Congratulations on your belief change.
If my beliefs affect you and yours affect mine, then I'll believe some good beliefs for ya.
This leads me to something that affected me recently with regard to belief and my sense of self.
There have been a lot of situations in which I guess I just abdicated responsibility for my thoughts and feelings. I've been in situations where I thought that other people were thinking things about me and then I'd have thoughts and feelings about that and generally feel like crap.
But, for some reason, I just started looking at all that and went, "You know, that's not what they think. That's what >I< think!" And even if it were, say, what they think, what really matters is my appraisal of that, what I think about what I think other people think.
And, so, whenever I was engaging in being self-conscious, I would look at what I was thinking and said, "Hmmm, so that's what I think, eh?" And even if what I was thinking was judgmental or negative, it wouldn't be so bad. Like, if something happened and I was embarrassed and thought that other people thought I looked like an idiot, I'd think, "Oh, so I am thinking that I look like an idiot." and, generally, it would make me laugh. Whatever I am thinking, I can deal with it.
Somehow, it was a notion that it was the thoughts of others (as if I could read their minds) that bothered me. Really, it was always my appraisals that bothered me. And what really bothered me is that somehow I thought I wasn't thinking these things (crazy, isn't it?), that others were thinking them, and that I had no control over it.
Well, even if others think that stuff, it's not the fact that they think it that bothers me or not, it's what I think about them thinking it that bothers me or not... and that is always up to me. I can certainly handle whatever I might think about myself. And, honestly, I am generally my own best friend. Even when I get down on myself, I do it in ways that are self-glorifying (it is my theory that, most of the time, this is true for everyone).
So, while others have an influence, I am, in some way, always at the helm, even when I think I am not.
