I bring all this up because in the end our self-image is a self-fulfilling prophecy — remember, our human drive makes us behave in accordance with that image. So if you’re running your life based on an old, outdated, past self-image shaped by others’ opinions and actions, then you’re in big trouble.

Your ideas about yourself change from day to day and from moment to moment. Your self image is the most changeful thing you have. It is utterly vulnerable, at the mercy of a passerby. A bereavement, the loss of a job, an insult, and your image of yourself, which you call your person, changes deeply. To know what you are, you must first investigate and know what you are not. And to know what you are not, you must watch yourself carefully, rejecting all that does not necessarily go with the basic fact: “I am.” Our usual attitude is of “I am this.” Consistently and perseveringly separate the “I am” from “this” or “that” and try to feel what it means to <i>be</i>, without being “this” or “that.” All our habits go against it and the task of fighting them is long and hard sometimes, but clear understanding helps significantly. The more clearly you understand that on the level of the mind you can be described in negative terms only, the more quickly you will come to the end of your search and realize your limitless being.

This is hard to say to people without offending them, but it’s a universal truth even for the most high-performing people on the planet, so here it is: your self-image could be a lot better, and you ought to be a lot more congruent in how you engage the world. How we think of ourselves (our self-image) and how we behave in accordance with that image in the real world is the stuff of congruence. It’s one of the most profoundly powerful drives we have as humans — to live in consistent alignment with who we think we are, how we want others to perceive us, and who we want to become. When we don’t behave as the person we believe ourselves to be, we feel “off,” “out of sorts,” and, often, frustrated or angry. If we think we’re lions, for example, but we act as mice, we secretly loath our- selves. From THE CHARGE

Any time we base our self-image on how we feel, we will run into problems because our feelings change. As long as we feel good, our self-image is good. When we begin to feel bad, however, our self-image plummets. We need to anchor our self-image on something that does not change. Where do we find it? When we become believers, we become new creations in Christ, recreated in His image. The image of Christ in us will never change. Although our outward appearance will change over time, Christ’s image in us will stay the same. Like His image, Christ’s attitude toward us also will never change. No matter how good or bad we may feel, no matter how up or down we may be, Christ loves us, accepts us, and thinks the world of us. His opinion of us is the only opinion that matters. We should base our self-image on what He thinks about us, not on what others think, or even on what we think about ourselves.

You are what you believe yourself to be.

what you can image you can be.

once a person’s self-image is altered, all sorts of subtle advantages become available to someone who wants to exploit that new image.

We are what we imagine ourselves to be.

Man is not only that which he conceives himself to be, but that which he wills himself to be...

Image is what people think we are; integrity is whar we really are.

"self-esteem is the reputation that you have with yourself." You’ll always know.

But I never looked like that!’ - How do you know? What is the ‘you’ you might or might not look like? Where do you find it - by which morphological or expressive calibration? Where is your authentic body? You are the only one who can never see yourself except as an image; you never see your eyes unless they are dulled by the gaze they rest upon the mirror or the lens (I am interested in seeing my eyes only when they look at you): even and especially for your own body, you are condemned to the repertoire of its images.

A self is not something static, tied up in a pretty parcel and handed to the child, finished and complete. A self is always becoming.

CLOSE YOUR EYES AND IMAGINE THE BEST VERSION OF YOURSELF. WHAT IS THAT PERSON LIKE?