Master your self esteem #2.
- Born with high self esteem child.
- Low self esteem, effects.
- The cause of low self esteem.
- How to build high self esteem.
When we experince low self esteem, it becomes so hard to just express ourself, there is so much self doubt that our voice start to crumble, our body start to close, and we start to filter our words so we don’t end up saying something wrong.
And because a we are feeling very insecure, and unworthy inside, instead of exploring, living and engaging with life, which is kind of our nature, we start to live within our circle of familiarity, and then rationalise and justify.
But interestingly, we were not born like that, infect if you look a child, any child, you will notice, every child has a very healthy self esteem. He is completely comfortable expressing himself. Even too comfortable. He can scream, cry, Laugh, he can walk naked in the middle of crowed without any insecurity. And this is as high as your self esteem goes.
So the first question become why we have low self esteem now, we certainly didn’t born that way, and if you look into it you will find what happens with us is conditioning,
As we grew up, everybody around us told us what is right, what is wrong, how we suppose to be, how we not suppose to be, and based on that information, and our need of acceptance.
we end up creating this image inside our mind that how we suppose to be, and because we truly believe this is how we suppose to be, we start to judge ourself based on that image.
So fundamentally insecurites comes from comparing your action with that image and then judging and rejecting yourself.
now if you take a look into the image you think you suppose to be, first thing you will notice is most of the things we think we suppose to be is simply not true and then it is not even consistent. Because we built this using opinions of so many different people, society, media, we have so many different conflicting thread inside our image.
An oversimplified example would be, I end up believing I suppose to socilaze with every one. I also believe I should always be authentic to myself. so now if someone come sit in front of me and I ignore her, I judge myself based on I should be socializing and If I do I am judging that I should be authentic to myself and do what I was doing. And this is very simplified example, in reality for every thread of our image we have dozens of conflicting thread.
So how do we get out of it, and cultivate a strong self esteem.
The first thing we need is awareness, that this is happening inside our head. we have this image that we thing we suppose to be and then we are always judging ourself against. Low self esteem isn’t something you just happens to have ,There is always cause and effect and this judgement and rejection against an image is the cause of low self esteem.
Once you have this awareness, you would notice you can’t stop the judgement. You can’t say from now on I will not judge myself, its a natural process and its not inside your circle of control. Nor you can change that image which is the product of decade of repetitions.
But atleast what we can do is intentionally don’t do something what we know is wrong. For example stealing, lying, manuplating. bracuse wether you are aware or not, you will end up cultivating low self esteem.
So when I start to understand, I made a conscious choice that I will licence all my softwares. If I could not afford that licence I will use some free open source version, even though that requires double the effort and half the productivity, and If even that didn’t work I will leave the project and do something else. But I will not use pirated versions. Not because I am some sort of extreme moral person. Because I don’t want any more self rejection.
And as you started to doing it, You will notice something very incridble happens in your mind. The self judgement is stil there, but instead of self-rejectction it becomes self-respect. And that will turn your self esteem upside down. It becomes foundation for strong self esteem.
And as you do more and more of that. You will notice your personal power start to increase. And with that personal power you can change that image we think we suppose to be, into more realistic and healthy.
To sum it up. Low self esteem isn’t something that just happens. Nothing just happens, there is always cause and effect. And the cause of having low self esteem is to have an image inside our head that we think we suppose to be, and then comparing and rejecting ourself.
And to reclaim our healthy self esteem we first need to be aware that this is happening inside our head. And then stop doing things we know is wrong, now that becomes the cause for self - respect, and that self respect becomes the foundation for high self esteem.
So the point is you can’t stop judgment, but when you stop doing the wrong things and start doing the right things, whatever that is according to your image, that judgement turn from self - rejection to self -respect And that self respect turns your self esteem upside down. You start to feel better, you start to trust yourself and it becomes easy to express your self.
And it isn’t that it feels good inside and ease of expression, but it start to increases your personal power and now you can change the image inside your head or maybe even transcend the tyranny of self judgment all together.
For example you might end up believing that you suppose to always respect your parents, and lets say your parents are very abusive. You are naturally going to feel angry, but because you believed you should always feel respect toward your parents. So you end up believing you should not feel that way, and then judging and rejecting yourself. What kind of person I am. And now you don’t trust your self, how would you feel comfortable expressing yourself.
So fundamentally this is the problem, we have an image that we think we suppose to be, and if our actions are not matching there is a self rejection, because now we know we are not what we suppose to be, we don’t trust ourself, and because we don’t trust ourself, we feel insecure, and this is what low self esteem is.
So how do we get out of it.
First thing you need to understand that you can’t just decide I am not going to judge myself, nor you can change your belief within a day.
One thing we can do is to make sure that we intentionally don’t do something that we know is wrong. Lieing, stealing, manuplating. Not because of morality, but because that will create strong self - judgement inside you. Wether you have awareness to see it or not. It doesn’t matter matter if we understand gravity or not, gravity always work.
So for me as I start to notice, I made a conscious choice, that I will buy my softwares, so I have purchase the lincense of photoshop
And this is just opposite of self rejection, it becomes self respect. And once you have more power you can recreate the image in your head in a way that serve you.