Self LOVE and self-esteem

[shutterbug]

How Do You Feel About Yourself?
Recognizing Signs of High and Low Self-Esteem
by Suzanne E. Harrill

One of the most skipped steps in the healing process is to love yourself. It requires recognizing and addressing the negative feelings you have about yourself. If you want to improve the quality of your life, it requires you at some point to improve how you feel about yourself and to build your self-esteem. Why? Because self-esteem, how warm and loving your feel about yourself, is the foundation of your life.

Read the following paragraph and notice the degree of truth for you. You may feel the statements are true, somewhat true, or false. If they are not true for you, begin the healing process by saying these affirmations often to yourself. This will repattern your inner belief structure over time to give you a different experience of life.

I am a valuable, worthwhile person. I deserve love, respect, good relationships, health, and work that uses my abilities. I am capable of living peacefully with others, able to communicate well, to problem-solve, and to resolve conflict. I forgive myself for not being perfect and learn from my mistakes. As I take positive risks to change within, I notice my outer world changes. I enjoy my life, feel good, and I love the person that I am.

Take a moment to reflect and answer the following questions. How does this paragraph of positive statements make you feel? What are some things that affect or have affected your feelings of self-worth both positively and negatively? Where in your life do you notice feelings of low self-esteem? high self-esteem?

When you do not feel worthy of love, support, help, friendship, and good relationships, to name a few, it sabotages your progress into being a fully functioning adult. Happiness, self-empowerment, satisfaction in work, good relationships, and success are all built on a foundation of healthy self-esteem.

No matter what your challenges are in life, know that you are a valuable, worthwhile human being who deserves love, respect, and happiness. If you have operated upon false assumptions, it may now be time to change your beliefs about yourself to a new level of truth. Then you can experience different results in your life, such as inner peace and self-acceptance, as you face the hand you have been dealt. You may, for example, have struggled with depression or a physical illness and forgotten that who you are, is not your illness. So many of us were taught to base our self-esteem on what we do and not who we are.

Self-esteem is a term that gets bandied around a lot these days. The downside is that self-esteem has become a cliché, an easy label, and therefore easy to ignore. The upside is that almost everyone knows the meaning and importance of self-esteem and that building inner resources improve such things as outer confidence.

Let us look at high self-esteem and low self-esteem so we can get a better understanding of where we are headed and what gets in our way.

High self-esteem is a quiet, comfortable feeling of total acceptance and love for yourself — as you are. It is respecting and valuing yourself as a worthwhile human being, honestly seeing your good and not-so-good qualities, and taking care of and nurturing yourself so you can become all that you are capable of being. High self-esteem is characterized by congruence between inner states (beliefs, feelings, attitudes) and outer states (behavior, relationships, health). When you know and love yourself, you automatically reflect this to others. (The way you treat others is how you treat yourself).

Signs of High Self-Esteem

Having an internal locus of control; getting “okayness” from within, not from others.
Taking care of yourself — physically, emotionally, mentally and spiritually.
Maintaining a balance between extremes of thought, feeling and behavior; when out-of-balance, taking action to correct.
Learning from mistakes and being able to say, “I made a mistake, I’m sorry.”
Managing your life responsibly.
Honoring individual differences among people.
Listening to other points of view.
Taking responsibility for your own perceptions and reactions; not projecting onto others.
Having the ability to listen to your wise inner self (your intuition), and to act on this guidance.
Demonstrating self-respect, self-confidence and self-acceptance.
Knowing your own strengths and weaknesses.
Choosing continuous self-improvement and taking positive risks.
Balancing being and doing.
Feeling warm and loving towards yourself.
Giving and receiving love easily, with no strings attached.
In twenty years as a counselor, I’ve repeatedly witnessed the emotional turmoil, spiritual paralysis, and personal tragedy that can come from deep-seated problems with self-esteem. People with low self-esteem present themselves to the world in a variety of ways. I’ve learned to recognize the signs. Among the most common are extremes in thoughts, feelings and behaviors.

Some people with low self-esteem are overachievers who believe that a high IQ, physical beauty, winning at sports, or being Number One assures emotional well-being. They are often motivated by feelings of inferiority that propel them to seek validation of worth (their own and others) in outer manifestations, like money, power and praise. Others make a practice of devoting all of their time and energy to family and friends and none to themselves. Often they are “giving” for the wrong reasons, with hidden agendas and expectations. Still others believe that they can only earn love by doing something. They evaluate their worthiness based on what they do, not on who they are. Finally, many base their self-worth on the opinions of other people or on outside indicators, like the swings of the stock market.

Signs of Low Self-Esteem

Self-blame, self-criticism, or constantly putting others down through guilt, blame, shame or faultfinding.
Over- or under-achieving, eating, working, doing, etc.
Playing the victim, rationalizing that outside circumstances are the cause of your problems.
Not taking responsibility for your own life, turning power over to another to make decisions for you, then feeling victimized if the results are not to your liking.
Taking undo responsibility for the lives of others; dominating and making decisions for them.
Fear of change and reluctance to take risks, or too much change, taking dangerous, unwise risks.
Constant negativity, or being so optimistic that reality is denied.
Reacting to others with extreme emotion or no emotion.
Boastful, overbearing behavior around others, or inability to maintain integrity during interactions.
Demanding to be “right,” needing to have agreement or have your own way most of the time, or constantly acquiescing to the will and opinions of others.
Constantly comparing yourself to others, and thereby feeling inferior or superior.
Black-white, either-or thinking, e.g. believing that a person is either good or bad based on rigid standards of good and bad behavior.
Having pervasive deep-seated feelings of fear, terror, or panic.
Speaking with lots of shoulds, oughts, could-haves, and yes-buts.
Interpreting the hurtful words or actions of others as proof of your unworthiness.
Since self-esteem is the foundation of your life how do you proceed if it is not strong? If you do not like parts of your life, you have the power to rebuild that foundation. Begin with your beliefs about yourself. Update all that are false or that fail to support your growth and highest good. Remember, you alone have the power to change your inner world. As you gradually accept the truth of these new beliefs, your feelings about yourself will improve. This in turn will affect your actions, accomplishments, and relationships and you will experience more love, joy, abundance, and satisfaction in life. Yes, you will still have your challenges in life and we all do, however, you will view them differently.

It is helpful to summarize by using an acorn analogy to help you love and accept yourself. You are like an acorn, that at each stage of its growth cycle does its best to become a giant oak tree. The acorn can only grow to the degree that it is nurtured by sunlight, rainwater, and nutrients from the soil. But even if its early life is less than ideal, its growth will accelerate at any time proper nutrients become available. You, too, have done the best you can under the unique conditions that have shaped your life thus far. With additional nurturing, self-awareness and self-acceptance — just watch yourself grow!


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Suzanne E. Harrill is a marriage and family therapist, workshop leader, public speaker, and the author of numerous books on self-esteem, including Affirm Your Self Day by Day, Affirm Your Self Daily Journal, Empowering Teens to Build Self-Esteem, and I Am a Star (all by Innerworks Publishing, P.O. Box 270865, Houston, TX 77277-0865; 713-661-8284). Look for her latest book Enlightening Cinderella Beyond the Prince Charming Fantasy, a book about relationships and inner awakening (published by Findhorn Press). Suzanne has been counseling individuals, couples and families for over twenty years and is a member of the advisory board of the National Association for Self-Esteem.
Last modified: June 22, 2003
information copied from www.the-bright-side.org

[shutterbug]

Self Love
by Tony Schirtzinger, ACSW


Almost All Emotional Problems Indicate A Lack Of Self-Love. (Only a few very rare problems caused entirely by physical disease can be excluded...)

DO YOU LOVE YOURSELF?

I'm going to be giving you a lot of examples of how self-love works.

Remember as you read this that nobody is self-loving all of the time!

If these examples make you realize that you do not love yourself very much today, use them to remind yourself of times when you did feel self-loving,
why you could feel that way then, and what you can do today to get back to feeling that way.

Also, since we have varying degrees of self-love at different times, use this information to S-T-R-E-T-C-H yourself to be MORE self-loving today!

USING THE MIRROR

Here is the very best way I know of to determine whether you love yourself: The next time you are looking into a mirror, look DEEP into your own eyes (as if you can see right through to your "self").

Then notice how you feel in your body as you say "I love you." Is the statement true - or are you lying to yourself....?

What Do You See?

Self-loving people tend to see themselves as a whole when they look into a mirror.

Other people tend to see EITHER their positive characteristics or their negative characteristics (as if that big nose or that beautiful hair or that pimple on the forehead is somehow the whole person).

Self-loving people LIKE what they see overall, despite their flaws. Others tend to like (or dislike) only their appearance - not themselves.

The Sudden Mirror

What is your immediate reaction when you accidentally see your reflection in a storefront window?

I don't care if you think the person is good looking or not.
What I care about is this:
If you met this person on the street, would you LIKE them?

THE BASIC PRINCIPLES OF SELF-LOVE

"Who We Are Is More Important That What We Do."

"We Are Valuable. Nothing Can Ever Change That."

"What We Want Always Matters."

IN RELATIONSHIPS

Since Self-Loving People Tend To Treat Themselves Well...

They see fun and enjoyment as a primary goal most of the time (even when it is hard to attain).

They do not tolerate mistreatment by others.

They are caring toward others. (It feels better to be that way...)

They never put anyone else "first" (Others are always "a close second.")

ABOUT MISTAKES

Self-loving people know that they often make mistakes!

Since they live their lives for the joy they can find, they do a lot of experimenting and try many new things.

Since they aren't dumb (or self-destructive), these experiments work out well most of the time - but sometimes they do go wrong.

When this happens, self-loving people are NOT surprised! They simply apologize if necessary, fix anything that can be fixed, and move on...

Self-Loving People Are Responsible, Not Guilty.

Self-Loving People Don't Make Many Excuses - Especially To Themselves.

GOD, THE COSMOS, OR WHATEVER...

Children are born with a deep sense of their own "OK-ness." They know at birth that they are loved by God or are "accepted by the cosmos."

Most of us lose this wonderful sense of peace and self-acceptance somewhere along the line.

WE NEED TO RE-EXPERIENCE THE SENSE OF WELL-BEING WE HAD WHEN WE WERE BORN.

From a psychological point of view it doesn't matter at all whether we re-experience this through some organized religion, some new-age philosophy,
an experience with "the white light," or whatever.

What matters is that we keep pursuing this sense of well-being until we find it!

ONCE WE KNOW THAT WE ARE "OK" IN THIS DEEP SENSE, WE AUTOMATICALLY KNOW THESE OTHER VITALLY IMPORTANT THINGS:

That We Are LOVABLE.
That We DESERVE To Be Treated Well.
That It Is Unnatural To Refuse To TAKE LOVE.
That It is Unnatural To Refuse To GIVE LOVE.
That Self-Love Does NOT Depend On What We DO.
That Love Is A GIFT, Not Something We Earn.
That Self-Hate Is Always An ILLUSION.
We also know, of course, that God's standards are extremely low!


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Tony Schirtzinger, ACSW is a licensed therapist in Milwaukee. He works with a wide variety of people dealing with any topic, rather than specialize in any one field. He offers e-mail advice and telephone counseling as well as in-person therapy in his Milwaukee clinic. For more information please visit Tony's website at www.HelpYourselfTherapy.com, where you can find articles on a remarkably wide variety of topics related to personal growth, as well as contact information.

Copyright (c) 2002 Tony Schirtzinger - Reprinted by permission of Tony Schirtzinger


Last modified: August 22, 2002

[shutterbug]

Self-Esteem: In A Culture Where Winning Is Everything and Losing Is Shameful
by Richard O'Connor, Ph.D.


"True self-esteem requires an accurate appraisal of one's own abilities in comparison to those of others... a phony self-esteem is vulnerable to puncture by life's experience."

Psychologist Harold Stevens at the University of Michigan discovered that American students far outrank those in Japan, Taiwan, and China in at least one area: self-confidence about their abilities in mathematics. Unfortunately, the students' self confidence was not grounded in reality; in actual performance, American students were far behind their Asian counterparts.

A few years ago Newsweek used Stevens's study to poke holes in the self-esteem "movement," a movement which is almost as difficult to describe as its central concept. The National Council for Self-Esteem itself has not been able to arrive at a single definition. Nevertheless, California has appointed a state commission to promote self esteem. Many other states, especially education departments, have latched on to the concept as a possible strong tonic for today's youth.

Indeed, a poor opinion of the self seems to be part of the problem for a great many troubled youth, no matter how their troubles are manifested. If you take kids who abuse drugs, kids who get into gangs, kids who become pregnant, kids who underachieve, kids who overachieve, kids with eating disorders, and kids with just about any emotional or behavior problem you care to mention, and give them a standard psychological test, you will find that most of them will test very low in self-esteem or self concept. Does this mean that self-esteem is a kind of underlying factor like cholesterol? If we can just raise self-esteem, might we not prevent a great many social problems, as by a public health campaign to lower cholesterol we prevent many health problems?

Well, maybe. One problem is that it's not so easy to raise self-esteem. The Newsweek article is full of silly-sounding educational, cultural, and recreational programs that reward kids with everything from gold stars on up for what are really minor or insignificant achievements. Calvin, of "Calvin and Hobbes" fame, suggested to his teacher that she stop giving him all those failing grades because failure was bad for his self-esteem. Today's parents are cautioned not to be critical of their children under any circumstances; the message is that unconditional love and acceptance build self-esteem. But the flaw in this logic is obvious. True self-esteem requires an accurate appraisal of one's own abilities in comparison to those of others. One may be terrific at math but weak in grammar. With a healthy sense of self, you can accept your weaknesses without feeling like an all-around loser. There are real differences in abilities, which are rewarded differentially by life. Unconditional acceptance seeks to deny those differences and build a phony self-esteem, vulnerable to puncture by life's experience. As Newsweek quotes Stevens, "The Japanese are trying to be proud, and we're trying to be happy."

But paradoxically, there is something real about self-esteem. There are many men and women who have achieved great success by all reasonable standards, yet remain dissatisfied and unhappy with themselves. There are poor people, discriminated against and denied opportunity for success, who somehow maintain a healthy sense of their own identity and--if we could quantify it--probably experience more subjective happiness in their lifetime than the successful man who can't meet his own expectations. Some people seem to be able to incorporate into themselves a self-rewarding system that lets them feel good when they've tried hard and done the best they can; others seem to be born without that ability. It's like the oil system in a car's engine. Self-esteem is the oil that keeps the whole engine running efficiently. Some people seem to have a leak in the oil system, meaning there's a constant drive for achievement or success to offset the leak in self-esteem; others seem to have burned out the engine altogether and have given up the battle, turning to drugs, depression, and self-pity.

So what are parents and educators to do? My experience with adult patients suggests to me that a realistic assessment of the child's abilities, which remains in tune with the child's needs for nurturance and support as abilities change over time, is crucial. Parental love should be unconditional; but that doesn't mean that a good parent approves or rewards indiscriminately. We should approve behavior we want to see more of, ignore or punish that we want to see less of. And we should show approval through time, effort, attention, nurturing--not things that are easy to give, like money or gold stars. As the child matures and develops, our standards may rise. But we must be careful that our standards for our children are based on an honest assessment of the child's constantly-changing capacities, not on our own wishes or our community's norms. We must be careful to recognize and reward honest effort, to model for our children our own effort to meet a reasonable set of internalized standards, to help children understand that everyone--even siblings--has different strengths and weaknesses, and that comparison is difficult, if not unfair.

It seems to me this is a very tall order for parents and educators in a society which places so much emphasis on competition. Perhaps that's why the self-esteem movement seems so inherently silly; it's ignoring the fact that it contradicts basic elements in our culture which make us feel like winning is everything and losing is shameful. Perhaps if the movement were to directly confront these unhealthy attitudes, it might have more of a future.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Richard O'Connor is the author of two books, Undoing Depression : What Therapy Doesn't Teach You and Medication Can't Give You and Active Treatment of Depression. For fourteen years he was executive director of the Northwest Center for Family Service and Mental Health, a private, nonprofit mental health clinic serving Litchfield County, Connecticut, overseeing the work of twenty mental health professionals in treating almost a thousand patients per year. He is a practicing psychotherapist, with offices in Canaan, Connecticut, and New York City. He currently is working on his third book -- about pain, anxiety, and depression.

A graduate of Trinity College in Hartford, O'Connor received his MSW and Ph.D. from the University of Chicago, followed by postgraduate work at the Institute for Psychoanalysis and the Family Institute. He has worked in a wide variety of settings, from inner-city clinics to wealthy suburbs

Please visit his Undoing Depression Website.


Copyright (c) 2001-2003 Richard O'Connor, Ph.D. - Reprinted by permission of Richard O'Connor, Ph.D.
Last modified: November 25, 2002

[shutterbug]

Taking Care of Yourself
by Tony Schirtzinger, ACSW

Do you think you know Michael Jackson well? How about Bill Clinton? Oprah Winfrey? Julia Roberts? Adolph Hitler? We think we know these famous people quite well even though we've never even shared a cup of coffee with them. They are too well known to be understood.

The same thing happens with popular ideas. In the United States, for instance, we think we know all about what a democracy is. We even think we live in one (while we actually live in a republic). Democracy is too well known to be understood.

In psychology, "self-care" is like big celebrities and grand ideas. It's too well known to be understood.

SELF-CARE

Self-care means always taking full responsibility for our own safety and warmth. Each part of this definition needs to be looked at carefully.

ALWAYS?

Since we are the only person who is always with us, we need to ALWAYS be our own caregiver.

FULL RESPONSIBILITY?

It is wise and healthy to allow good people to take care of us sometimes. It feels great to imagine that someone else is fully in charge of our care. But if their mood changes dramatically or if they get called away suddenly we need to know immediately that we can continue to feel safe and warm on our own. We only imagined that they were fully in charge of our care. They were just a temporary substitute for our own good internal parent. We were always fully responsible ourselves.

SAFETY AND WARMTH?

How do we know when we are safe and warm enough? It would be accurate to simply say "we know it when we feel it," but for a more complete understanding we need to think about when we were infants.

Adults need to feel just as safe and warm as infants do. To feel safe, we need enough-but-not-too-much food, air, heat, water, exercise, rest, and elimination. Of course, we also need to be away from physical danger.

And to feel warm we need plenty of kind attention.

SAFETY?

Feeling safe seems a lot more complicated when we get older. Driving a car, violence in the culture, physical addictions, and many other aspects of adult life must be handled. But all of these can be covered under one umbrella: Do We Want To Live and Do We Want To Live Well? If we are certain, down deep, that we want both of these things we will almost always be able to find a way to stay safe from real threats. Our survival instinct is enormously strong.

WARMTH?

Getting emotional warmth in adult life also seems more complicated. Most of us think that getting enough warmth isn't our job, it's the job of our closest friend or our primary partner. This thinking comes naturally from our experience of being a small child, and it needs to be changed when we grow up. Our closest friend and primary partner in adulthood is our SELF! It is our own job now to find enough good people to get close to. If we don't do it, it won't get done.

SAFETY OR WARMTH?

Once in a while we will have to choose between safety and warmth. The most common example is when we live with someone who threatens violence. Another very different example is when we are angry with our children for dangerous play. Regardless of the reason for the conflict between safety and warmth, we must always choose safety.

If your partner is violent, get away from them - regardless of how warm they are at other times. If your kids are playing in traffic, scream at them to get the hell back in the yard - regardless!

SELF-CARE PROBLEMS WE ALL HAVE

Even if we had excellent parents who kept us safe and warm ninety-five percent of the time, we still need to learn how to do it for ourselves, and how to keep improving as our circumstances change. And when we are tired or sick or lonely or feeling weak in any other way, we will notice at least a little resentment about having to do it ourselves. But most of us quickly accept that we do have to do it, and we do what we need to do.

SELF-CARE PROBLEMS MANY PEOPLE HAVE

Many people had parents who neglected, abused, or continually shamed and terrified them. They may never have felt well taken care of as a child, even for an instant. Although they somehow found a way to survive, they did not get what they needed to thrive. As adults, they deeply resent having to be their own internal parent, and they aren't good at it. They still need someone who feels like a good parent to them. And when parent-starved people receive enough safety and warmth from parent substitutes (usually an extremely loving partner, a patient and caring therapist, or both), they become BETTER at taking care of themselves than people who had good parents!


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Tony Schirtzinger, ACSW is a licensed therapist in Milwaukee. He works with a wide variety of people dealing with any topic, rather than specialize in any one field. He offers e-mail advice and telephone counseling as well as in-person therapy in his Milwaukee clinic. For more information please visit Tony's website at www.HelpYourselfTherapy.com, where you can find articles on a remarkably wide variety of topics related to personal growth, as well as contact information.
Copyright (c) 2002 Tony Schirtzinger - Reprinted by permission of Tony Schirtzinger
Last modified: August 22, 2002