Self-Images

Perhaps the deepest block to the heart and to meaningful communication is self-image. When we become afraid to express ourselves for fear that we will come out looking badly. Our lily-white selfimage might become dirty and we will loose face. Professional roles also are built up on top of selfimages and over identification with them often creates an arrogance of mind that destroys the heart vibration which is crucial in the field of psychotherapy.

The pure heart in reality has no self-image. It is transparent meaning without image. The hidden images we hold about ourselves, who we are, about our profession and skills create all kinds of problems. Our true communication ability is proportional to the openness of our hearts. It is only after we have penetrated our self-images that we are able to reach the vulnerable heart.

The diameter of our internal communication pipeline gets clogged with our secret self-images. When we either transmit or receive communications there is an internal framework at work controlled by the self-images which act as sluice valves controlling our entire internal framework that either opens or closes the pipeline.

The probing of our self-image is the deepest psychological work we can do. Penetration of the inner image barrier requires a commitment to a path of self-insight and the constant work of communicating in situations where our life manifestation is mirrored back to us by a group of peers. The sages have always said that we must loose ourselves to find our self and this is what they where talking about.

Self-images can be guides that point us in directions and they can show us our destiny. Images do have their own intelligence and are conveyers of meaning and it is almost impossible for the mind to not have an image though the happiest person is free from the need to hold important and special images of the self. Happy people also have the delightful ability to laugh at the images when they come. The pure vulnerable heart stands naked and free of any image and it finds it’s real power and strength and intelligence in something totally beyond anything the thinking mind can offer. The heart can expand past any limiting self-concept and self-image of self. The ego is after all only the limited self that perceives itself as a separate identity. It is the separate self. The heart pulls us in the opposite direction into the oneness and the wholeness of life. Into the interconnectedness, into love and intimacy.