"Self-Love and the Rubber Band model"

 "Self-Love and the Rubber Band model"

Olivia resented two things in life; Mirrors and photographs of herself. When she looked in the mirror, she saw a complexion that was too dark and a nose that was too large. She lived her life believing that she was never good enough, which caused her misery, and kept her from living the life she dreamt of. Sadly, she never saw how beautiful she really was. If she had seen her true beauty, she could have found happiness, true love, and the strength to live a fulfilling life.

Unfortunately, in all of us, there is a little bit of Olivia struggling to find love and feel accepted.

Self-love is one of the fundamental building blocks for love, happiness and success in life. It influences who you pick for a mate, the image you project at work and how you cope with the problems in your life.

Have you ever noticed that when you start to make a change in your life, it seems like things get worse?

For example you make a commitment to love yourself more and loved ones begin to think you are being selfish, you decide to change your wardrobe and thoughts of being extravagant pull you back, you begin to work hard towards a promotion at work and your colleagues think you are spying on them,  you commit to get out there to date and you are immediately faced with many wrong matches! You get married and your girlfriends desert you! This might seem like bad luck but in actual sense you are facing what we call the  Rubber band effect of personal growth.

You are moving out of your comfort zone and the fears that once kept you stuck are trying to pull you back to safety.

The rubber band conditions you to expand your awareness and is actually an ally in moving you forward. Disguised as an enemy this stretching and pulling builds your character, confidence and courage to fully accept and love yourself.

 Application of the Rubber band effect to self love.

Scenario

Imagine you are Olivia, tangled between 2 rubber bands right now. One rubber band is pulling you forward  towards self-acceptance and love while the other is holding you back to the status quo.

 Each rubber band stretched out to its limit and one is pulling you away and the other closer. Which means you can’t make a move, you are stuck. At this point instead of rushing to make a decision, take a moment to reflect on what are those positive things that are drawing you away from your current dilemma? List them down.

Again take a moment and list down all those positive thoughts that are holding you to the status quo.

Once the 2 lists are fully exhausted, review the options and your responses and decide which alternative option is the strongest and then decide.

This model looks at the positive aspects of each option instead of focusing on the negative which creates biases.

As we conclude, loving yourself is magical, it’s a divine relationship that will help you radically improve every single aspect of your life. And using the rubber band model, we can shed off old layers of our old self to step into our true essence. When we generate enough strength during the times of resistance, we can then break the rubber band and step into a fresh new you.

Ref: The decision book: 50 Models for Strategic Thinking, authored by Krogerus M. and Tschappeler, R (2012) we read about the Rubber band Model.

CC3 speech- Get to the point

By Irene Naikaali