Does the way you think about yourself change the way you actually are?
Short and glib answer? Hell, yes.
The degree to which it changes who you are, or can change who you are, probably has certain fixed limits. But it seems pretty clear to me that it does work, and can work in startlingly dramatic ways.
But here's an anecdote/illustration for you. My very first real job was as, essentially, an executive assistant. Every so often I had to go out and meet the public as Miss Assistant, and I was a shy and awkward girl. Then some dramatic corporate politics happened, and suddenly the executive was gone and I was the person doing everything he'd previously done. There was some general industry attention, and I was once again meeting the very same public who'd met me as Miss Assistant mere months before.
And I was a different person. I was poised and authoritative and reasonably outgoing; when I spoke people shut up and listened without my consciously doing anything to make them. Part of it came from inside, initially; part of it certainly came from outside, in that people were treating me differently; but even that changed things from the inside because it created a kind of feedback loop. I could feel myself being a different person -- using my body differently, doing different things with my voice -- and even though I was aware of it on some level, it was happening without anything by way of conscious effort or decision.
I tend to think that this, like so much else, will ultimately turn out to have a neurochemical explanation: that the way you think about yourself affects what your body and brain are doing by way of making and using all those chemicals. But whether that's what's going on or not, I think it's a real phenomenon.
Also? When you're coming out of a long illness, feeling normal does seem new. It's an amazing thing, like waking up in a brand new world.
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Short and glib answer? Hell, yes.
The degree to which it changes who you are, or can change who you are, probably has certain fixed limits. But it seems pretty clear to me that it does work, and can work in startlingly dramatic ways.
But here's an anecdote/illustration for you. My very first real job was as, essentially, an executive assistant. Every so often I had to go out and meet the public as Miss Assistant, and I was a shy and awkward girl. Then some dramatic corporate politics happened, and suddenly the executive was gone and I was the person doing everything he'd previously done. There was some general industry attention, and I was once again meeting the very same public who'd met me as Miss Assistant mere months before.
And I was a different person. I was poised and authoritative and reasonably outgoing; when I spoke people shut up and listened without my consciously doing anything to make them. Part of it came from inside, initially; part of it certainly came from outside, in that people were treating me differently; but even that changed things from the inside because it created a kind of feedback loop. I could feel myself being a different person -- using my body differently, doing different things with my voice -- and even though I was aware of it on some level, it was happening without anything by way of conscious effort or decision.
I tend to think that this, like so much else, will ultimately turn out to have a neurochemical explanation: that the way you think about yourself affects what your body and brain are doing by way of making and using all those chemicals. But whether that's what's going on or not, I think it's a real phenomenon.
Also? When you're coming out of a long illness, feeling normal does seem new. It's an amazing thing, like waking up in a brand new world.