The idea of self-improvement can be misleading, and frustrating if you constantly think you have to fix yourself. What if you could discover a greater order and purpose of why you do what you do and how to empower your life without having to constantly try to fix yourself?

Learn the difference between fixing and appreciating yourself - why the one is a subordination to outer authorities and the other an honoring of your true self. The truth is there's nothing to fix, there's only a magnificent part of you to honor and focus on growing.

USEFUL LINKS:

Free Masterclass | Increase Your Deserve Level: demartini.fm/youdeserve

Learn More About The Breakthrough Experience: demartini.fm/experience

Learn More About The Demartini Method: demartini.fm/demartinimethod

Determine Your Values: demartini.fm/knowyourvalues

Claim Your Free Gift: demartini.fm/astro

Join our Facebook community: demartini.ink/inspired

Mentioned in this episode:

The Breakthrough Experience

For More Information or to book for The Breakthrough Experience visit: demartini.fm/seminar

And the devaluation of ourself that we think we need fixing is a result of not

being true to ourself. You don't need to fix yourself when you're authentic.

This is a very interesting topic that we want to address today because

many people compare themselves to other people,

judge themselves in turn, and not appreciate themselves,

and they're trying to fix themselves.

So I'm gonna start with a story that may be applicable,

and then I'll branch it out to see the relationship of why we do this,

why we beat ourselves up, why we're not honoring our ourselves.

Now you may not be doing that,

but you may have friends that do that and so you can pass this information onto

them, but it may be also some moments in your life where you feel this way.

So I had a client who was a very beautiful, very attractive woman,

that I don't think that too many people, men or women,

would deny the attractiveness. But,

although all the people around her was recognizing her beauty,

both inner and outer, she wasn't.

And when we started to go down the rabbit hole, you might say,

and start to figure out what was driving this,

we found out that she was comparing herself to a variety of other women.

So there's one woman that she was looking and saw, wow,

what beautiful hair she has, thick, really gorgeous hair.

And because of that, she wasn't looking at the whole woman.

She was just looking at that portion of the woman, the hair,

and comparing her hair to that and noticed her hair was a little thinner,

little less shiny, little less full.

And so she was self-depreciating and comparing to somebody she put on a little

pedestal, not for the whole picture, but just that little piece, just the hair.

But she didn't stop there.

She also noticed that somebody else had a little flatter abs,

instead of a bit of a pooch, she had a flatter abs.

And so now she's comparing her abs to that and also a little self depreciation

on her abs. But she didn't stop there.

She also looked at her cheekbones and her jaw and noticed that there's a little

bit more sag in some other girl that she saw that had this really firm chin

line. And she kept going around to various women in her life,

and the individual woman that she was comparing herself to, the whole package,

was not as magnificent, probably to people's eyes than hers,

but in each of those parts, she was comparing herself to those people.

Now the whole, no, but those parts. And because of that,

she was putting them on a pedestal and minimizing herself in turn

and not honoring and appreciating herself and then trying to

fix herself and trying to be somebody she wasn't.

I've said before that everybody's been given the body that's required to fulfill

their mission in life. Now,

even though the world has acknowledged her as very beautiful,

she couldn't see it. And what's interesting is,

this subordination to the admiration of other people

can keep you from honoring and the magnificent of who you are.

Ralph Waldo Emerson said, envy is ignorance and imitation is suicide.

You'll destroy yourself, comparing yourself to other people,

because there's parts of you that are worthy of admiration just like hers,

but you're not honoring that. They have a different set of values,

a different set of structures, a different set of advantages and disadvantages.

I believe everybody has advantages and disadvantage. Sometimes you find very,

very attractive people that may not have the greatest personality,

or you may have somebody that may not be as attractive that has incredible

personality and vibrant. And everybody is given some sort of,

you know,

advantages to their behavior or their skill or their beauty or something that

allows them to compete in the marketplace you might say, in life.

But she wasn't honoring it.

So she was in a sense living in sort of a body dysmorphia syndrome.

But the body dysmorphia syndrome doesn't stop at the body.

The same principle holds in reverse.

You could look down on somebody and exaggerate yourself and puff yourself up

and then compare these same little parts and think, well, I'm better than that.

And we can end up being exaggerating ourselves or minimizing ourselves

and pride or shame, exaggeration minimization of self,

which is inauthentic. Our real self is not an exaggeration or minimization.

Those are facades and personas that we wear because we compare ourselves

to other people. And none of those

are really our true self.

We wanna be loved and appreciated for who we are as an individual,

but when we're not being who we are, it's hard to do that.

Hard to be loved for it when we're not even willing to do it.

So every time we put people on pedestals or pits and we don't put them equally

with equanimity in our heart, we don't have the ability to be loved who we are,

cuz we're not being who we are,

we're exaggerating or minimizing ourselves or minimizing or exaggerating

ourselves relative to other people and exaggerating or minimizing them.

Those women that she was comparing to didn't have an overall package greater

than hers, just happened to have some parts,

just like she had parts that were greater than somebody else's in their minds

probably. There're probably envious people looking up to her for her beauty.

But as long as we're sitting there and comparing ourselves to other people,

instead of comparing our own daily actions to what's deeply meaning to us,

what's really priority to us,

we're going to be distracted by these exaggerated minimized self.

And what's interesting is we only want to fix ourselves when we compare

ourselves to other people.

And we only think we make mistakes when we're trying to live in other people's

values.

And we only think that other people make mistakes when we are expecting them to

live in our values. In their own values they're making decision,

their perception, decisions,

or actions are based on their own values and they're not making a mistake in

their own values.

They're evaluating according to their information they're perceiving and

therefore making a decision based on the data that they have.

But we may expect them to live in our values and see a different world and then

they don't fit it and then we think they're making a mistake.

Just like if we expect to live in somebody else's values or try to be somebody

we're not, we'll beat ourselves up. Albert Einstein said it really nicely:

When you're cat expecting to swim like a fish,

you're gonna beat yourself up and think there's something wrong with you,

and you're gonna wanna fix yourself.

And when you're a fish trying to climb a tree like a cat,

you're gonna beat yourself up thinking there's something wrong with you,

you're gonna wanna try to fix yourself. What if you didn't need to fix yourself?

What if you could look in the mirror and realize that whatever you perceive in

other people you have in your own form according to your own values,

and that is the magnificent part of yourself that you may not be

honoring? Now,

this dysmorphic response is not limited to looks as I said,

it also deals with business, and this can happen in men and women.

You could compare yourself to somebody that you think is more achieving in

business,

and then minimize yourself and then judge yourself thinking I need to fix

myself, I need to be more like them in business.

Or you might be doing this in finance.

You might think they're wealthier than me and oh my God,

I'm lower in socioeconomics and then have a dysmorphia in finance

or dysmorphia in business, equivalent, like she had a dysmorphia in body.

And this could occur also in relationship.

I've seen this very often where somebody looks at somebody else and they're

seeing somebody else that's in a romantic mood,

even though they may be fighting an hour earlier or an hour later, and we think,

oh my God,

what's wrong with my relationship somehow I'm not getting that and then they

punish the person they're with,

because they're comparing 'em to a fantasy person that may not even be long term

or lasting. And the same thing socially,

you think somebody's got more Facebook connections or more social media

connections or something and you think, oh my God, I don't have it,

I'm a nobody. Or you might exaggerate yourself, again, dysmorphia.

And then of course physically the same thing we've already discussed.

And spiritually you could do it too, you think, well,

they're more spiritually aware or more enlightened or something or more quoted

of great philosophy or something.

Anytime you compare yourself to other people and put them on a pedestal or pit,

you just lost your true identity.

And the magnificence of who you truly are is far greater than any fantasies

you impose on yourself.

And it's a fantasy to try to live in somebody else's values and try to be

somebody you're not. It's a fantasy to expect yourself to be like them.

I know a lady that actually didn't like the way her cheeks and her face quite

was and decided to go get a little face done, her face lift.

The only problem is that the outcome was not what she expected.

And she was now minimizing herself to somebody else. When she got through,

she got the lesson that was needed. I wish I'd had kept it the way it was,

I actually looked better that way.

Cuz now she's lost her identity with this new look and it really wasn't her.

By the way, if you ever go to a plastic surgeon,

you might wanna look at the ladies that they're creating.

Sometimes it's their idea of what beauty is.

And if that doesn't match who you are and what you believe it is,

or somebody else that you're dating is or living with or something like that,

you might wanna pay a price there, you might wanna check.

Because sometimes what they imagine beauty to be, they'll be filtering it,

cuz I watched one plastic surgeon that had 14 women that almost looked identical

when they got through.

And it was the person that they believed was beautiful in their own image.

Everybody's got a different search image so be aware of that.

We sometimes pay a price for trying to be somebody we're not.

I really believe that all the symptoms in our physiology, psychology,

sociology and events in our life are feedback mechanisms to get us to be

authentic, where we love ourselves and appreciate ourselves for who we are,

instead of who we think we're supposed to be. I think as Einstein said,

when you're a cat trying to swim or a fish trying to climb a tree,

you're gonna beat yourself up and not honor the magnificence of who you are.

So you wanna give yourself permission to do that.

And one way to help you do that, I'd like to share this,

because you don't need to fix yourself,

is to actually identify those people that you find yourself looking at admiring,

instead of admiring them and minimizing yourself,

which I found very unproductive, I found out as a public speaker,

working with people in the speaking industry,

that the only fear of speaking is not speaking,

because people speak to people one-on-one all the time,

it's the second you get up in front of a stage and you speak to somebody that

you think is more knowledgeable or more successful or more

achieving or wealthier, you're

subordinating to something you think they have that you don't.

And as long as you perceive that they have something you don't,

you're gonna play a little bit smaller. You're gonna self depreciate.

You're gonna minimize yourself. You're gonna wanna change and fix yourself.

And then you're gonna judge yourself and hold yourself back from opportunities

in life that you can be shining with.

But what's interesting is I had a woman that was having a major fear about

presenting and I had her go through there, I rolled up a piece of paper,

made it into a tube and I had her look in the audience who it was she was

intimidated by and we identified three women. I said,

what is it about that woman?

I went up on stage and when she froze and helped her, I said,

what is it about that woman that you're intimidated by? She says, well,

she's got more education than I do. Great. You have,

you're about to speak about your own life,

you have more knowledge about your own life than she'll ever have,

but you're assuming that she has more education in the field that you'll be

talking sort of around. So I asked her, I asked the woman who's speaking,

I said, where do you have what you see in her? The seer,

the seeing and the seen are the same.

Whenever you look inside and find out what you see in others, inside yourself,

in your own unique form,

you level the playing field and you don't sit there and inject their values and

try to inculcate them in your life and try to be somebody you're not,

you honor yourself for being who you are.

So I had to go in there and identify where she had education and where she had

knowledge that this lady didn't have,

and where she was empowered in her knowledge.

And when she finally leveled that playing field,

that lady was no longer intimidating. She went to the next lady and said, well,

this lady looks more successful. And I said, but where are your successes?

Your achievements are in your values. Her achievements are in her values.

If you think her values are more important than yours,

you're gonna think she's more achieving than you.

And I made her stop and look at where her achievements were and list those right

there in front of the group, until they were equal. Once they were equal,

she was no longer intimidated by that person.

And then the other one was more socially savvy,

more socially connected and influential.

And I asked her where her social savvy is, and I said isn't it interesting,

you're the one up on stage, not the lady in the audience.

So obviously they're acknowledging you.

And I started to make her look at where did she have the social influence,

in the own form in the individuals,

because then she realized that she was influencing individuals that have massive

influence in the world. And when she did, she stopped,

she got a tear in the eye and she looked out and the lady out there wasn't

intimidating. And I said, now is anybody here in the room that's intimidating?

And she goes, no. I said, I'm now gonna step off the stage, you can now proceed.

She did an amazing job at presenting without any anxiety and fear because she

was no longer subordinating to somebody else and comparing herself.

She was now focusing on her mission of what the message was,

those with a mission have a message, to the audience.

And she got a standing ovation at the end,

because they realized where she started,

where she started in the talk and what she achieved.

And when she got through the very three women that we picked out,

are the ones that gave her the starting of the standing ovation.

And then one of them turned around and said to her and said,

you may think that I am more intelligent and because I have a degree,

but I haven't done anything with my degree. Yes, I have a degree,

but I never did anything with it. And I'm sitting here looking at you and going,

you didn't have that, but look what you've accomplished.

And when she heard that, she got tears in her eyes, they hugged each other.

They literally hugged each other right on the spot.

Cuz sometimes the first appearance is sometimes not the truth,

it's the facade that we make up in our mind.

That's why we're not here to compare ourselves to other people,

we're here to compare our own actions, to our own values and our own dreams,

and look at how congruent we are. When we live by our highest value,

we live by filling our day with the highest priority actions,

we're most objective, least judging,

most equitable with other people,

most resilient and adaptable to whatever happens,

and we end up honoring ourselves and whenever we're doing something that's

highest on our value, we're spontaneously acting, we're disciplined, reliable,

we're focused, we wake up our leader,

we do amazing things and we honor ourselves and our self worth goes up.

When we're living by our highest value, our self worth goes up.

But if we try to live in somebody else's values because of comparison and trying

to be somebody we're not, we automatically devalue ourself.

We're not designed to do that.

And the devaluation of ourself that we think we need fixing is a result of not

being true to ourself. You don't need to fix yourself when you're authentic.

You don't need to fix yourself when you're inspired by what's priority in your

life and you're living congruently with that on a daily basis.

You don't need to sit there and, you know,

fix yourself or repair yourself when you're not judging somebody,

you're just loving those people. In fact,

just go and think about the moments you've had the most fulfillment,

it's when you made a contribution to people's lives and appreciated doing what

you love in the way that they appreciate it. And if you fill your day with that,

you're not gonna have self depreciation.

You're gonna have an appreciation and probably an economic capital appreciation,

cuz people are gonna value you. And when the world values you,

it's because you value you. But you can't value you when you're not authentic.

You can't value you when you're playing the "imposter".

And the "imposter" is when you exaggerate or minimize yourself and not be

yourself. And that's why I'm taking the time to go over this little topic.

I'm not here to teach you how to have dysmorphia.

I want you to dissolve dysmorphia.

I've been teaching the Breakthrough Experience,

which is my signature program around the world for 32, almost 33 years now,

it's going on 33 years in a couple months.

And I've taught it thousands of times, 1,140 times, pardon me,

to thousands of people, in fact, hundreds of thousands of people.

And one thing I'm absolutely certain of, is the majority of people,

majority of people out there,

are distracted by their comparisons to other people. You know,

we're not here to live in the shadows of anyone. We're not here to, you know,

be somebody we're not, be second at being somebody else,

we're here to be first at being us.

We're here to stand on the shoulders of giants and be an unborrowed, visionary,

and realize that what we see out there is a reflection.

And if we're honoring it,

the only reason why we're honoring them and putting 'em on a pedestal is because

they're reminding us of something we're too humble to admit we have,

but we already have it. Nothing's missing in you. When I was in Nepal,

I met with the Bonpo lama many years ago,

we had a dialogue for about an hour and we had a discussion about nothing's

missing. I always say at the level of the most authentic self,

sometimes called the soul, the state of unconditional love within us,

where we're in state of equanimity, nothing's missing.

But when we're down in our senses and we compare ourselves to other people,

we in our world of judgment, the terrestrial world of judgment,

we tend to be too proud or too humble to admit what we see in others inside us.

And then we end up minimizing ourself instead of empowering ourself.

So instead of sitting there and putting people on pedestals,

the wisest thing to do, and I teach in the Breakthrough Experience program,

which I want,

wish everybody could experience so they could know how to use this tool,

the Demartini Method, but to go in there and identify what specific trait,

action, or inaction do I perceive in this individual that I admire,

what specific trait, action,

inaction do I perceive them displaying or demonstrating that I admire most?

And pin it down, write it down, be very specific.

And then go inside yourself and ask the question, go to a moment me,

go to a moment, John, where,

and when you perceive yourself displaying or demonstrating the same or similar

behavior as you perceive in them, and where was it, when was it,

who did you do it to, and who perceives you that way?

And then go the next time you've done it. And the next time you've done it.

And the next time you've done it, and identify where it was, when it was,

who'd you do it to, and who perceived it.

If you keep doing that and keep doing that and keep looking, I guarantee you,

you cannot see something in others that you don't have.

You may not be aware of it. You may be too humble to admit it, but it's there.

And by holding yourself accountable to see it,

you will then not look them up and put them on pedestals.

You will look across and thank them from revealing to you

what has been unconscious in your life that you've been too humble to admit that

you have,

and you'll honor that you have what they have in your own form and you'll level

the playing field. And now,

instead of trying to fix yourself and change yourself to be like them,

you'll realize that, thank you,

you will respect them and appreciate them for revealing to you what you have

that you've been not honoring.

And if you go even a step further and then go and ask,

what's the downside of their form?

So you're no longer infatuated with their form.

And you'll find out that every trait that people have,

have advantages and disadvantages.

And think about a guy that you first go out and date or a girl you date,

at first you're a little blinded by an infatuation.

You're conscious of the upside, unconscious of

a week, a month or maybe six months, you start to see, oh,

that trait's got some peccadillo sides. It's got some problems that, you know,

they may be really good looking,

but maybe everybody's looking at 'em and they're constantly in the center of

attention and high maintenance.

Or they're highly intelligent and they always wanna be right, they wanna argue,

or they wanna always talk and not listen or something.

Or they might be really good in business and they're preoccupied with business,

but there's now downside, cuz you hardly see them.

Every trait has advantages and disadvantages. Otherwise

It has benefits and drawbacks.

So that's why if you admire with somebody or infatuate with somebody,

that's because you're blind to the downsides of those

to where you have those behaviors.

Once you own it by reflection and realize that you have it and other people see

it and you're transparent,

and then you go and find the downside to the trait you admire in them and take

them off the pedestal and level the playing field and see both sides,

you don't sit there and put 'em on a pedestal, you put 'em in your heart.

Because everybody's got two sides. Every trait's got two sides.

Every trait on the planet,

even the things that you think are terrible and evil traits, aren't,

or they would've gone extinct. If they're here, they serve,

or they would've gone extinct in human behavior.

And the traits you admire has downsides. The traits you despise has upsides.

If you balance it out and level the playing field, you

not upon pedestals or pits. And when you put 'em on pedestal pits,

you've got dysmorphia. Dysmorphia by minimizing or exaggerating yourself.

And that's not you. When you're proud or shame,

those are personas and masks and facades you wear covering up the real authentic

you. You wanna give yourself permission to be you.

And so by going and doing the Demartini Method,

which I explain in the Breakthrough Experience,

which are just three questions out of many, many questions I teach you there,

I show you to level the playing field.

And the second you level the playing field and don't have them on a pedestal,

but have them in your heart,

whatever opportunities that they're resonating with,

you get the same opportunities. And this is very powerful.

I've seen people do this that envied singers,

all of a sudden do the method on 'em and all of a sudden realize, wow.

And they started getting opportunities to singing engagements and raise their

fees and opportunities and get notoriety. I've seen this in sports and golf.

I've seen this in business. I've seen this in almost every field.

In speaking industry. The second you are honoring yourself,

see at the level of your soul, nothing's missing in you,

at the level of your senses things appear to be missing in you.

The things that appear to be missing in you are the things you're too proud or

too humble to admit you have.

Putting people on pedestals or pits and not putting 'em in your heart cost you,

and you end up going to want to fix them or fix you. And by the way,

when you try to fix them,

if you've ever been in relationship where you're trying to get them to be more

like the way you want them and trying to fix them to live in your values,

it's futile. And if you try to live in somebody else's values, it's futile.

And the reason it's futile is because you're not designed to be somebody you're

not, you're designed to be you.

The magnificence of who you are as far greater than any of those fantasies

you'll put on yourself. So you wanna give yourself permission to be you.

You know, I was interviewed by Vogue magazine a number of years back,

and they had 17 questions that they were thrown at me to answer.

And the very last question is, Dr. Demartini,

if there's anybody you could be in the world, who would you like to be?

And I thought to myself, I have no desire. I told them, I said,

I have no desire to be anybody but Dr. John Demartini. And they go, oh really?

Well, most people put down, they wanna be like this, or they wanna be this.

I said, I have no desire to be somebody else. I don't wanna be the second Elvis.

I don't wanna be the second at anybody else. I wanna be the number one,

numero uno of me. And I want you to be able to look in the mirror and go,

you know what? I love you. Wow. You're amazing.

And I don't mean in exaggerated forms.

I don't mean in fake form and imposter form.

I mean actually realizing that you are amazing person because you have a very

unique set of values that lead you to a very unique path in life.

And that is your own destiny. And the hierarchy of your values is dictating it.

And they,

although they change in your destiny's migrating and moving through a life's

journey,

the magnificence of that journey is unique and yours and anything you can't say

thank you for along that journey is because you compared yourself to other

people. You never judge yourself in your own values.

You judge yourself through other people's values. Whenever you yourself saying,

I should, I ought to, supposed to, I got to, I have to,

I must - that's not you speaking,

that's somebody else that you got in your head or some tradition, convention,

mores in your head, some moral hypocrisy that you're trying to live by

that's not you. I'm not here to teach you how to live that way.

I'm interested in you being authentic to yourself. You're both nice and mean,

kind and cruel, positive negative, happy and sad,

you're gonna have the pair of all opposites.

And when you finally embrace the whole of you, you don't need to fix yourself.

I don't need to get rid of any half of myself in order to love myself,

and neither do you. So you wanna give yourself permission to be whole,

and the way you do it is not put people on pedestals or pits and put yourself in

pits or pedestals in turn. Give yourself permission to be you.

That's what my Breakthrough Experience program is for is to dissolve all that

baggage,

cuz all the baggage we have in our life that's stored in our subconscious mind

are result of those judgments that we have towards other people and events in

our life. And anytime, we actually get a moment of grace,

a moment of tears of gratitude for ourselves, which was when we're authentic,

when we're authentic, we get tears of gratitude. And that's the time,

that's when we wake up our super conscious mind,

our spiritual awareness you might say, where we're inspired from within,

doing what we love, loving what we do, waking up as a leader of culture,

not a follower of culture. Not subordinating to the culture around us,

but leading the culture within us.

The culture within us is all the parts of ourselves working in a unity towards

our objective, and that's what's possible.

So I just wanted to take a few moments to go over some of these ideas with you,

because I really believe that some of these are good to stick in your head and

to think about. You're not here to compare yourself to others.

You're here to compare your daily actions to your own highest values.

So you can fulfill the most inspiring dreams that you that are yearning to

express themselves naturally innately from within. The calling you have inside,

the calling of your own soul,

the state of unconditional love you have for yourself and others when you're

authentic. So, to go along with this little class today,

the special class that I just gave you, on you don't have to fix yourself,

I want you to also to come join me on this free on demand masterclass,

it's called Increase Your Deserve Level and Finally Get What You Want in Life.

Go on there, grab this masterclass, take advantage of this. It's free.

Just go listen. If you got something out of this little class,

you're gonna get something out of this class, this free masterclass.

Take advantage of it.

You can't put your hand in the pot of glue without some of the glue sticking.

You can't hang out and listen to these classes every week, and by the way,

if you know somebody that could have benefited by hearing this,

if that went through your head, I wish so and so could have heard this,

please pass this torch and let people know about these weekly presentations I

do, or these little masterclasses we do or our website or doing our Value

Determination process online on our website, it's free and private,

or come absolutely to the Breakthrough Experience,

that's where I can actually make a difference,

literality I'll be working with you for 24 hours to help you do something

extraordinary with your life. You deserve to do a life that you dream about,

and I'm a firm believer that it's totally possible.

I didn't start out in the way I live today.

I started out on the streets as a kid, I started out with learning problems,

dyslexia, speaking problems, an arm deformity and leg deformity,

had to wear braces a child. It doesn't matter where you started.

It doesn't matter what you've been through.

It doesn't matter what you're going through.

What matters is are you doing the very things that help you do something

extraordinary with your life?

And that's something you can take command on and nobody's getting up in the

morning and dedicating their life to your fulfillment. It has to be you.

So I want you to think about that. You don't need to fix yourself.

It's time to love yourself. Take advantage of the masterclass, please.

And I'll see you at the Breakthrough Experience or

and please pass the torch and let people know if this is valuable to you,

please pass the torch.

Cuz there just may be somebody out there that needs this today.

And if so you made a difference in their life. I'll see you next week.