Note-you will receive more value from the blog articles if you have begun the Self-Discovery Confidence Building Workbook. The concepts are relevant whether your concern is anxiety, depression, addictions, anger or weight issues. A lack of self-confidence and belief in the self are significant factors in all life challenges. 

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I absolutely love the concept of original potential and I hope that you have reviewed this section in the workbook.

I love it because it lets us to get a better understanding of the two dynamic forces that shape our current reality. One the one hand, we are each born with amazing capacities and yet, we often allow external influences (what I refer to as social programming)  to supersede our well-being.

It is important to know that when we are connected to our original potential we experience more energy, passion, productivity, and creativity. In sum, life is just better when we make the effort to reconnect with this part of us.

Our original potential is that part of us that was present at birth before circumstances, conditioning and the influence of early programmers (and ongoing programming we are impacted by as adults) began to influence our sense of self. Early programming is the result of data input from those in authority-parents, teachers, media etc. This social programming molded our mindsets about life in general, and specifically, our ability to navigate it (absorbed self-identity). Later, as adults, we continue to be vulnerable to suggestion from the world around us. During times of high stress we often lack the necessary critical thinking needed to sift and sort information and naturally fall back to a default mode that often in is not in our best interest.

But we need to realize that we each have stored, within us,  amazing capacities and talents; we each have a natural inclination to be well and do well. Our original potential is the highest part of our being. We began this life with an ability to move naturally and freely into this potential.

So, what on earth happened to this magnificent part of us?

Shame/blame and social conditioning  play havoc with potential. This begins at an early age when the individual takes on a self-image. Most people spend their lives half alive with the best parts of themselves having been put on the back burner. As we grow older our primitive mind naturally deletes and distorts data that is not congruent with the adopted self-image. We allow this because it can feel as though it just takes too much damn energy to create better mindsets and behaviors.

But, I think that this disconnection from original potential is the reason we see so much pain and suffering in our society. As a species we have learned to deal with the disconnection by taking on anxiety, anger, stress, depression and addiction responses. The poor state of our relationships and health can be directly linked back to our lack of connection to who we truly are, what we deeply want, and what we are really capable of.

In many ways we have strayed away from what is possible for us .

Terri Lee Cooper MSc. RSW