In order to realize your abilities, you need to become more confident in yourself. But where is the point of support? Psychophysiologist Vadim Rotenberg is sure that the study of family history, which we so often brush aside, will help to know oneself and reveal unrealized potential.
Our successes depend not only on abilities, desire to achieve something and life circumstances. They still depend to a large extent on how we see ourselves.
Once an outstanding hypnotist Vladimir Raikov, with whom I had a chance to cooperate, conducted a study. He suggested to the subject, a highly hypnotizable man, that he was Paul Morphy, one of the greatest chess players in history. Then Raykov sat him down to play chess with a real brilliant chess player, our contemporary Mikhail Tal.
«Resurrected Paul Morphy» was not at all surprised that he was playing with the world champion. Indeed, who is Tal — in the era of Morphy, no one knew him. The hypnotized one played very confidently, like a grandmaster with a beginner. Then he played with Tal without hypnotic suggestion.
Later, Tal admitted that in the state of hypnosis, the subject played about two discharges more strongly than in the normal state. In the second part of the experiment, he literally cringed with uncertainty in every move, realizing who his partner was and who he was.
High self-esteem, even without real grounds, reveals hidden potential in a person. Raikov’s suggestion did not make the subject as capable as Paul Morphy. But it gave me self-confidence, which allowed me to realize my abilities. This sense of self is exactly what many of us lack. It is not at all necessary to turn to hypnotists for it. There are many ways to achieve this without outside help, although the evaluation of others plays a big role in this.
The feeling of connection with the ancestors who successfully built a life helps to feel protected by loved ones.
Everyone has experience of past successes and achievements. It is important to remember this with each new test.
And there is another potential point of support. Even when we find ourselves alone, we are not isolated from the family from which we came. The study of family history can provide an inspiring insight into genetic roots and the potential that comes from them, though not yet realized.
Feeling connected to our ancestors, who successfully built our lives in accordance with the values we share, helps us to feel surrounded and even protected by loved ones.
Many people are interested in family history, even if they do not think about genetics and do not know about its role in shaping personality. Why? Because they feel a connection with relatives, even strangers, long dead. People learn about them sometimes quite by accident from the stories of relatives and friends, from letters lost in family archives.
Yes, they have been gone for a long time, I will never meet them, but I wonder what kind of people they were, what they were interested in and did, how their relations with others developed, what was their fate. Maybe I’m something like them? And by learning more about them, I can better understand myself?
This hope is often not realized, but the feeling of connection with blood relatives is present. And if we find out that in the past one of them behaved unworthily, it can be more difficult for us to forget about it than about the mean act of someone from today’s life.
But on the other hand, in those cases when they can be admired, when they successfully realized themselves in some kind of activity, when in difficult circumstances they boldly defended their values that are close to us, we feel pride, as if we ourselves were involved in this. But why «as if»? These are our loved ones, and what is ours plays an important role in self-awareness.
I know cases when random information about previously unknown relatives changed a person’s idea of himself. One woman believed all her life that she was unlucky with the family in which she was born. Her father was really insensitive and immoral, people tried not to associate with him. The woman thought that his parents were the same, and she always felt the «fatal pressure of the family.» Her mother was also a difficult person.
Harmonious inclusion in the circle of relatives allows you not to feel abandoned and opposing the world
The daughter lived in a vacuum and even wondered how she manages to be different. And suddenly, after the death of her father, she accidentally met her cousin on her father’s side. He told her the story of their family. It turned out that the father had brothers and sisters, but the daughter did not even know about it.
She realized that she naturally fits into this family of nice and warm people. Her father was an exception. Other family members did not get along with him, so she did not know about them. She became very interested in the «new» relatives and suddenly felt like a stranger in this world.
For self-identification, it is important to know and love the circle to which you belong by birth. Harmonious inclusion in this circle allows you not to feel abandoned and opposed to the world. Love for loved ones helps to love yourself.