[Dani]

Originally Posted by renie408

I really appreciate the honesty in this post. I think I know how you feel. But I think we can all be so hard on ourselves. If you appear competent, you probably are and even more so in the face of inner turmoil. I have spent a lot of my life thinking I was not a nice person. It is left over from the way my parents talked to me when I was little. It is kind of sad that a 43 year old woman is still paying for being told she was bad when she was five, but there you go. Anyway, I have struggled with a negative self-view for a long time. Not too long ago, I was telling a friend how mean spirited I am. She looked at me like I had lost my mind and told me that she didn't know anybody else that did as much for people, was as generous with their time and meager resources, or thought about how to help out more than I did. I was uncomfortable with being told this and I said, "Well, I think mean things and I am jealous sometimes and I am selfish a lot of times." She said, "That doesn't make you BAD, that makes you HUMAN."

The moral to that is that maybe we should learn to love and respect ourselves as much as the people around us love and respect us. I am finally getting around to being able to say that I am a good and deserving person. Oddly enough, a lot of 'bad' things (like jealousy and selfishness) that I used to feel are diminishing. I think it is because they were rooted in my bad feelings about myself. As I learn to love myself warts and all, the warts seem to be going away.

You really ARE a good and competent person. You deserve the things you desire, including peace and confidence. I think that you are getting closer to the truth now than you were with your first post. One thing studying the LOA has taught me is to try to get to the root of my feelings. If you are feeling bad, ask yourself, "What do I want?" Almost always, what you are saying and what you REALLY want are two WAY different things. I say I want money. What I really want is to feel safe and I identify that with money.

*claps* Great post R.

I was talking through this with some of my clients recently, they all set money goals when did our goal building. I dug deeper and found that none of them actually wanted 'money' they all wanted things that they need money to do/get

One wanted to spend more time with his baby son
One wanted to start a school for handicapped children
One wanted to quit his job and start a business as a physical trainer
and so on.

I asked them all if they had those things would they need the amount of money they specified?

They all unanimously said no. Most people don't want money. They do want what money can give them. Quality of life.

Naturally they re-wrote all their goals in a hurry.

JHL - You are perfect, just as you are. There has only ever been one you, and there only ever will be one you.

Rejoice in that. Be proud of who you are. Don't compare yourself to others, because they aren't you, so its not a fair comparison!

You aren't alone with the mask. Almost the entirety of society lives with a series of masks for different situations.

e.g. Myself
Daniel the coach
Dani The computer programmer geek
Social Dan (with a long a - A can of coke)
Dani with the boys.
Computer Gamer Danayel
My boyfriend/lover mask - Dan (with a short a - I can do it)
My mask for my family - Danno
etc.

They even different names!

We all have them, whether we realise it or not. Because people act different when they are in different situations. I am slowly reducing the difference in my masks and getting more to my real self but it's a touch trip, don't beat yourself up over it.

Because it only makes it harder to reconcile yourself if you are fighting yourself.