Magic Mirror Mind: Claim Personal Power, Find Wholeness and Awaken Potential after Abuse and Trauma. (Chapter 3 - How to Love and Approve of Yourself)

Book One in the Magic Mirror Mind series.

By Juan de Beer Odendal. 

Disclaimer: The author of this book does not dispense medical or psychological advice or prescribe the use of any substance or technique as a form of treatment for physical, medical, or psychological problems without the advice of a registered medical practitioner, either directly or indirectly. The intent of the author is only to offer information of a general nature to help you in your quest for general wellbeing. In the event you utilize any of the information provided in this book for yourself, which is your constitutional right, neither the author, the publisher nor any of their associates assume liability for your actions.

Part 2 - The Tools Introduction

Chapter 3 – How to Love and Approve of Yourself

“What will it take to realize that the way I treat myself is the way others treat me?”

“You will never achieve anything in your life, you are just as big a loser as your father,” my stepfather said with a raised voice. I was cornered in the living room for the umpteenth time. With brute force, he pushed his fat finger directly into my chest and thereafter my face. I fought back by replying, “You are a fat c@nt. You are not worthy of the office of Priest. You are a goddamned hypocrite. If everyone knew the truth about what was happening behind closed doors you would lose your office. I curse you. You will lose everything!”       

My stepfather often abused me in a variety of ways. The abuse was physical, emotional, and verbal in nature. This would usually happen when I intervened in an argument between my mom and stepfather. As my younger brothers grew up, they would also intervene, especially when the fights became physical, and then they suffered my stepfathers’ abuse, too. 

My brother and I were not allowed pets. My stepfather moved the Love Birds my dad bought us as a present into the motor garage in the coldest month of winter. I pleaded with him to allow us to keep the birds warm in the house, or else they would die during the night. He said they would not. The next morning, they were cold and stiff.

My anger and hatred grew.

My stepfather always belittled and criticized me at every opportunity. Some of the negative messages I received about myself from my stepfather, and the other authority figures in my life, included, “You are so small. You are not manly enough. Act like a man. You are a queer. Do not even try, you will never get it right. You are rubbish. You are a failure.”

I started believing all these negative things about myself. So, I rebelled and fell in with a bad crowd, skipping a lot of high school. I gave my teachers and parents absolute hell at every opportunity. I started smoking cigarettes, marijuana, and tried other drugs, engaged in under-aged alcohol drinking, and partying, stayed out way past my 22:00 church-enforced curfew that our household submitted to. I dabbled in the occult, and pseudo-Satanism whilst studying and practicing black magic. Satanic prayers were recited silently in church.  

I would try to spend as much time at my friend’s houses as possible to avoid going home. My stepfather went to great lengths to make all my friends feel most unwelcome at our home, so my friends could never come visit me. I often wandered through the streets in a depressed state, dreading going home. Feeling anxiety, fear, and fighting with my parents during my high school years became my second nature. God had turned His back on me or so I felt. My family was shocked and prayed for my soul when I refused to believe in God. My mom even threatened to shoot me with a gun to save my soul. My grandmother cried. 

I avoided making eye contact with other boys because, sometimes, I was bullied. At other times, boys would pick fights with me because they assumed I was gay. I remember one day I was being bullied by boys at the public playground behind the small flat we were living in at the time. I ran home to ask my stepfather for help.

We went back to the playground and he held my hands behind my back, encouraging the boys who bullied me to continue hitting me. I told my mother about this incident, but my stepfather insisted I was lying. My stepfather often made me out to be a liar.

My feelings of worthlessness and lack of self-love had become so deeply ingrained in me that I colored my hair black, wore a spiked dog collar and ate dog food for shock value. I believed I did not deserve much, either. So, I preferred to never ask for anything. I feared making my mom feel bad about not being able to provide me with stuff I wanted or even needed. As the eldest brother, I thought my younger brothers would be able to have more that way. Also, I feared creating an atmosphere in our household. Whenever I asked for something I really wanted or needed my stepfather would always say, “Your dad is not paying any maintenance for you or your brother, so why do you not ask him?” There were so many times that my stepfather would say, “Your dad is not the one who is putting a roof over your head or feeding you.”

This would often lead to massive fights between my mom and stepfather. My mom would try to defend and explain as to why she needed a bit of money to provide myself and my brother with barely the basics like warm clothes for winter.  

I grew into a young adult with terrible anger, low self-confidence, and self-image issues. Standing on the brink of a new relationship with a wonderful man, I was saddled with terrible insecurities about our relationship. Fear of being abandoned unnecessarily, I realized that if wanted any of my future relationships to work I needed therapy.       

“You will abuse yourself more than any other person will abuse you,” explained my Reiki teacher during class. This statement was thought-provoking. Reflecting on this idea, I started thinking about the ways I might be abusing myself. Then, I had an insight. I now abused myself in many subtle and not-so-subtle ways, just like my stepfather. This was due to not loving and approving of myself, as well as not feeling worthy or deserving enough.

Some examples of how I abused myself were:

Creating a lot of physical pain in my body.

Excessive use of pain medications and the abuse of other substances.

Binge drinking resulting in terrible hangovers.

Unsafe sex, with more partners than I can count, especially whilst under the influence.

Criticizing myself relentlessly, thereby perpetuating my stepfather’s abuse.

Perfectionism.

What are some examples from your own life? How do you abuse yourself? Can you admit that you are guilty of abusing yourself, even in the subtlest of ways?

To continue, some examples of how I expressed my lack of self-worth were:

Procrastination.

Living in a disorganized home.

Not paying my bills on time.

Perfectionism.

Sleeping the whole day.                                                                                         

Fear of failure/fear of success.

What are some examples from your own life? How do you express your lack of self-worth?

After many years of working on myself, and helping my clients to work on themselves, the opportunity came up to my write my first book. I always wanted to author/write a book. A grand surprise was waiting around the corner for me. At once the ugly demon of, “you are not good enough/you don’t know enough/you don’t have enough life experience/what if my book is an epic failure” came up yet again. What!? I did so much work on this! What did I take from this? I did not tell myself, “Oh, you are a f@ckup with issues.” I chose to tell myself, “Juan, wow, you are going to the next level, this is just another layer to work through.” My old, severely wounded self would never have dreamed of writing a book. I decided to change the story I was telling myself, about myself. 

I worked with two tools whilst writing this book. The first was asking the question, “What would it take to author a book?”, and the second tool was affirmations. This helped me change the story I was telling myself. Small coincidences started occurring. I was invited to a book launch through a friend of my husband. A fiery red-haired woman who used to be the events coordinator, opened the launch proceedings. I listened intently but felt quite intimidated by her. I had only started thinking about writing a book, but the bar sounded high. Mentally, I affirmed: “I approve of myself” a couple of times. The author who was launching her book on the night, and her husband, also happened to be supportive of me writing a book, offering to help in any way they could. 

By divine coincidence, I attended a small reader’s and writer’s festival a couple of months later. The fiery red-haired woman from the bookstore was on stage discussing her pet hates regarding book covers. Authors came to refer to her as the ‘book cover dragon lady’. To say I was not intimidated at all would be a massive lie. After summoning the courage to speak with her, I approached her. I asked her about what it takes to get a book into her store. Firstly, she asked me what my book was about. Secondly, she, figuratively speaking, ripped my book to shreds. In detail, she explained that she was not looking for a politely written story but wanted me to write from a space of rawness. That scared me.

Thirdly, to illustrate the point, she directly recounted a paragraph from a book in such graphic language it shocked me to my core. To clarify, she was not ill-intentioned at all. However, here I had to deal once more with the feeling of not being good enough.

I went home depressed and overwhelmed, especially after she told me that all self-help authors basically write the same message. “No,” I mentally said to myself. “I have a different message.” Not being ready to give up, I went home and tried again.

In a matter of a few weeks, the red-haired cover dragon lady opened many doors for me. I was introduced to a group of successful and proudly South African authors. I learned as much as I could, as fast as I could, from them. It was brutal and I was sh!t scared, however, I continued taking action. My life coach and I also worked out a step-by-step action plan.

I have always attributed my success to changing the stories I tell myself about any difficult situation or problem. For example, I do not tell myself such untruths as, “Time heals all wounds, but the scars will always remain.” I do not tell myself, “You can forgive, but you will never forget.” You choose to forgive and, you choose you to forget.

Who is to blame if you choose to hold onto your old story?

You are the only one who is keeping your pain alive. I choose to believe that I do not have scars anymore, but wisdom. A long time ago I chose to accept that healing my trauma is my responsibility. I choose to believe that my healed trauma is a resource of wisdom. I tell myself stories about myself that support me.

When I first began working on my self-worth, I did so with affirmations I took from Hay’s book, You Can Heal Your Life. I started affirming, “I approve of myself,” whilst looking into the mirror. Instead of hearing, “I approve of myself,” I heard, “This is so dumb”, “You are so dumb”, and “I am too damaged.” When I affirmed, “I love myself exactly the way I am,” I came to the shocking realization that I did not feel worthy of others loving me, especially not my spouse, and I thought to myself, “He should have chosen better.” So many negative beliefs kept surfacing for the longest time, but I kept going. Then things started changing. I enrolled for National Diplomas in complementary therapies. This is when I realized I was not as stupid as my second-grade math teacher told me. I excelled academically for the first time and graduated with a shared award for top student. I started a successful business more than once. My communication skills improved rapidly, and I made friends easily for the first time in my life. I also came to realize that I am a good speaker and teacher. Working on my own self-worth was hard in the beginning but it got easier with more practice.

 Mental Healing Practice: Releasing Old Beliefs

The following mental healing practice comes directly from Hay’s bestseller You Can Heal Your Life and is one of the most powerful exercises I still practice often:

1. For the next month when you wake in the morning go to your bathroom mirror. Look deep into your own eyes and affirm out aloud, “I approve of myself exactly the way I am.” Do the same before retiring to bed at night. If any resistance comes up affirm “I let go of all resistance,” and re-affirm, “I approve of myself.” 

2. Keep repeating “I approve of myself exactly the way I am” until you fall asleep at night. Whenever you remember to do so during the day, mentally keep on affirming to yourself “I approve of myself.” When any negative beliefs or thoughts you have about yourself or life surface, you affirm the following again,

"I release all resistance to approving of myself."

 The second part of this exercise does not come from Hay, but it is a life-coaching practice:

 3. In your dedicated journal write down three negative beliefs you have about yourself.

 4. Now write down all the reasons these three negative beliefs you have about yourself or your life are ridiculous. You can choose to believe or not to believe any self-limiting belief or thought. Mind the garden of your mind.