Desensitizing yourself to the comments and energy of others
Being sensitive to the comments and energies of others causes a
nervous response in our bodies. Typically, instead of fearing physical
death from fellow humans these days, we fear his or her words, which
we allow to kill us slowly.

Reflect on this, how many times have you
allowed someone’s comments, constructive or not, to alter your state
of mind and thus your health?

If we cannot control how we respond to
others, we cannot control our bodies and give ourselves the divine
state of health that the Universe so generously wishes to afford us.
As a person with acne, it easy to feel attacked by the comments of
others.

The first line in protecting ourselves from such comments is to
return trust to our bodies and turn a deaf ear to the negativity of others.

These suggestions are not so easy to implement because as with
anything in life that’s worth doing once, it is worth repeating.
At first, or in the past you may have taken the criticism of others
personally and internalized it.

This negative energy is very destructive
and even deadly in the body. Its presence requires a cleansing of the
psychological type.

No, I am not a psychologist nor do I profess to
offer services as such, but I do know that unchecked sensitivity to the
comments of others can wreck havoc on your life. If you have acne,
you may have the same awareness. How do we desensitize ourselves
to the energies of others?

Easy, we start to trust ourselves again and
our own bodily knowledge.

To illustrate, if someone tells you: “Your skin looks horrible, are you
doing anything to get it fixed?” You can respond, “I am taking care of
my body and my body is taking care of me.” Understand me, I know
this statement can seem incredibly difficult at first to say and even
moreso to believe.

That’s is why we repeat this message of trust over
and over again to our body. Meanwhile you may be thinking, “I’ve had
acne for years, how am I supposed to believe that my body’s suddenly
going to start healing itself?”

That, my friend, is the point. Have you trusted your body in the past to
heal you or were you seeking out some drug or skin care treatment to
free your skin of the acne presence?

If you are still looking for some
drug or magic cream, you’re kidding yourself and telling your body
that it is useless. I had an awakening experience the day I decided that
I would not pay another dime to anyone to “get rid” of my acne.

Instead, I declared to my acne, “Acne, you’re here to tell me
something, and by all the power that resides in me I am going to find
out what it is.” Thus began my journey into healing and decoding of
the acne messages.

I began to trust my body to tell me what it needs. At the same time I
practiced a more holistic lifestyle that included elimination dieting,
occasional fasts, eating less meat and altering my skin care regime.
Now, I even talk to my body in different ways. If I develop a zit I ask
myself questions such as:

• Am I eating the right proportions of food?
• Am I exercising enough?
• Did I take someone’s criticism too seriously?
• Am I being negative to myself? (This can take
  several forms such as not accepting praise, to
  criticizing yourself, to needing to consume the
  proper nutrients)
• Am I nervous about something?
• Am I enjoying my work?
• Do I need an internal cleansing?
• Am I making the most of everyday so that I feel
  relaxed at night and rest well?

Thus when you encounter a new pimple, you should be able to reflect
on your life to decode what type of message is arriving with the
pimple. Again we do this by trusting our bodies and treating it better
than we did in the past.

If you have viewed or continue to view acne as
a trap that prevents you from enjoying life, perform the following
exercise to help free yourself from destructive physical and mental
constructs.

The charts are divided into three parts: The Question, Your Response,
and Follow-up Activity. Ask yourself the question and write your
response in the space below, or in your journal better yet.

Then perform the follow-up activities to start breaking the restrictive
thinking and habits that result from your acne condition.

Restriction Question

• What activities do you prevent yourself from partaking in because
  you have acne?
• Your Response

Follow-up Activity

Imagine yourself with clear skin and enjoying these activities.
Imagine the people around you praising you.

Tell yourself you deserve to do what makes you happy. Acne is not a
prison sentence. It is a message. Free yourself from this phony trap.
Do what you love to do! It is your birthright!

Build up your self-confidence (using the healing exercises) so that
you can begin enjoying these activities one by one.

Calming Effects Question

• Are there times when your acne is less active? What are you doing
  during these times? What is your atmosphere like? Who are you
  with? What do you do?

Your Response

Follow-up Activity

Take note of what conditions make your acne less active. It could be
things such as taking with an old friend, which comforts you. It may
be going to the beach and relaxing. It could happen after eating a
certain dish.

Test such a theory with an elimination diet (see Elimination diet
section). The method here is to surround yourself with the entities
that make your acne less active and to understand what influence
these persons, places or things have on your mood, interpersonal
dialogue and acne.

Aggravating Effects Question

• Are there times when you acne is more active? What are you doing
  during these times? What is you atmosphere like? Who are you with?
  What are you doing?
• Your Response

Follow-up Activity

The same concepts as listed in the previous question are applicable
here.

Decide what makes your acne more active. It may be conversations
with a certain person, eating a certain food, not doing something you
love doing like hiking or writing in your journal.
Also, you may be holding onto criticism to seriously.

Regaining My Confidence Question

• How do you feel you life would change if you did not have acne?
• Your Response

Follow-up Activity

Ask yourself, is acne in control of your life or do you control the
acne?

You control the acne because you interpret its messages. Sometimes
we are our greatest enemies. We imagine that other people’s opinions
of us matter. Everyone has an ego and to be honest we care way too
much about what someone else may think about us.

But the reality of
the matter is that judgmental people really do not care about us.
Another person may look at us for a second and form an opinion
about us, but all this is forgotten seconds later.

Are you going to let someone’s millisecond thought about you lock
you away from doing what you love? No. Look at yourself with your
own eyes and say, “I love you.”

This love nourishes and protects.
Forget about trivial societal sentiments about how you should look.

Yes, that’s hard to do but you have to take care of you first before
you can even begin to care about what others think of you.

My advice is, if others don’t have to be concerned about the intimate details of
your life such as how you are going to afford to eat, cloth yourself
and pay your bills, do not give them the right to say when you look
good enough to go out and enjoy yourself.

In truth, if someone is judging you, this person does not care about
you on this intimate level so forget about his potentially destructive
opinions of you. Take control of your life by controlling how you
respond to life.