My Book corner

so i had decided to share my thoughts and what i learn from the books i have started reading...this is the first of them and maybe one of the best too- Psycho cybernetics by maxwell maltz. i have to say i have got a thing for pyschology and its very attractive to me to read about how to control our minds and become more mentally strong inside... as they say change starts from the inside. i will post about the book as i read.... this is the first preface that i ve read and here are the important things i could share with you all!

Maxwell maltz was a plastic surgeon for many years and has been a lecturer at famous European universities like rome, amsterdam, paris. He is an MD.FICS in plastic surgery. His will to write this book stemmed from an innate need to discover the science of cybernetics as every patient he had given a facelift to always used to feel inferior after the surgery even though his physical looks would improve. What Maxwell observed that —something else?? inside the person was yet unchanged and wont improve the self image of that person even though his face had radically changed.
What he observed was that if the —face of personality?? was changed , if old emotional scars were removed then the person??s self image changed dramatically even without plastic surgery.
He came to the conclusion after studying a lot that a person??s self image or mental and spiritual concept of picture of himself was the real key to his personality and behavior.
Cybernetics — it is a study of goal striving , goal oriented behavior of mechanical systems.it explains what happens and what is necessary in the purposeful behavior of mechanic systems.
According to that relativity Maxwell wants to suggest to use cybernetics in our lives such that to imagine that man has and uses a machine-his brain and nervous system and it can tell us how it functions and how we can use it.

According to Maxwell we can use this book to change our self image for the better as if we can change our self image we can change our personality and behavior.
Cybernetics has a common relation with autosuggestion , clinical psychology, indirect counseling , psychoanalysis as all of these use one creative way or another to change our self image.
The human nervous system cannot tell the difference between an actual experience and an experience imagined vividly and in detail.
The book has been designed not to be read but to be experienced.

when we experience something new engrams and neutral patterns are recorded in the gray cells of our brain.this book has been made to literally make us experience. So the best way to effectively gain from this book is to perform all the exercises and do them regularly for 21 days. It takes 21 days to change a mental image and the author advises to reserve judgement for 21 days atleast and see how the book changes us.
That's all I read for now- the all important preface. Soon I ll post about the chapters as i read them. ty.

I feel like reading this all of a sudden...

Chp1: your self image—key to a better life.
1. All your actions, feelings , behavior are always consistent with your self image.a man who thinks of himself as a failure will always come across failure even if a golden opportunity be dumped on his lap.the self image is a premise or a base upon which your entire personality, behavior and circumstances are built. Because of this our experiences seem to verify , and thereby strengthen our self images and a vicious or beneficient cycle as case maybe is set up.
2. Self image can be changed numerous case histories have shown that one is never too young nor too old to live a new life.

The trouble with a student who always failed his math test was not that he was lacking in basic aptitudes but he was lacking in an adequate self image. So instead of saying —I failed that test?? they would say — I don't have a mathematical mind / I m a natural bad speller?? .

The secret to a good self image is:
You must find yourself acceptable to you. You must have a wholesome self esteem.you must have a self that you can believe in and trust , which you are not ashamed to be. You can express your self creatively and not cover or hide it.you must have a self that corresponds to reality so that you can live effectively in the real world. You must know your strengths and weaknesses and be honest about them to yourself. Your —self?? must be a reasonable approximation of you being neither more than you are neither less.

There is within us all a —life instinct?? which is forever working towards health , happiness. It works through the creative mechanism or the success mechanism built into each human being. Like any servo- mechanism it should have a clear goal or an objective to work upon. The goals that our own creative mechanism seeks to achieve are the mental images or mental patterns which we create by the use of imagination.

So if we feed information to our creative mechanism that we are inferior, unworthy of something then that data is processed and acted upon as any other data in giving us the answer in the form of objective experience.

So the method of improving self image consists of experiencing , practicing, learning new habits of thinking , imagining , remembering and acting inorder to :
1. Develop an adequate and realistic self image.
2. Use your creative mechanism to bring success and happiness in achieving particular goals.