This stren deals with: emotional self-endorsement

     Good feelings stir us to continued action.  Immediate satisfaction is critical to sustain the work and practice required to attain the natural rewards of virtually every important skill, viz. getting an education, sustaining a relationship, keeping physically fit, playing a musical instrument, growing a garden, and growing our capacity for loving our self and others.  Emotional endorsement is the main source of immediate satisfaction to enjoy the work we do now in order to attain more satisfaction later.  Knowing we are doing something worthwhile is intellectual endorsement; its satisfaction is usually weaker than emotional joy.  Joining emotional endorsement to intellectual endorsement provides the most effective incentive to continue our efforts.

     How often have you known what you believed was wisest and preferred to do, but instead did what felt better right at that time?  Get the idea?  Understanding simply isn’t enough!

     Few persons know how to emotionally endorse themselves.  We get little training in this skill.  You know how to say to your self, “I did a good job,” or, “That was nice,” but after you say those things you go right on to the next worry or problem to be solved.  You don’t extract all the honey you can from your efforts.  Yet you are probably more than well-developed in the opposite of emotional self-endorsement, self-blame.  When you became intellectually aware of a shortcoming, you experienced guilt, shame, or embarrassment within every fiber of your being.  Most are so practiced at blaming-in that the negative feelings come automatically, seemingly without effort or intention.  Could you imagine that you can teach your self to create “feeling good” with the same ease that you “naturally” feel guilty, embarrassed, ashamed or depressed?  You can! ... if you become aware of how to endorse your self emotionally and practice doing so.

     Since you know how to emotionally blame your self, you already have the skills for emotional endorsement.  The problem is that you direct your emotional endorsement to others.  Think of the times you’ve expressed your self in such a way as to stimulate a response from your [a] dog -- you know how to get that dog to wag its tail, shake its behind, and get thoroughly excited.  You’ve probably called forth great enthusiasm in doing the same kind of thing with a child.  You’ve even emotionally endorsed food.  “Wow! Look at that fantastic, gooey ice cream creation!”  Recall the enthusiasm with which you’ve applauded a great musical performance or cheered for your team at a sports event.  You just haven’t had much direction and experience in emotional self-endorsement, in “wowing” your self.  The skill is there.  It simply needs to be directed to your self.  Most people are familiar with directing emotional blame to themselves, but unfortunately they were taught that it’s “selfish” to emotionally endorse themselves.  One man recalled being told, “Praise only counts if it comes from someone else.”  (This is one reason most of us become so dependent on what we imagine others might be thinking about us.)

     When you do something worthwhile (i.e., your “reasonable best,” which is virtually always in your control !!!), could you imagine a gala brass band marching down Main Street?  Two people are carrying a banner that stretches across the whole street with streamers being tossed about and people are cheering you from their windows?  There you are, smack in the middle of the parade, smiling proudly and waving, “Yep, I did it all right.  It was me.”  Such a self-endorsement tool in your repertoire is much more likely to call forth your emotions than an intellectual, flat, “That was O.K.”  Use this image and/or create your own as a regular self-endorsement tool.

     Some people can use or develop their existing creative imagery and fantasy to initiate enthusiasm.  Others find it easier to call forth feelings of joy, inspiration, and enthusiasm from prior experiences.  Make a mental scrapbook of times you’ve felt loved, got a pat on the shoulder, experienced joy, happiness, or enthusiasm.  Permit your self to call these “snapshots” forth to re-create similar good feelings.  Combine past experience with the present creative imagery to develop the results you want. 

     Experiment creating your own skills of emotional self-endorsement.  Try it when you wake up in the morning.  What do you say to your self when you first look in the mirror?  “What a hot sketch I am!”  Or do you presently say something else?  If you are like most people who are practiced in the art of emotionally self-blaming, but are weak in emotionally endorsing your self, apply your conscious awareness to nurture self-endorsement.  Your efforts will be amply rewarded.   Practice!  Practice!  Practice!

Act as if
     “Act as if” is another very effective method to change and/or create new emotions.  Even if you have difficulty experiencing emotional self-endorsement, go through the motions.  Imagine you had a part to play on the stage.  As every actor knows, if you put yourself in the role and go through the motions, the “act as if” gradually becomes “feel as if” and then the “as if” weakens.  A genuinely new sentiment is created.  What successful actors need to learn, so you also can.   

     Remind your self that the old put-me-downs ... “stupid,” “jerk,” “stupid jerk,” “you don’t deserve ...,” “shame,” “asshole,” and so on [what is your favorite put-down word(s)?] call forth powerful emotions that have been thriving many years.  Recognize that you are wise to get rid of the old “demons” so well learned in the past.  Those put-downs now mostly serve as terrorists!  In a sense, you’d be wise to kill them off; become a murderer to the useless baggage you carry with you.  Yes, it’s fun to vigorously attack these intruders ... and you hurt no one in so doing.
 
     So here again, even though you feel the emotions attached to these old put-me-downs, act as if they don’t belong, they are unwelcome!  Take on the role of “good guy” getting rid of the demons, clean out the “bad,” make room for the positive invited guests.  Whether you are strengthening your “attaboy/attagirl” self-endorsing skill or attacking the put-me-downs, your use of the “act as if” technique can help your attitude to become more positive.  However, I believe it is most productive to emphasize directing your energy to creating positive sentiment.  The old demons will wither away if you stop feeding them with your attention and instead direct your energy to creating more muscles of self-endorsement.
[Note: Follow this stren with “Secondary Endorsement” -- it fits right in.]

This stren deals with: secondary endorsement

     Once you recognize the value of self-endorsement and begin to combine both intellectual and emotional self-endorsement, you can initiate the skill of creating good feelings as an effortless habit.  Your task will become much easier if you also develop the skill of secondary endorsement.  Endorse yourself for the very, very worthy act of endorsing your self! 

     Your first experiences with generating emotional self-endorsement will be a bit like forging a path through the jungle.  Unless regularly cultivated, the new path will soon be overgrown.  Not even a trace of the hard-to-cut path will remain.  The long established negligence in taking care of your emotional needs and/or self put-downs re-appear and will, predictably, soon overpower the new. 

     Self-endorsement provides immediate encouragement for constructive acts whose natural rewards may not come until far in the future.  When you endorse your self, you are engaging in one of the most constructive acts available to you.  Therefore, give yourself credit each time you endorse your self.  “Hurrah! Congratulations to me for endorsing my self.  That’s worthy of a special bonus.”

     Secondary endorsement is the opposite of secondary blaming (blaming your self when you realize you’re still putting your self down).  By now, you may be wise enough to label instances of blaming-in, and soon stop putting your self down when you make an error, when you “do what you shouldn’t,” or, “don’t do what you should have.”  But since you, like most people, are a creature of habit, it will be only a matter of time before you recognize you are still blaming your self.  You say, “I’m so stupid; I should have learned that by now!”  This “secondary blaming,” i.e. blaming your self for blaming yourself, is far more persistent than secondary endorsement.  It’s putting your self down because you are aware that you are still putting your self down and you “shouldn’t do that!”  Once you recognize this tendency of, as one person described, “shoulding” on your self, your self-putdowns will become apparent like a blinking light bulb.  “Pull-ups,” i.e. self-endorsements, serve you better than putdowns.   

     Just as secondary blaming is a variation of blaming your self, secondary endorsement is a special variation of self-endorsement.  Instead of pulling your self down with each act of blaming-in, when you endorse your self for endorsing your self, you pull your self up and keep your self up.  Teach your self to become consciously aware of any endorsement you initiate when you do something worthwhile.  As soon as you recognize that you’re endorsing your self, call forth images such as blinking lights, musical accolades, and cheers as your signal to automatically trigger the secondary endorsement you deserve for endorsing your self.  This reinforcement can escalate the intensity of the immediate pleasure you experience and create the energy you need to overcome your old, established, negative patterns.  Once the patterns of blaming, avoidance, worry, and helplessness/hopelessness are established within you, they cling tenaciously until you substitute the positive pattern of self-endorsement.

Practice: Endorse your self again each time you catch yourself endorsing your self.