Are you living in fear?

Early in my career, my employer sent me to seminar on the psychology of selling. In essence, it was a course in manipulation. In words that made the act sound positive, we were taught to instill fearful beliefs in our customers so they, in an effort to end their discomfort, would buy our products.

Before we whipped them into a frenzy of insecurity, we garnered their trust by putting them on a pedestal. The formula was simple, tremendously effective and left me feeling like a schmuck.

The same manipulation formula is applied to us daily by our money & media driven culture. Television, radio, magazines, the internet and even our telephones bombard us with the message that we are inherently inadequate.

Pretty colors, friendly voices, snappy jingles and actors who seem to really care, assure us that though we are patently inferior we can, with their help, be better.

Here are a few of the pain statements, or lies, that lower our confidence and cause us to spend:

• Healthy bodies (not unhealthy and not rail thin) are unattractive.
• Getting older is a bad, bad thing.
• If you don’t look like you’ve just stepped off a fashion runway, you’re unappealing
• People naturally smell bad.
• Time is running out!! Hurry!
• You aren’t smart or qualified enough.
• If you feel sad that means you’re depressed and only drugs can really help.
• You’re going to get sick and have lots of health problems.
• If you’re single, you’re a loser.
• If your house doesn’t smell like chemicals, it’s not clean and you fail as a homemaker.
• You can’t succeed if you don’t have enough hair.
• You’re incompetent, therefore you can’t handle things yourself.

These beliefs are so entrenched in some people that they think they actually thought of them. Instead of living life based on the precept I am enough, they constantly pursue an unattainable state of perceived adequacy.

Imagine the shift in happiness and success that would occur if the energy invested in curing false beliefs was instead directed at pursuing the desires of our hearts.

Don’t sit idly by and let media messages slip into your belief systems unchecked. Pay attention. Recognize the manipulation and reject it. Affirm the truth to yourself and to your children.

You are inherently enough and the key to your success and happiness is within.

~ Cynthia