ideal image

An ideal image is an inner image that is artificially constructed and therefore unreal. 
Unhappiness and lack of self-confidence are here interconnected.

 Although the ideal image has been developed to boost your lack of self-confidence, this is counterproductive in your life.

First, you can never respond to your ideal image, with the result that your self-confidence will become new dents.
Secondly, you give that a sense of guilt, because you know unconsciously that you are unreal. Shame arises because you pretend to be something you are not.

Because this process does not take place consciously, you always prove yourself again. You also need appreciation from others to boost your lack of self-confidence, which makes you very dependent and increases your self loss.

This creates a mask, an artificial personality that is built up and that holds the outside world as if it were the real you. Often you do not know this yourself anymore, because you also mix artificial emotions in it, to make your mask seem real. The ideal image governs this masquerade that you have to do better than you really are.

In addition, there is a continuous climate of criticism of yourself, it is never good or enough what you do and are, always more and better. This is difficult to bear, so you are going to blame the world or the other person. Then there is the disappointment that this system is not working and the shame about it. You do not want to become aware of that, because that is too intense until you find yourself in a situation where you succumb to this burden.

Ultimately, you have to continuously prove yourself and you can not be persevering, you get tired of it, sick, depressed, miserable. A personal crisis is usually based more on this than on external circumstances. Look at your ideal image in fear and depression, in the way that it tyrannises you.

So you have to solve the ideal image to find your real self, but often you will immediately encounter resistance, because your real self is not as perfect as your ideal image. However, perfection does not exist and the reality is that you are imperfect.
The best is to accept this reality, that you are as you are with all your imperfections, that gives peace and peace to yourself and gives you the space to get further into the reality of yourself.

For coaching with inner images:
http://www.innerlijke-beelden.nl