Self Matters: Creating Your Life from the Inside Out

I'm one of the few who has not seen Dr. Phil on TV except for brief bits and I have not read his other books. I bought this book because of its title, good reviews, and because I was undergoing severe problems with relatives that forced me to do research. Buying Self Matters was the BEST DECISION on a self-help book that I EVER made. Dr. Phil's main point is simple: a person may be unhappy and tormented by internal pain but we create our lives "from the inside out." We have one shot on this earth and face a simple choice: are we going to live our lives as we would truly like to live them or are we going spend our time here being defined, "typecast," hammered down, discouraged, de-energized -basically, CONTROLLED -- by outside forces(relatives, friends, expectations and past events)? Do you live according to what he calls the "authentic self" or do you live a life and identity others have given you, much like a casting director fills a part? And how to do you find out what you REALLY want and who you REALLY are (not how friends and relatives typecast you)? Here are several big reasons why you MUST buy Self Matters:1. DR. PHIL WALKS THE WALK: He changed his life. Originally he'd start each day unexcited, not proud of who he was since "everything I was doing was chosen to please other people by meeting their expectations while totally ignoring my own...I knew I wasn't living the life I was meant to live." He realized he had "betrayed who I was and instead accepted a fictional substitute that was defined from the outside in. I betrayed myself, and mine was a life and an experience that was a fraud and a fiction."2.HE GIVES YOU SPECIFICS THAT IMMEDIATELY GET ANSWERS: He writesin "tough love" style, including exercises and tests that help you take stock of who you REALLY are. He helps you painstakingly trace the key influences in your life, defining moments (good and bad), influential people, pivotal choices you made that led to who you are now -- and then shows you how to make NEW choices and create NEW behaviors to create new, more productive results...and live the life you were truly MEANT to live.3. USE IT AS POTENT MENTAL SELF DEFENSE for when people try to force you into roles or define you as THEY wish to define you -- whether in the job they expect you to do, the personality traits and flaws they insist you to have, the negative predictions they make about you or your success. "You can't be you if you don't know you," he writes.4. IT WILL CALM YOU: Living for your fictional self, he writes, "is a dangerous state of being that diverts, absorbs, and robs your life energy." People "sell out" and get used to "living an assigned role, rather than living " to who they really are.5. IT HELPS YOU DISRUPT MENTAL TERRORISTS IN YOUR LIFE: He teaches you to be acutely aware of the negative mental "tapes(values, beliefs and experiences) constantly playing over and over in your head, limiting you. And, most IMPORTANTLY: how to detect "life scripts" that others may be forcing on you --a set of instructions telling you how to run your life, based on THEIR fixed beliefs...including how things will turn out for you (more often then not you are given the message that you will fail or risk or change is doomed and these will be stated to you as FACT and reality).6. MY PERSONAL TESTIMONY ON HIS IDEAS: Twelve years before reading this book I quit nearly 20 years in journalism to become an entertainer (ventriloquist). I now realize in reading Self Matters that I unknowingly had applied his techniques. They WORK. And I have no regrets. But the biggest problem I have since faced are "tapes" still playing in my head, put on "play" by others, who constantly also bombard me with the life's scripts drawn up many years ago, defining me THEIR way. I bought Self Matters while being battered by relatives' life's scripts. These activated my internal mental "tapes," bigtime. Reading this book saved me from immobilizing depression this summer. After reading Self Matters, to my genuine surprise, I could quickly pinpoint when the internal "tapes" played, and when I was being pressured to be the character cast in one of their "scripts" (typecast in countless ways). I realized it did not reflect reality. Today they still try to define me with life scripts drawn up decades ago. But it's harder for them to succeed : I know who I am INSIDE -- and it's not who they think I am. I think they'll just have to cast another actor...

All just fine.

I purchased this for my mother who, for over 25 years, had lived with physical, emotional, and mental abuse from my stepfather. He was controlling her every move (I mean, looking at store receipts to see when she left and how long it took her to get home). He dictated when she could call us, her children, when she could see us, where she worked and when - which was in HIS business.He was and still IS NUTS!!! After my mother left him he literally wrote letters to the FBI saying that while my mother lived with him, she tried to poison him (we have the copies). Moron didn't know that the doctors can do a hair follicle test to see if there's any poison in his body. Instead he told the FBI that a doctor told him that there's no evidence of poison in his body because too much time went by. Luckily the FBI did not believe a word of his ramblings.It took my sister, my husband, and I over 20 years to get her away from him, and we finally succeeded. She's been away from him now for almost 4 years.Unfortunately now, my mother feels lost, worthless, and unhappy.My mother defines who she is by accomplishments such as education. I disagree. I know happy people who have never held a job. I know security guards happy with their lives and doctors who are miserable.My mother has worked her whole life, from the time she was 14. She lives in the past and regrets not "being smart", not going to school, not being ambitious. She's 57. She had me, her first child at 19 and worked her butt off. I don't know, or see, when she would've had the time to do anything else other than work. Not only that, she was born in Eastern Europe; didn't come to the States until she was 34, where, again, she HAD TO work.I, and most people would think she has accomplished quite a bit, but what do I know, I'm only her daughter.Now that she is divorced and not working, she believes she is literally nothing. I certainly don't agree.Anyway... I know... TMI.I had never been a fan of Dr. Phil. He seemed arrogant; HOWEVER, I have since changed my opinion. I don't agree with him on everything, but I feel he tells it like it is.I gave my mother this book on CD and I asked her what she thought. She said that it is as if Dr. Phil wrote this book specifically for her. I drives me crazy because what Dr. Phil says in this book, I have been telling my mother for years. I guess it's the messenger and not necessarily the message.It is a great, tell it how it is, book. If you're willing to find it within yourself to forgive yourself, change and move on, this is a great, informative book.Well worth every penny

Like Dr.Phil

I usually don't read these types of books, and I found it very interesting, insightful, and useful. This book can help us reflect on what we often miss in today's society. We need to be aware of who we are in order to make life's most important decisions. This book provides a guide, or vehicle for those who want to more accurately know who they are. (This book is not for everyone but is for most folks.)The physical mirrors we look into can actually become walls that obstruct us. Our true self is not what we see but our thoughts, motivations, and fears we have in our heads as we go through life in relationships, career, family, making decisions etc. Our past experiences do make a major portion of who we are today, and how we perceive life and relate to the people in our lives. This is not a psycho-babble, new-age, inner-self "soup" book in any way. It is an aid to help us be more introspective in our lives.Today, most of us are so busy that we don't have the time, or the awareness to look at the many experiences and people that have shaped our lives and outlooks, both past and present. It is simply too easy today to get distracted by our daily routines. For the many of us that are living unauthentic lives, our time is inadvertently consumed by commutes, long hours at work, television, booze, Prozac, and the one week vacation at the resort a couple of months down the road. If we are more aware of ourselves, then we can focus on how it makes us who we are, and how we can deal with it, grow with it, and turn our knowledge of our true self into wisdom, and make better decisions in our life. It is a very helpful book.

He's v. good in some areas. - A bit too Aristotelian ( limiting by using 2 valued logic, rather than multi valued logic ) He seems to think that information overload ( as a result of I.T. ) is THE big problem. While it's a problem ( as in much information on the internet is from confused people ), it's still better than the previous problem of NO information ! - As in our society sets us up with a LEARNING DEFICIT e.g. the conventional education system is more interested in providing more "cogs for the kr@pitalist machine" rather than helping us to cope with our dysfunctional societies & have @ least some chance of a happy fulfilling life ! While McGraw is good @ giving a fuller more systematic understanding of ( Eric Berne's "Transactional Analysis" - "Life Scripts" etc.), he'd become a MUCH better psychologist if he learned MUCH more about the ORIGINAL cause(s) of our original problem by reading Alice Miller ! Who explains that our problems result from poisonous pedagogy ( instruction). She specifically uses that word because the problem extends beyond toxic parenting, as relatives & teachers, etc. contribute to it. Conventional psychology ( much of which is little better than a pseudo scientific ideology ) doesn't want to face up to the problem(s) that Miller exposed & so is of little use - though while Miller explains why we're so screwed up, Abraham Maslow explains what we could achieve if we weren't. Though I haven't really got into him yet, John Bowlby who explained "Separation Anxiety" etc, seems helpful. Also the Exeter Family Study did a very good job of explaining the EXTREME damage caused to children by divorce ( though sadly, some seek to dilute what that study said, to the point of making it appear uselss ! - though the original report is still valid ) e.g. In the areas of difficulty in future relationships, keeping a job, heath, etc the problems of children of divorce were up to FIFTEEN times worse than other children who's parents argue, etc - & that rather shoots down in flames the arguments by women who seek divorce on the grounds "I'm only doing it for the sake of the children" - I will grant that excuse is based on poor quality social reports from the '50s - '60, but the fact remains that a LOT of women were rather too eager to blame men for what were actually problems caused by their own parents ! ( In direct contrast to the realities I attempt to point out here sadly, divorce has now become a socially acceptable way of abusing children ! ) Tying in with, & reinforcing Alice Miller's books, in 1945 Kurt Lewin did a psychology report on boys @ a U.S. Boy Scouts summer camp on different styles of leadership ( which equates with parenting ) styles. Of the three styles tried, kids did NOT like laissez faire ( where parents/leaders do nothing & refuse to be involved ). They HATED authoritarianism ( yet 70 years later, when using public transport, or in shops-supermarkets this is CLEARLY the preferred means of control by most parents. All too often I see kids dragged round while the parents shop, until the children are clearly physically exhaused. but as soon as they vocalise their distress, the parent(s) goes / go straight into over control ! This IS abuse & healthily, the kids resist it. Which leads straight to the dreaded "terrible twos" where the kids spirit is crushed. Then, about a dozen years later, whrn the children have reached their early teens, when they're stronger & a little wiser, that lost battle for independence & the right to be treated with dignity & the respect they deserve is renewed... The third style of parenting - leadership in the experiment was DEMOCRATIC - & guess what? The kids LOVED it. So now we know where each generation gets it wrong & screws up the next generation. And this is the true source of human "evil" that has existed for FAR too many millenmia - for how long will this folly continue? While I would qualify Mc Graws book, I'd still recommend it !

I found this a bit hard goin- mainly becuse I am a retired pensioner and feel it is a bit late for me to change re work and young life. Would recommend it to someone younger and working though. He is easy to read and as usaul writes so well you feel he is talking to you alone.

I really enjoyed the earlier parts of the book which made an impression on me and made me think, however I lost interest in the later chapters. I would be interested in trying some of the author's other works though.

I like Phil McGraw and his programmes and books make very good sense. I have long since given this book away to a friend, but sometimes Phil's voice asking me'So how is it workin' for ya?' still reverberates round my head.

I started this book with great enthusiasm but it took a long time to do the exercises and didn't find any explanations afterwards. I give 2 stars as the concepts are interesting.