the self image solution

8/14/2019 The Self Image Solution

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PREFACE

A BEAUTIFUL WORLD CALLS OUT TO YOU, ITS SUNNY DAYS INVITING YOU TO

explore its wonders, a thousand open roads ready and waiting to

take you wherever it is your head and heart might lead you. A grat-

ifying world, its rainy nights inviting the warmth of hearth and

home, a safe place for reflection on your life’s journey so far – the

satisfying endings, the planning of new beginnings. A world of

answered prayers, and a world of neverending new hopes and

dreams. A world eager and waiting to receive your unique contri-

bution to the human story.

Each new day as you awake in your bed, you can hear the call. You

can see it just outside your window, you can almost taste it on the

morning breeze. But there it remains, the invitation unanswered. Andso the day is dismissed, like every other day before, in favor of that

one day, someday, to come. That day when you will “start” your life,

again, for real. The coming day that, you now fear more and more,

with the endless passings of day after day, will never really come.

The simple pleasure of good times, of a fine meal, of celebrations

shared with family and friends awaits you, as does the common mir-

acle of a truly fulfilling romantic love. You see the families laugh

and hug in their many gathering places, and the happy couples pass-

ing you on their journey, as if inviting you by example to find whatthey have found. But it all seems to be just out of reach, passing you

by yet again – always and forever passing you by. All the usual, “nor-

mal” things promised to you in childhood. Things that other people

get to do, having come by with seemingly little effort. An unremark-

able natural birthright. But to you they seem like lucky souls who



must have won some rigged lottery. They have somehow “won” that

other kind of life that you can only watch from the sidelines.

It’s always someone else’s movie. And you are forever just another

anonymous audience member, alone in the dark – never the star of your own movie, shining in the light.

Why it has to be this way – that’s the question that never fails to

float up into your consciousness, grabbing hold of at least some por-

tion of your every day’s waking thoughts. Sometimes it’s present as

only a chronic dull ache, an accepted reality to be dealt with. Some-

times it flares into a sharp pain, an unacceptable agony that you

know must be ended in order for you to survive.

And you just can’t seem to find the answer to the question.

All you know for certain is that you are alone. No matter how closethe proximity of your family members and friends and acquaintances.

No matter your marriage status or the current state of your love life.

No matter your financial successes or woes, your life’s great achieve-

ments or terrible disappointments. You know that you are alone,

separated from all the others, separated from any sort of spiritual

source or meaningful center, separated from the fading memory of

whatever it was you once knew you were or dreamed of becoming.

Somewhere along the way, you have become alienated from your

own feelings and affections and desires. Somewhere along the way,

you have become forgetful of what you were all about, and you have

become disconnected from yourself. It’s as if you’ve carelessly lost

the lucky penny that protected your hopes and dreams. Left it long

ago in jeans going out in the wash, never realizing the true value,

the true magic, in the simple joys of living that were once the most

precious moments in your life.

You have lost you.

And you are alone and you are unhappy. And you know that until you find your way back to your own

personal place of happiness, or find a place of happiness you’ve

never known, that you will never be able to go forward, and never

be able to forever leave behind the lonely, unforgiving and ever-

darkening place that has become your invisible, suffocating prison.

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If life as I’ve described it, in the words you have just read, is a lifealmost entirely alien and unimaginable to you in the life you are liv-

ing, then let me wish you continued success and every happiness in

experiencing a fulfilling and rewarding life. Your present state of affairs may be due to healthy life choices or to happy circumstance,and in either case, I wish you well. I truly hope you will never findyourself lost in the dark places – the soul-killing dead-ends so many

find themselves at after making their desperate escape attempts,physically and mentally, trying to find a way out of their unhappylives. I have made a life’s work of understanding the need for anescape plan to find a way out, and replacing that need with the rescueplan that shows the way in – a personal map transforming the desire

to escape a failing life into the desire to embrace a thriving life.If you have come to find yourself dreaming of open roads, butrising each morning only to face the same brick wall at the end of your own personal cul-de-sac; if short-cuts and compromises andaccepted defeats have dead-ended your life and all but convinced

you that you are capable of nothing more; and if these words arenow resonating in your heart and mind as a welcomed message of concern and understanding – or if you know and care about some-one waiting to receive this message – then I hope you will read on.

Because I am glad I have found you, and I know I can help you findthe answers that have eluded you for too long. I know I can helpyou realize the wondrous and fulfilling life you deserve to be living– the life we all deserve to be living.

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When a depressed or otherwise afflicted and symptomatic individ-ual comes to me, seeking help through the program I have

developed over the past twenty years, I assure that person, during

our first meeting, that after the fourth or fifth week of my program,he or she will no longer be crippled from the symptoms that haveruined his or her existence. His or her symptoms will have becomemanageable to the point of no longer being in control of his or her

life. To say that those suffering from years of chronic, clinical depres-sion – let alone those severely drug-addicted or those paralyzed with



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dened enough to find a better way forward. But my experience has

been with those finding little comfort and no clear way forward in

these methodologies. They arrive at my door wearing their cynicism

and skepticism and soul-weariness like a soldier’s uniform, torn andtattered from an endless losing campaign.It was not the original grand intention in my life to identify a

common cause at the core of most all modern maladies. Nor was it

my original intent to identify a common defect that inherently

undermines most therapies trying to address these maladies. I didn’t

start out consciously looking for a key to creating a universally heal-

ing solution, a common sense but powerful program that really

manages and controls symptoms forever and builds lifelong well-

being. There was no miraculous vision, no sudden insight, that setme on course for what would become the focus and fulfillment of

my life’s passion. There was, instead, a lifetime of daily caring and

helping, a lifetime of fathering and teaching and coaching, and

above all, of always thoughtfully observing, understanding and lov-

ing those who have needed what I could give them. What I can now give them is something that has been effective

in managing and controlling the suffering caused from drug addic-

tion, alcoholism, anxiety, depression, the gamut of phobias,

anorexia-bulimia and other disorders. It is something that hasevolved over the decades of my personal and professional involve-

ment in the community of those laboring to make a difference in

the fields of psychology and education. This evolution was greatlyaccelerated most especially by my chronic questioning of, and some-

times career-threatening rebellions against, the set-in-stone ideas

and accepted formulas that I found from my experience to have too

limited a record of any meaningful “success.”

My diversion away from accepted psychiatric and therapeutic

paths was really born from no more than elemental human compas-sion. And enough intelligence and honesty to know that the

methodologies I had been trained in were often well-intentioned but

no guarantee of a lifelong solution. It began with a simple recognition

that there was too much unnecessary pain in the daily lives of too

many, and a hardheadedness in refusing to accept this as an unavoid-



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A G E S O L U T I O N

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able demographic of human society – that a certain number will

always suffer. I refused to believe that there is an “acceptable” num-

ber. I refused to believe that the only effective treatment lies in

endlessly treating and temporarily alleviating symptoms…andhopingfor eventual remission. It began in simply refusing to accept what Ihad been taught to believe was an “acceptable” amount of well-being.

Constitutionally incapable of turning away people in pain, I

found more and more of my time consumed by meeting and advis-

ing troubled individuals, even after I had departed the formal halls

of mental health establishments to work in teaching and special edu-

cation. Private educational tutoring sessions always seemed to

default into counseling the underlying reasons for the academic fail-

ure. There were always underlying, unaddressed real reasons why Johnny couldn’t spell or add or read or stay focused. I found great

success in eliminating the symptoms of poor grades and disciplinary

problems through training the students – and the students’ parents

– in communicating on a positive level. I taught them to take imme-

diate positive action in their lives to counter and reverse the manynegatives holding the children back. I helped them create the pos-

itive atmosphere that is essential to learning. Over time, more and

more people in the community were seeking help from my methods

for personal and family problems not directly linked to academicachievement. Word spread of “The Helper” who could talk to the

child non-responsive to available therapy and on the fast-track to

institutionalization; who could talk to the addicted cousin nearingthe final mistake of suicide; who could talk to the brother too

depressed to leave the house to find work; who could talk to the

husband and wife who had forgotten how to love.

What began as a wealth of life experience rich in practical knowl-

edge about what would and would not help these desperate people

in their disparate struggles became transformed over time – neces-sitated by the ever-increasing volume of afflicted finding their way

to my home in need of sitting and speaking with me at the kitchen

table. My ideas and methods became gradually systematized into a

scheduled program, a graduated series of meetings and “homework”

exercises that have been sometimes described as “miraculous” in



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helping to control and manage the symptoms, syndromes anddegradations of the mental and social disorders too-long borne bythose who found their way to my door.

What I have gleaned from my formative experiences in the crucibleof the mental health industry and in the field of private education,and all the amazing and gratifying experiences that I’ve enjoyed as acommitted “helper,” have now found expression in my formallyauthoring this program. In this way I can finally speak out and reachout far beyond the constraints of my private teaching and trainingsessions. I have always applied myself to the best of my abilities tobecome and to always remain a living instrument of caring for andhealing those around me in need. I believe that with this book I have

created the perfect tool for building the self-image of any and everyperson, cast from all I have observed and analyzed and intuited anddiscovered and “field-tested” so many times over. I hope it has foundits way into your hands if you are still searching and have not yetfound the way to help yourself. But I also hope it finds its way to thoseof you still searching for the way to truly help the friends and familymembers who need you, and your positive guidance.

the self image solution

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