How To Change Your Self-concept & Become Your True Self
Introduction
Being your true self isn't about any particular identity with which we often identify. Such identities frequently generate a misleading perception of self, acting as a mask that hides your authentic nature.
This book, "How To Change Your Self-Concept & Become Your True Self," is a journey of unveiling. It's about recognizing and releasing the conditioning patterns of your false identity that no longer serve you, allowing your true self to emerge naturally.
It is an invitation to explore the depths of your being, where your true self resides. It's a continuous process of shedding the layers of your false identity until you arrive at the truth—your most authentic self.
To understand this process further, you need to see the whole picture. It happens in cycles, non-linearly, and without a plan. It's like building a house without blueprints. You begin construction without knowing the final result, but you keep moving forward. It's like a jigsaw puzzle: as you place pieces, the image clarifies, even with many blind spots still remaining. You maintain faith in completing the whole thing. Changing your self-concept towards inner alignment with your true self can’t be done in any other way, but you will realize this while reading this book.
Changing Your Self-concept
Living authentically requires aligning your self-concept—the collection of beliefs you hold about yourself—with your true self. Only faith in your inner potential can reshape your self-concept and your identity that you identify as yourself towards becoming more of who you really are.
The goal is not any particular outcome, but rather our state in any given moment. When we enter this state, we experience an inner knowing that we are one with everything. This is sometimes called the unity of mind and heart, where our conscious and subconscious selves work together in harmony. Changing our self-concept is no longer about doing anything from the ego’s perspective, but rather about experiencing and being the most authentic version of ourselves.
By purposefully and repeatedly entering this state, and by having faith in the revelation of our true selves, we become that. This isn't blind faith in something external; it's faith in your core being. You may not see it yet; you may not believe that it exists, but it is there.
When you really connect with your true self, you start to feel deeply connected to everything and everyone – like you're part of something much bigger. This book helps you find your way to feeling that connection, not just thinking about it. It shows you how the journey itself is the goal. You don't have to wait until you reach some future point to feel fulfilled. The peace, the clarity, the authenticity you find while you're learning and growing – that's the state you've been looking for all along. By living as your true self right now, in this moment, you suddenly realize that you already are what you were searching for. It’s a powerful shift from constantly striving to simply being.
So, the real point isn't just to understand what "true self" means in your head. Anyone can read about it. The goal is to actually live it, to feel it in your bones, to be your most genuine self day in and day out. We often think purpose is a big, important job or a grand achievement we have to chase in the future. But this book suggests that just being truly you, right here, right now, is the most important purpose there is. It’s about showing up authentically in each small moment. Your purpose isn't something you find "out there"; it's how you choose to be right where you are. Your way of being is your purpose.
Life’s Purpose
In a world that constantly pushes us to achieve, to strive, to become someone else, this book offers a radical alternative: to discover and embody your true self.
We often chase goals based on our external expectations. But what if true fulfillment lies not in what we achieve, but in who we are?
When we are dissatisfied with our lives and current circumstances, we often try to escape them by pursuing some goals. We strive for distant future goals, forgetting to live in the present moment. We believe that achieving these goals will fulfil our destiny. The problem is that our future aspirations may not align with our current self-concept; we are not at one with them. We feel separate from our goals, and when we pursue them, our self-concept is not aligned with our true being. This creates resistance.
Our self-concept is how we identify ourselves—our prior self-knowledge and everything we associate with ourselves. The problem is that this self-perception often doesn't align with our goals, leading us to strive for them through sheer effort. We are not true to ourselves; we are not true to our being. We try to force the achievement of our goals, and this causes suffering.
Our being, our inner self, needs to be aligned with our goals. We need to feel a sense of oneness when pursuing our purpose. It is an expansion of your being towards oneness. Nothing outside of yourself is affected.
We don't need to strive for a false, idealized identity pictured in the distant future. We need to release limiting patterns associated with this false identity until we arrive at the truth—our true self.
Ideal Self
Dissatisfaction with our current circumstances often motivates us to change our lives. We set goals and envision a future self while being dedicated to improvement.
However, focusing on specific goals can be limiting, preventing openness to unexpected opportunities.
We become closed off to new possibilities, fixated on our chosen path, and clinging to our dreams, fearing that letting go equates to failure. In this way, we try to protect a false identity that we’ve built, and prove our worth through achievement.
We know we must change—transforming our identity towards our ideal. We assume that we must realign our present self-concept with that ideal.
Our identity is our self-concept—a set of beliefs we hold. To realign with that ideal, we usually envision it and work towards it with effort. We create a life plan and hope it unfolds as desired.
The truth is that we don't have to constantly hope and strive for future attainment. We impose many limitations on ourselves by creating ideals viewed from our limited perspective.
We want to achieve our goals and fulfill our dreams, hoping life unfolds as desired. We always want, need, and hope for something from the limited perspective of our self-identified character. We believe that achieving our goals and fulfilling our dreams will finally bring happiness. The problem is that trying to achieve something that feels separate from ourselves will never bring lasting fulfillment.
If we want to feel whole within, we need to be one with the object of our desires. We need to experience oneness with the source.
The truth is that we cannot expand beyond our source. What is that source? What is that ever-present essence within? It is the essence of God.
From our limited perspective, we cannot see that our ideal is a limitation we unconsciously impose on ourselves.
Higher Vision
Our ideal is not necessarily God’s ideal. Why not envision our source, our higher self—our most authentic self? We should embody this higher self and its inherent qualities, which are already present within us. We can embody it only when we change our perspective, seeing everything from a higher point of view. We let go of our three-dimensional persona and expand towards the fifth dimension, beyond time and space, where our true self resides.
By exploring the nature of reality, we learn to identify not with our false self—our three-dimensional persona—but with our inner qualities of being that are already present within.
Therefore, changing our self-concept doesn't require striving and effort. It's about finding our true self, realizing that self from within, and accepting that as ourselves. Either way, it doesn’t require effort because we already are that self. We are only unaware of our true nature.
The Nature of Reality
In our modern society, we believe in an objective 3D reality—one that we can see and touch. We believe in tangible things that can be supported by facts. When we encounter a different perspective, we simply dismiss it as non-factual.
Can you imagine something existing beyond this 3D reality? Can you imagine higher-evolved beings? Is it possible that our reality is not what we think it is?
Perception of The World
We perceive a clear separation between objects and ourselves in our 3D reality. The oneness of all is not visible because we cannot see who we truly are. We are interconnected as one. There is one substance and one state of mind encompassing everything, including us. "We" includes more than just mind and body; consciousness is also present.
We perceive the world through our state of consciousness. This state, combined with our self-concept, shapes our perception. Different arrangements of this state create different perspectives. If you identify with your ego, your perspective will be ego-based, perceiving the world through self-importance.
False Identity
Our identity is a self-concept that we identify as ourselves. This identification with our character stems from past memories. You recall your name being repeated countless times, years of work, and instances of illness. You identify with your name, profession, and experiences of sickness.
We often identify with our minds and bodies, believing this defines us. But there's more to us than our physical body. We have several other layers of our mental, energetic, and spiritual existence. The combined function of mind, energy, and spirit—a wave-like entity—is an infinite living mind. It's a mind in constant motion, flowing through space.
A fundamental challenge we often face is identifying primarily with our minds and bodies, remaining unaware of our deeper, true nature. This attachment to denser, more limited aspects of ourselves can lower our energetic vibration, leading to negative feelings and sensations.
While we may instinctively resist these uncomfortable states, they signal limiting patterns and unresolved aspects within us. The path to peace involves transcending identification with our ego and integrating the life lessons these challenges present.
This inner work requires mastering different facets of ourselves because they are interconnected as one.
Mentally, it requires cultivating awareness of our thoughts without identifying with them to release patterns like anger, bitterness, and resentment. Energetically, we also need to learn to work with our inner energy and emotions to dissipate fear and cultivate calmness. Spiritually, we cultivate inner growth by refining our attitudes and responses to overcome arrogance or pride and engage skillfully with life. These three aspects—mind, energy, and spirit—form a unified whole. These aspects are interconnected as one.
Once we recognize the interconnectedness of all things, we find that it’s our inner core that influences the other layers of ourselves and not the other way around.
To restore balance within ourselves, we need to recognize the causal element within ourselves.
Our inner qualities of being are our inner essence. We need to embody that essence already present within and live as that.
Finding Your True Self
When we begin reflecting on the nature of self, we are essentially connecting with our inner core, our inner most authentic essence that is always present within.
To achieve alignment is to consciously connect with and express this core self, allowing our lives to unfold with greater harmony and purpose.
Finding your true self isn't the hardest part. The hardest part is maintaining unwavering faith when everything seems to go wrong and continuing to move forward when you're ready to give up and revert to your old way of life. The difficulty arises when you know theoretically what you should be doing, but lack clarity when you need it most. You're suddenly in a blind spot, subconsciously aware that your ego has taken over, but unable to understand how to escape it because everything seems blurry.
Reconnecting with our true self is done through introspection into our own being and perspective shifts. Meditation is the way to re-establish this connection.
To reach your true self, present within, you must penetrate deep within the layers of our subtle body and cease all the activity to arrive at the truth. It’s less about trying to change something on the outside and more about letting go of all the outer effort. You can’t reconnect to your true self from the perspective of your self-identified character. You need to transcend all the mind and body activity to arrive at the truth. If you are trying to figure it out from your mind, using your limited intellectual understanding; it is as if you use something outside of yourself to determine the truth. Your true nature can’t be understood; it needs to be experienced with your whole being.
Practical Exercises To Navigate The Process
This book offers various techniques to navigate this process. Self-inquiry, through practices like journaling or contemplative introspection, encourages a deeper examination of one's beliefs, motivations, and emotional responses. On the other hand, effortless attention helps release any internal resistance by directing attention to different parts of the body.
After reading this book, you might pause on concepts like the effortless state, surrender, and the practice of non-doing, questioning how a 40,000-word book could be written in a state of non-doing. The secret is to stop pushing and allow information to come to you. You don't force things; you dance with life as a partner. You can't demand a dance partner move a certain way; you flow naturally with grace and dignity, responding to each movement. Life is your partner and not a hostage that you are threatening if things don’t go your way.