yourself as a result.

This could also occur in relationships. You may look at another couple holding hands in a restaurant and perceive they have a more meaningful or stable marriage than you and that there is something ‘wrong’ with your partner or relationship by comparison.

You may think that someone is more socially connected than you, is more popular than you, or spends more time out with their large group of friends. You may subordinate to them or think there is something socially depreciative about you.

You could also see someone as more spiritual than you and perceive something is lacking in you that needs fixing.

Anytime you compare yourself to others and put them on a pedestal or pit, you depreciate away your true identity. 

I am certain that the magnificence of who you truly are is far greater than any fantasies you impose on or inject into yourself.

It’s a fantasy to try to live in someone else’s values and try to be someone you’re not.

It’s a fantasy to expect yourself to be just like them. Why be second at someone else when you can be first at being you.

I know a lady who didn’t like her cheeks and decided to have some plastic surgery done. However, the outcome was not what she expected, and she wished she had loved herself for who she was instead of trying to fix what she perceived to be less than ideal – sometimes misperceived to be ‘wrong’.

For her, it was a valuable lesson that there is a price to be paid for trying to be someone she was not.

 

How to love yourself for who you are

 

I believe that all the symptoms in your physiology, psychology, sociology and events in your life are feedback mechanisms to get you to be authentic, where you love and appreciate yourself for who you are instead of who you think you are supposed to be.

As Albert Einstein said, when you’re a cat trying to swim or a fish trying to climb a tree, you’re going to beat yourself up and not honor the magnificence of who you are.

It is wise to give yourself permission to be who you are.

Here’s a way to begin the process if you are inspired to do so (this is an extract of the process that I train in my seminar the Breakthrough Experience called the Demartini Method).

 

Identify those individuals you find yourself admiring and see where you have what you’re admiring in them inside you in your own unique form

 

As long as you perceive that they have something you don’t, you’ll tend to play a little bit smaller, self-depreciate, minimize yourself, and want to change and fix yourself. You’re likely to judge yourself and hold yourself back from opportunities in life where you could excel.

A wonderful example of this is a woman who attended one of my presentations, who had a major fear about presenting because she felt intimidated by others in the audience. So, I had her narrow down exactly who she felt intimidated by in her audience. She looked carefully around the room and identified three ladies.

We looked at the first lady, who she perceived as more educated than her.

I asked her to look inside herself and find what she saw in this other lady in herself.

As I explained to her, “When you look inside and find what you see in others, inside yourself, you level the playing field. Instead of injecting their values into your life and trying to be someone you’re not, you honor yourself for being who you are.”

Once she had identified where she had education and knowledge that this other lady didn’t have, she no longer found her intimidating.

We then moved on to the next lady she had identified, someone she perceived as more business savvy than herself.

I had her look at her own life and describe her business knowledge and achievements that were congruent with her own highest values.

I explained that this lady’s ‘successes’ were in this lady’s values, while her ‘successes’ were in her own values.

If she allowed herself to think that this lady’s values were more important than her own, she would likely perceive her achievements as being bigger and ‘better’ than hers.

So, I had her list each of her achievements until they were equal to this other lady’s. Once they were equal, she was no longer intimidated by her.

She explained the third lady as being more socially savvy, more socially connected, and more influential than she perceived herself as being.

We went through the same process where she looked inside her own life and identified areas where she influenced others. She had a tear in her eyes when she realized her influence on others, something she hadn’t taken note of before because she was too busy comparing herself with others.

Once she had finished, and when there were no other individuals in the room that she found intimidating, she began her presentation.

She spoke without any fear or anxiety because she was no longer comparing herself to others and subordinating to them.

Instead, she focused on the mission of what she had to say and received a standing ovation from the audience, including the three ladies she had found intimidating.

 

Be authentic by living congruent to or with  what you value most

 

You are not here to compare yourself to others. You’re here to  compare your own actions to your own highest values and your own most meaningful objectives and mission and look at how congruent they are.

When you live congruently with your highest values, you fill your day with the highest priority actions. It’s also when you are likely to be the most objective, least judging, most equitable with other individuals, and most resilient and adaptable to whatever happens.

It’s also when you tend to honor yourself; act spontaneously; be disciplined, reliable, and focused; and awaken your leadership skills. It’s also when your self-worth rises.

However, you automatically devalue yourself when you try to live in someone else’s values because you have compared yourself to them and are trying to be someone you’re not. 

You are not designed to excel when you compare yourself to others.

The devaluation of yourself by thinking that you need fixing results from not being true to yourself.

  • You don’t need to fix yourself when you’re authentic.
  • You don’t need to fix yourself when you’re inspired by what’s highest in priority in your life, and you’re living congruent with that daily.
  • You don’t need to fix yourself when you stop judging others and love them with equanimity.

As a result, you’ll likely be filled with gratitude and appreciation for others and have individuals value you in return.

 

Value Yourself

 

When the world values you, it’s because you value yourself.

I’ll say it again because it is worth repeating. You can’t fully value yourself when you’re not being authentic.

You can’t fully value yourself when you’re playing the “imposter”, exaggerating or minimizing yourself, and not being your true self.

I’ve been teaching my signature program, the Breakthrough Experience, for 33 years to hundreds of thousands of individuals worldwide.

I am certain that most individuals are distracted by their comparisons to other individuals.

As I often say, you’re not here to live in the shadows of anyone. You’re not here to be somebody you’re not or be second at being somebody else.

You’re here to be first at being you. You’re here to stand on the shoulders of giants and be an unborrowed visionary and realize that what you see out there is a reflection.

 

Nothing’s missing in you

 

You put others on a pedestal because they remind you of something you’re too humble to admit that you have. But know this: You do have it. What you see in them you have to the exact same degree – although in your own unique form.

Nothing is missing at the level of the most authentic self, sometimes called the soul.

At the level of the senses, when you compare yourself with others and tend to be too proud or too humble to admit what you see in others is also inside you, things may appear to be missing.

So, instead of putting individuals on pedestals, the wisest thing to do is identify the traits you admire in others and find them inside yourself, just as I helped this woman do when she was anxious about her presentation.

Be very specific in identifying the trait, action, or inaction you perceive them displaying or demonstrating. Then go inside yourself and go to a moment when you perceive yourself displaying or demonstrating the same or similar behavior as you perceive in them. Specify where it was it, when it was, who you did it to, and who perceived you that way.

Keep listing the times you have done it. I am certain that you cannot see something in others that you don’t have. You may not be aware of it. You may be too humble to admit it, but it’s there.

By holding yourself accountable to see it, you will be less likely to look up to them and put them on a pedestal.

Instead, you will look across at them and thank them for revealing to you what has been unconscious in your life that you’ve been too humble to admit that you have. You’ll honor that you have what they have in your own form, and you’ll level the playing field. 

As a result, instead of trying to fix yourself and change yourself to be like them, you’ll respect them and appreciate them for revealing what you have already within that you have not been acknowledging and honoring.

 

Every trait has advantages and disadvantages

 

You can even go a step further and identify the downside of their form, so you’re no longer infatuated with it. Every trait that individuals have includes both advantages and disadvantages.

You may have experienced this with someone you dated, someone who was so good-looking but was also arrogant.

Or someone who was so intelligent but also thought they were always right.

Every trait has both benefits and drawbacks.

Every trait has two sides.

Every trait on the planet, even the things that you perceive to be terrible and evil, are not. If they exist, they serve, or they would be extinct in human behavior.

Every trait you admire has downsides.

Every trait you despise has upsides.

If you balance it out and level the playing field, you put individuals in your heart instead of on pedestals or in pits.

When you put them on pedestals or in pits and minimize or exaggerate yourself in return, that’s not you.

When you’re proud or shamed, those are personas, masks and facades you wear that are covering up the real authentic you.

It is wise to give yourself permission to be you by using the questions outlined above. These are just a few questions that make up the Demartini Method that I teach in the Breakthrough Experience – questions to balance your perceptions, master your mind, and begin running your life from the inside.

 

To sum up:

 

  • The majority of individuals are distracted by their comparisons to other individuals.
  • Ralph Waldo Emerson said that envy is ignorance, and imitation is suicide.
  • You most likely want to be loved and appreciated for who you are as an individual, but it’s hard for others to do that when you’re not being who you are.
  • You only want to fix yourself when you compare yourself to other individuals.
  • Anytime you compare yourself to others and put them on a pedestal or pit, you diminish your true identity.
  • Nothing’s missing in you. You own all the traits, both those you perceive as being positive and those you perceive as being negative.
  • When you finally embrace the whole of yourself, you’ll more likely realize that you don’t need to fix yourself.
  • It is wise to give yourself permission to be whole and permit yourself to be you.
  • You’re not here to compare yourself to others. You’re here to compare your daily actions to your own highest values, so you can fulfill the most inspiring dreams that are yearning to express themselves naturally innately from within.

 

Are you ready for the NEXT STEP?

If you’re seriously committed to your own growth, if you’re ready to make a change now and you’d love some help doing so, then book a FREE Discovery call with a member of the Demartini Team so we can take you through your mini power assessment session.

You’ll come away with a 3-step action plan and the foundation to empower your life.

 

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