Excerpts - Self Image - from video

(*Audience participation is in parentheses--notations in brackets have been added for clarification )

T H E   F O U R   G R E A T   G A M E S
That operate by suggestion (a threat or a promise)
POWER POLICIES-Decrees what's "in" and "out"
MEDICAL ARTS-Decrees what's "normal" and "abnormal"
THEOLOGY-Decrees what's "good" and "bad"
BIG BUSINESS-Decrees what's "pretty" and "ugly"
Definition of SUGGESTION: a threat or a promise; anything
presented with or evoking a threat or promise.
A human being is 100% SUBJECT TO suggestion, 100% of the time,
but is FREE TO IGNORE IT.
[This is an excerpt from a video of my teacher which can be obtained from www.rhondell.com. Since self-image is so influential to our everyday affairs, I considered it valuable to study and observe……Marsha]

Big Business -

They set up a standard of pretty. Your shirts pretty. This lady's pretty if she has all the proper cosmetics. We have pictures of it all up and down the street. You can't spend enough money to get yourself pretty these days. There's always another product out there that you need to be pretty. So most money these days that isn't spent on distraction is spent on trying to be pretty-that and being "normal".

So here we got up that we're "ugly". Now you tell me about how the person's going to be if they feel their "bad, ugly, abnormal and out"? Now we hear a lot about having a self image-is that right? Now everybody's self image is that they are "bad, ugly, abnormal and out"-and you got to spend enough money with the folks that set these up, you're supposed to be "in, good, normal and pretty", but you can't make that much money. I don't care if you just won the lottery-you haven't got enough. That about right?

Now what everybody's self-image going to be that grows up not knowing that they are in these manmade games -four great games-these games are all going on all the time-you can know that they are games and you can decide that you're not going to be caught up in playing the games. I don't choose to play the professional's games. So, I don't believe I'm "bad, ugly, abnormal and out". I got a disgustingly egotistical picture about me-I say if you don't like me, you just got bad taste-who cares about you. So, if you're going to have a self-image that amounts to anything, what are you going to do? Are you're gonna stay over here and play these games with them or are you going to get out?

(Get out.)

I don't need to go around feeling I'm "bad, abnormal, ugly and out", do you? Don't you, though, when you play all these manmade games-if you patronize these great professions, you're going to come up with a poor self-image to some degree, is that right? You're bad, ugly, abnormal and out. That's your self image. Did you ever wonder how your self-image came about? Did you ever wonder where you got it? I know individuals who are making a lot of money trying to get people's self-image up, but they don't know where it came from. How can you keep your self image up when you don't know where it came from?

So the self-image is-today-that you should never look a day over 30, you should have at least one million dollars in the bank account, and you should have at least nothing less than a Jaguar XJ12 (anything below that……Psst, you're just not in the running.) So now here's where you can get out-do you want to play? Want to put your self image up there John?

(No.)

I don't see any reason to. Now it's all very subtle and "slipped in" when we weren't looking. So everybody has a poor self image, and then you go to the "shrink" to try to get it straightened out without knowing how you got it. You can talk to the most beautiful lady in the world that you can find around anywhere and you'll see that she finds fault somewhere. You can also remember and realize that it's all a matter of personal taste anyway. So I think she's most beautiful, and she's sitting there telling me how horrible she looks.

Have you ever played that game? Somebody gives you a nice compliment, and says you're a beautiful lady and you…………………

(You're right……..nervous laughter.)

You say, "I got wrinkles and crows feet around my eyes." Now that's your self-image, is that right?

(No, not totally.)

You want to go along with that? Can you sit and see the joke and laugh about it for a while and know that you're a unique work of art. There's no other person in all the world like you so there's nothing to compare. Somebody thinks a statue is beautiful--is that anything to compare a living being to, or is that just the way it is. There's not one living being in all the world like any other, is there? Somebody makes a lovely design of something-it's not something to go around and compare to-it's just a lovely design-it's one of a kind-unique.

You see one of a kind things become very priceless in the collector's market, is that right? You can't get enough money to pay for it. So every one of us is priceless-there's just not enough money to buy us. Would you be for sale for any price?

But at any rate, can we see that we're unique works of art; and therefore there is no price tag that we could come up with-not a million dollars-not even the amount of the national debt of the US government, it still would not cover the price. Are you "bad, ugly, abnormal and out" or are you unique-one of a kind, huh? You can't compare or haggle the price because there is no way to………. Is that all right?

So, what's your self-image. It's the image of yourself that we read about all the time-a poor self image. Of course you have a poor self image, you're "bad, ugly, abnormal and out". If you know that you are not "bad, ugly, abnormal and out", you can go out and do about anything; but if you got that load to tote along with you, you have a hard time getting anywhere in this word. That's why you hear people talk about what a hard time they have, and they can't get a good job; and they never have any fun; and they don't have any great friends; and they have no love in their life; and all this. If you have a crappy self-image of being "bad, ugly, abnormal and out", what else can you expect, huh? That about right?

Now, Some people say, I feel like I'm just muddling along, and they are. So I maintain, first thing is get your self-image straightened out. Now you know you're unique and unusual, you got something to sell, right? If you said that any product you offered for sale was "bad, ugly, abnormal or out", how much do you think you'd sell? So you allow that the product is unique, but the salesman is all mixed up.

So anywhere that you go to do anything-I don't care what it is-unless you have a nice self-image of yourself, what are you gonna do?

(You'll flunk out.)

You'll flunk out, cause you think your "bad, ugly, abnormal and out". Who wants to do business or do anything with you. Who wants to take you on for a life partner, if you're "bad, ugly, abnormal and out", huh? That about right? They all feel they are that way, so they won't want you.

Any other points?

Do you see that if you have sales people working with you that the first thing you want is for them to have a good self-image or you're not going to make much money. So it's worthwhile to keep your self-image up there somewhere. You got one head, two ears, two arms, two legs the usual necessities-got a brain in there of some sort-might not be using it very much, because it was pushed down by this poor self-image. But one can see that there is two worlds and that this is a big misconception. Any person you talk to and get to see these misconceptions and suggestions that they are "bad, ugly, abnormal and out", you have given them a "key to the city". I don't care how much brain power a person has or talent they have, how nice looking they are-if they don't see the poor image of themselves they are carrying around, they haven't seen the joke in it and are taking it very serious. Consequently, they are not going to do very well at anything they set out to do.

(Is there a perpetual problem if you're dealing with someone in that respect?)

Oh, I don't interfere with them, I just talk at them about it. He can go on and feel "bad, ugly, abnormal and out" all he wants to, I don't care; but I'm going to talk to him about it--just for fun. I can sit down and draw a picture of the two worlds [see The Two Worlds on web site] sometimes; and usually what he says is, "My wife really needs that." I wish you'd tell her about that-or vice versa. I don't know why it's the other one who needs it; but you know, we don't like to look at ourselves very well. For some reason or another, we don't mind finding fault with ourselves, putting ourselves down. We don't like to look at what's really there for some reason-perhaps somebody [one of those in the four great games] told us it was wrong-something like that.

(I have a question that's related to the two worlds, morality, and ________. Can you touch on that?)

Morality tells you what the morals are of the community you happen to be in. As we said, one of them says you can drink coffee and smoke cigarettes, but you will still go to heaven. Another one says, if you drink coffee and smoke cigarettes you're going to hell in a hand basket. Another one has a whole bunch of other morays-so morality is just a consensus of the morays of the community you find yourself in. Religion, properly stated, has nothing to do about morals and all that kind of stuff. It is the relationship of the awareness function to Spirit. It means relation more than anything else. It has nothing about you being a goody-good-two shoes or any of that kind of stuff.

I don't run by morays. I've observed a few of them through the years that it's moral to do whatever you were taught to do as a kid. So morays are just a consensus of that community; however, communities and morays are presently all crossed up because we can travel around very rapidly with airplanes and automobiles and we're quite mobile-what's appropriate in one community is different in every other community.

Back to the self-image-if you have the image of yourself as "bad, ugly, abnormal and out", you're down. And if you know that you're a unique of art, you can go on. It's simple and easy.

So there are two worlds and you can usually remember that-and that will remind you to go back to the point we started with this morning that you are a unique work of art out here-and not any of this stuff down, down, down, down. We got a new purpose-let's be up-let's put it that way.

So did you ever try walking and acting like you felt quite a bit better than you do-did you ever do that when you were feeling one of these downer days, huh? Ever try it.

(I felt better.)

You begin to feel better-so it's like the man that was given 3 months, then 6 months to live by two different doctors. I told him that there was only one thing that he needed to do and that's act like he felt a little better than he did.

When I saw him a week or two later, he said, "Well, there's just one thing wrong with this." He said, "Nobody will believe I'm sick." So it depends on what you want-to feel better or get attention for being sick.

Now you could always act like you felt a little better than you do, is that right? Always act a little better-so you can act a little more up than you feel at the moment, ok? Is that all right? You can do that. You can carry a little mirror around with you to see where you got your mouth and your eyeballs and so forth-it's all working whether you got 'em up or down. Now it's easy enough to remember-up!

(I feel some sense of dishonesty in that. It seems to me in my life that some people live in a dream world in which they haven't dealt with their personal suffering.)

I've been around for an great number of years dealing with a awful lot of sick folks and so forth-I've found a lot of them put themselves way down below where circumstances justified it; but I've not found very many that put themselves to any extreme extent of suffering--if you will call suffering; in other words, suffering-you hear about it right quick. Even if you were dying-you might as well act like you feel pretty good--it won't disturb the rest of the neighbors near as much as _____couldn't hear word____________. I'm talking about emotional distress-it's the only kind of distress there is. Physical is just a little pain-distress is always emotional; and I've never seen anybody that didn't start dealing with it if they decided, "I better do something about this." Otherwise, they can just go on and be miserable and even a million dollars wouldn't help. "If I just had a little more energy, I'd get out." So they go to a doctor to see if they have cancer or something like that-that's something to do." Now they got a justification for being miserable. No, if you start acting like you feel better-I didn't say a great deal-I said just a little bit-a little bit better than you do, you will find that they start looking a little bit better than they did previously. I've never seen anyone destroy themselves by acting a little bit better.

First place, most people want you to know they're suffering-especially all the people around them-they are more apt to act like they feel a bit worse than they do, ok? I've seen that one. The other one of acting like they are feeling better, I've seen a lot less in the last odd 40 years, but no one ever destroyed themselves by acting like they felt a little bit better than they did..

(If you want to feel a lot better than you do, you have to act a lot better.)

The best thing to do is if you act like you feel a little bit better, you'll feel a little bit better in a few minutes-then you act like you feel a little bit better, and in about 24 hours you'll feel a lot better-but only a little at a time.

In other words don't overload yourself, ok? If you start acting like you feel a lot better than you do, you'd probably give out. But if you keep acting a little bit better in an hour you'll be actually feeling that way. There's an up and down here.

(Do you mean that there's a big difference between putting on a false front and pleaser than choosing to act like you feel a little bit better than you do? Are they different?)

It's a very different deal and we're not trying to kid anybody that we're feeling better.

(So when you're acting like you feel a little better than you do-the only person you've got to convince or act for is yourself.)

I don't need to prove it to anybody-I don't see any need to-you can't prove anything to anybody anyway. If a guy says to me, "You're not sittin' there Bob." He sees it that way whether it is true or not, and there's no way I can prove to him that I am.