friends. Therefore, each of them wrote into the first quadrant of
their Self Matrix something similar to this:
Evelyn and Eric’s Quadrant I
Qualities or capacities you like in yourself
are aware of I
friendly, likable, openhearted,
grateful, value and are committed
to friends and familyYou might be uncomfortable acknowledging your positive
attributes or accomplishments. It may strike you as immodest
to praise yourself. But to unfold our full potential, we need to
fully respect and appreciate our special attributes. Good par-
enting means praising a child’s accomplishments. Acting as
our own internal “parent,” we need to give our subconscious
reinforcing positive inputs that encourage our qualities to grow
and strengthen.
Our projections on film characters help us in this process.
It is often easier to appreciate others than it is to appreciate our-
selves. When we become aware that we value these attributes
in the characters, it will be obvious that it is permissible to do
the same for ourselves too.
For Eric and Evelyn it is easy to respect and appreciate oth-
ers. When they thought about their first quadrant of the Self
Matrix, they learned to appreciate themselves more fully for
their friendliness, openheartedness, ability to commit, and so
on. Both recalled that they are known in their circle of friends
as especially likable people. When they shared these reflec-
tions in our group, the other group members agreed with this
perspective of the two. It became obvious to everyone that this
sharing process made Evelyn and Eric feel very good about
themselves; their eyes sparkled brightly.
Exercise 1: Acknowledging Your Positive Qualities
Revisit your own Film Matrix. Look at Quadrant I“Through our intense,
sometimes inexplicable
feelings or reactions to a
character or plot, we can
recover our own powers
— for both good and evil.”
Marsha SinetarSelf-Discovery Through Film Characters — The Self Matrix 137