Self-perception: Distortion vs Disfiguration

For the modern mind, accessing mental stillness seems to be an Odyssean task these days. The bombardment of external information makes even sporadic stillness a mountain too high to climb for many people.

It’s hard not to internalize the frantic rhythm imposed by the world around us. In this context, developing strategies and crafting tools to maintain our mental hygiene becomes crucial.

One of the first casualties of information overload is self-perception. Perceptive distortion is a natural consequence in the battle of the wills between the conscious and the subconscious. It’s when that battle is compromised by unrealistic comparisons, judgments, and expectations, that it collapses into chaos.

Measuring our self-worth against someone else’s standards, especially in this age of obsessive exposure, voyeurism, and media manipulation, is an invitation to turn perceptive distortion into existential disfiguration.

When we abandon our instinctive anchors, we drift away from who we are, what we want, and the value of everything we believe in. We stop recognizing ourselves in our actions and become strangers in our own bodies. A disfigured self-perception eventually leads to depression, anger, anxiety, pain and many other unhealthy habits.

Disconnecting from the continuous feed of useless information can be helpful, but might not be enough when the constant streaming cycle has been incorporated as a functional part of our critical mind.

Our minds tend to respond better to replacing than eliminating. That's why even though it is important to “unplug,” it is equally essential to plug in somewhere within ourselves instead. Somewhere personal, authentic, and meaningful.

When it comes to self-perception, the antidote to disfiguration is restoration. The reconstruction of the self doesn't require blueprints, materials, or skills that we don't already own. We always are the architects of ourselves, whether we choose to build or destroy.

Achieving stillness doesn’t have to be an Odyssean journey. Stillness is already an integrated part of our minds and bodies. It’s the one mirror that will always reflect the most honest version of ourselves.

Hypnosis (as well as many other therapeutic modalities) is a great restorative tool that can help us reach the stillness needed to put us back on the path to who we really are and what we truly want.