How to improve your self esteem.

Few days back I saw a child in a super market. He was pretending that the floor is like an ocean and he was swimming. Practically sweaping the floor. Now his pranents seems to be very embarrassed, but that child has no trace of embarrsment. And that is a very high self esteem. He doesn’t care what other people will think or say. He is capable to expressing himself as it is. And we all started like this child, full of self esteem and confidence maybe different degree to different people but something happened as we grew up, that forget sweeping floor with shirt now it is so hard to just express our opnion. So the question is what happened

As we grew up, everbody around us tells us, how we suppose to be, and it is backed by conditional acceptance. For example my teacher told me to be successful I need to compete with everdoby around me and come at number one. And If I come number one, i will be accepted and admired and if not I will be rejected and ignore. Same way our parents, media and sociatey tells us how we suppose to be to be accepted. And a child has a very strong need of acceptance, his very survival depends on it.

What happenes in this process we end up creating an image of perfection, how we suppose to be. And we are constantly judging ourself based on that image. And when we compare and didn’t measure up. That self rejection is what we call low self esteem. This is the reason why a child is so confident to express himself, while an adult is having hard time to express because child has no image to protect while an adult has an image to protect.

And if we look into this image of perfection we find although some information is true, but most of it built upon the false information. And its not even consistent. So in my image of perfection, I end up believing to be normal I should be socialising with everyone. I also believe in I should be authentic. Now I have a problem because these beliefs are contradictory. Now when I am socialising I judging myself based on I am not being authentic. If I am living in solitude I am judging myself based on I should be socialising. So this image is such that no matter what we do we judge ourself. And with the same criteria we judge everybody around us. So now its not just that we are not good enough for ourself, but nobody else is good enough for us.

So what is the solution, one thing we can do is to satisfy this image of perfection, and even if somehow you can satisfy that, you will endup developing pride and ego, and it is not same as ease. What we really need to do is align this image of perfection with reality. Right. For example I am sitting and reading my books, and then there are some people came and sit next to me. And a part of me is screaming that I suppose to be soicalising. Now I know there is a conflict. So this time instead of fighting with it, I simply acknowledge it. ok I believe I should soclize when people are around me. Especially when she is a girl.

What I am getting here is data. So I believe I should be socialising with person sitting next to me. So instead of reacting what I really need to do is to understand this data. Is it true that I need to socilaize with everyone around me, where did I pick this up. Probably from media. And I found that teacher like budha and Vyas are putting a lot of emphasis on silence and especially not engaging in gossips and idle talking. And I also found being a good communicator is important. And this is how I can challange my image of perfection. And adjust it with reality and that can subordinate our feeling in the moment.

So really the message is, if we are going to judge ourself based on this image of perfection and fall short, we are going to judge ourself, reject ourself, and even abuse ourself. Even when we satisfy our inner judge, we end up developing ego and pride, but if we can adjust our image of perfection, we can relase the steam and be at ease while expressing ourself, just like a child.