Overcoming Self-Doubt: Transform Your Reality Through Focus and Embodiment

Chapter Fourteen | Free One Million Minds: Self-Fixing & Reality: Understanding the Struggle

12/31/2024

Duration | 8 minutes 37 seconds
Guest: Dr. Symeon Rodger

Synopsis

Dr. Symeon Rodger discusses how the belief that we are defective and need to fix ourselves is a major obstacle in personal development. He explains that focusing on our perceived flaws creates a cycle of negativity, while focusing on the person we want to become can transform our reality. Jamie Meyer adds that true transformation requires embodying the feelings behind affirmations, not just repeating them. Dr. Rodger emphasises that emotional states can be consciously chosen, offering a path to ease and alignment in personal growth. The chapter also references The Master Key System by Charles F. Haanel on manifesting desired realities.

Dialogue Summary

Dr. Symeon Rodger:
If you do this, you will overcome one of the biggest unseen hurdles in personal development—unseen, unrecognised, and unnoticed. It’s the idea that you are defective and need to fix yourself. The belief that you’re not enough, that you’re not good enough, that you’ve let yourself and others down, and that somehow, you’re a throwback or broken in some way. You think you need to work to fix yourself and struggle to fix yourself. Many people go into things like meditation, yoga, or other personal development practices thinking they’ll have to work really hard, be extremely disciplined, and constantly tell themselves, “I’m terrible at this. I’m doing it wrong.” They sit down to meditate, but their mind races everywhere, and they think, “I’m doing it wrong and I’m useless.”

The Dalai Lama says that if he can do it, you’re fine. Okay? We are incredibly hard on ourselves, unrealistically so. As one Tibetan lama put it: “Look, you can have this self-pity version of yourself that you run around with all day, but please don’t try to tell me it’s not just a made-up persona. It is. It’s the version you indulge. You could always indulge a different version, and whatever you focus on becomes your reality.” This is the fundamental core of all ancient systems: what you focus on becomes your reality. It becomes real. It becomes everything.

If you focus on how bad you are, you’ll continue to feel bad and miserable. “I’m bad and miserable. I have to work to fix myself so I won’t be bad and miserable,” but I’m still bad and miserable. It doesn’t make sense.

Jamie Meyer:
With that said, I’d like to go back to the idea that thoughts aren’t the only way we create our reality. A lot of people might hear the phrase, “What I focus on becomes my reality,” and think that their thoughts need to be a particular way. Then, they over-rationalise and overthink about what their thoughts are doing—whether they’re positive or negative. There’s a big difference between constantly repeating a thought and actually embodying it. The difference is like isolation versus embodiment. The mind can only do so much with the thought, and the rest of your being needs to get on board.

Dr. Symeon Rodger:
That’s true. The conscious mind can only focus on one thing at a time, although, in a sense, you can keep a general orientation in the back of your mind while going about your day. We’re capable of doing that. But, yeah, it sounds like you were talking about affirmations. Just repeating something—affirmations and similar practices can be very powerful. They can reprogram the subconscious. However, they require consistent effort. Without a general openness and positive expectation, you’re essentially fighting an uphill battle. You’re still crippled by the fear that things aren’t going to work out. You might say, “I’ll use this affirmation and drill it into myself,” but that approach often puts you in a much harder position than you really need to be in.

Jamie Meyer:
So, how do you take, let’s say, an affirmation as an isolated thought, and then transform it into a full embodiment of being? How do you create that ease you’re talking about?

Dr. Symeon Rodger:
That’s a great question. How do you take the content of an affirmation and embody it? Well, let’s look at affirmations since many people are using them. They can be effective when done properly and consistently. The issue is that most people dabble in them and don’t stick with it, then they claim, “It didn’t work for me.” But consistency is key, just like with anything else.
Take a health affirmation, for example. There’s a famous story from a book called The Master Key System by Charles F. Haanel, published 120 years ago in the United States. Originally, it was a correspondence course. In the book, Haanel tells the story of a client who was crippled as a child. The doctors told the parents that nothing could be done and that the child wouldn’t survive. This child came across an affirmation that helped reverse his condition. The affirmation was a combination of all the things he wanted to be—seven attributes that, together, would heal him. He focused on the person he wanted to become. He wrote in saying that he completely recovered, and now as an adult, his body was fine. He woke up every day repeating the affirmation. So, we know these practices work when done consistently.

But the essence isn’t in the words themselves—it’s in the feeling state behind the words. The key is to feel the affirmation. You have to be in that state—the state of your wish having already been fulfilled. And the funny thing is, we can choose our feeling states. People don’t think they can choose their emotions. They believe circumstances dictate their feelings. Something “bad” happens, and they feel down. Then a friend brings them a birthday cake, and suddenly they feel happy. But our emotions don’t have to be so erratic. We can choose our feelings and our moods. It just takes practice and detachment from the noise around us, especially in our busy, chaotic world.

Credits Roll

References

Book by Charles F. Haanel, The Master Key System
Originally Published: April 4, 1912
https://www.google.com/search?q=The+Master+Key+System&client=safari&sca_esv=8af1621642e5e6e9&rls=en&sxsrf=ADLYWILPWSz-OUeSvqngi-FS_k2hTp9LMQ%3A1731905238491&ei=1sY6Z9XGHaCv4-EPlZyfwQU&ved=0ahUKEwjViZnkieWJAxWg1zgGHRXOJ1gQ4dUDCBA&uact=5&oq=The+Master+Key+System&gs_lp=Egxnd3Mtd2l6LXNlcnAiFVRoZSBNYXN0ZXIgS2V5IFN5c3RlbTIKECMYgAQYJxiKBTIFEC4YgAQyChAAGIAEGEMYigUyChAAGIAEGEMYigUyChAAGIAEGEMYigUyChAAGIAEGEMYigUyChAAGIAEGEMYigUyBRAAGIAEMgUQABiABDIFEAAYgAQyFBAuGIAEGJcFGNwEGN4EGOAE2AEBSNESUKsFWIwIcAF4AZABAJgBnQKgAZAEqgEDMi0yuAEDyAEA-AEBmAIDoAKnBMICChAAGLADGNYEGEfCAg0QABiABBiwAxhDGIoFwgIOEAAYsAMY5AIY1gTYAQHCAhMQLhiABBiwAxhDGMgDGIoF2AEBwgIHECMYsAIYJ8ICBxAuGIAEGA3CAgcQABiABBgNwgIWEC4YgAQYDRiXBRjcBBjeBBjgBNgBAZgDAIgGAZAGE7oGBggBEAEYCZIHBTEuMC4yoAe_Fg&sclient=gws-wiz-serp

Reading recommendations

The Four Agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz – Discusses how limiting beliefs hold people back, and how four simple agreements can break free of those limitations.