THE WOUNDS TO OUR SELF-CONCEPT
PART I

What we believe about ourselves can profoundly impact our performance and mood. Talent and effort are still necessary for our success, but factors such as fear, distrust, or discouragement can control how well we connect to opportunities and use our abilities. We must learn to recognize and remove these barriers to our well-being and progress.

Our concept of who we are is a powerful gateway for our humanity. It can strangle the expression of our strengths and good qualities until we are confined to permanent low expectations and discouragement. A favorable sense of ourself will, however, enable us to mobilize our abilities and courage to overcome setbacks and losses. 

Many who struggle with chronic recurring anger, fear, or guilt fail to recognize that their real problem is not a dark mood. The issue is larger and deeper as a distortion in their general perception of their strengths and qualities of character. Once we feel that we are weak, incompetent, and unworthy, no number of rewards, reassurance, or achievements can relieve our depression or anxiety. Our conviction that we are inadequate and unworthy will trump any positive experience of success or reward. 

Unless we act quickly to reverse these trends, we will begin to move from feeling bad about specific situations to believing we are simply inadequate and unworthy. These limiting beliefs will set the stage for seeing our world as full of obstacles and lead us into a defensive lifestyle where we focus more on avoiding problems than embracing opportunities.

The decisive role our self-concept plays 

What we honestly think of ourselves becomes our self-concept. This opinion may bear little relationship to the truth, and yet our belief can set genuine limits on how we act and feel. Whether we believe we are talented or ignorant, charming or clumsy, our self-concept will become the gatekeeper for all aspects of our self-expression. It will limit us to the level of ability and energy we believe we possess. A poor self-concept will put a straitjacket on our strengths and skills, often restricting our ability to think clearly, feel confident, and act assertively. 

A poor self-concept will handicap our efforts to master forgiveness. The conviction that we are a failure who will always be unsuccessful and unhappy can easily lead to chronic resentment and discouragement. Until this damage to our self-concept is repaired, no amount of praise, rewards, opportunities, or success will make us proud of who we are or give us the confidence to forgive others or ourself. 

Understanding how our self-concept works 

Our self-image operates like the transmission in our car that can shift from one speed to another. A healthy self-concept allows us to work in all our psychological gears: creative, persistent, focused, patient, gentle, assertive, and analytical. A dark mood and gloomy outlook will limit us to our low gears of resentment, disappointment, and apathy. 

Most people gradually build a stronger self-concept by learning to cope with various challenges and receiving the respect and friendship of others. As we improve our social and work skills and become more successful, we will build a vigorous definition of who we are.

Other, less fortunate, people evolve in the opposite direction. They begin to develop limiting beliefs about themselves instead of becoming liberated from feelings of inferiority and vulnerability. These small self-judgments accumulate so slowly that we may not recognize our decline into a sense of inadequacy. These attitudes can seem so natural that we assume they are the new normal for us. In this way, we quietly redefine our self-concept and accept further limitations on our strengths, achievements, and aspirations. 

Turning minor failings and losses into personal doom     

The critical action that inflates or diminishes our sense of worth is the quality of our identity and concerns. Sometimes we do this innocently as we begin to identify with our losses, rejections, and failures. No one is immune to these events, but some will mistakenly assume these negative experiences are an accurate measure of our strengths, competence, and worth. We can mistakenly conclude that these bad results define who we are! 

Nothing is more effective in creating the feeling we are a failure than accepting excessive criticism for our mistakes and defeats. Most of the time, this criticism comes from us in the form of our obsessive demands for perfection and our overactive inner critic. Of course, others can also rush to dump their dark opinions on us.

This harsh criticism from ourself and others is the glue that provides the fatal connection between a personal failure and our decline into anxiety and discouragement. The process of self-criticism can easily lead to self-rejection and continue to self-destruction.

The healthy person views most difficulties as a challenge instead of being an accurate assessment of our abilities and worth. Mature people understand they need to regard their defeats and rejections merely as a sign they have two choices. They can try again with more creativity and determination, or they can seek an alternative goal. Self-criticism is not a problem when we manage it in this constructive manner. 

Once we allow defeat to lower our expectations and mood, we have also damaged our self-concept. This reaction poisons our capacity for courage and assertiveness, leading us to retreat into being more cautious, distrusting, and isolated. As a result, we will risk less, do less, and achieve less. This withdrawal will reinforce our low opinion of our abilities and achievements. 

Enter the troublemakers who exploit our insecurities 

Accumulating discouragement from our failures is not the only path to developing a poor self-concept. Some people are eager to exploit and control us. They have discovered the secret of turning ordinary people into emotional cripples with low self-confidence.  

The key to this manipulation lies in convincing people that their identity is largely determined by factors they do not control. Ordinary people might reasonably believe their life is what they make of their circumstances and creative efforts. However, the manipulators will try to convince you that personal abilities, intelligence, ambition, and faith in ourselves are all trivial compared to what society will impose on us. Matters of our race, religion, gender, and class are more important than any personal virtues and strengths we might have. It is the stereotypes and prejudices of our culture that will determine who we are, not our abilities or accomplishments. 

Unfortunately, many eagerly accept this false notion that their discomfort and frustration are due to societal prejudices and oppression. Despite the frequent observation that ambition, talent, and confidence can radically improve the quality of our life, many choose to respond to challenges with resentment and protest. After that, they comfort themselves by blaming society for their limitations instead of doing everything possible to promote their success. 

There is a bizarre paradox in this manipulation. Those who are the true oppressors will automatically accuse the current authorities in society as the major manipulators. Thus, if you are poor, they insist that these people force you to stay poor. If good jobs are not available, they are preventing you from having those positions. It is never your fault. It is them! And if you are one of those causing these problems, you should confess your evil status and go away.

These destructive methods are just the latest version of how troublemakers love to create divisions to prepare the way to conquer their victims. They merely give unhappy people someone to blame for their distress, and then these disgruntled people do the rest of the work of destroying society. The true troublemakers will, of course, present themselves as the ones who will liberate the oppressed from their oppressors and restore justice. This dishonest narrative is the core of this dishonest manipulation.