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Self-Esteem Archives - Page 3 of 4 - Self-Help, Spirituality & Self-Esteem

Self-Esteem

Jason McElwain Basketball Video

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Jason McElwain Basketball Video

This Jason McElwain basketball video is a touching and spine tingling amateur video  of one of those unique moments in sport and life.

Jason, who is autistic, made national news in 2006 when he played four minutes for his high school basketball team, which was the first time he ever made it onto the court.  He scored 20 points and the crowd went wild and stormed onto the court in celebration at the end of the
game.

It is definitely worth watching and causes a reaction deep within many people.

A book has been written and a movie deal has been signed.  Jason
McElwain’s basketball video captured the attention and moved emotion of
a great deal of people all around the world.

Jan Spiller | Astrology For The Soul | North Node

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Jan Spiller – Astrology of North Nodes

Jan Spiller is one of my favorite astrology writers.  She presents a scientific and holistic explanation of astrology.  In Astrology for the Soul she states that many of her colleagues think that she is psychic.

***Scroll down for a video
of Jan Spiller***

Rather than having success with her clients because of some sort of psychic astrology ability Jan Spiller is an advocate of north node astrology.  Many other astrologers are now also becoming aware of its importance for an accurate reading of your astrological natal chart.

Jan Spiller says that when she first looks at a birth chart she notices the position of the north node and the south node.  The south node is always 180 degrees or six signs exactly opposite the south node.

The north node has been a much neglected aspect of astrological readings traditionally in modern days.  The south node shows what abilities we came into this life already highly developed, and the north node shows areas where we need to develop in order to become balanced and happy.

Also, as Jan says in her book Astrology for the Soul when we develop and persistently use the attitudes and techniques aligned with the position of the north node then worldly success will automatically come to us. If we continue to use what is tried and tested with us then we can expect to lose eventually, says Jan Spiller.

Self-Esteem, Self-Help, Spiritual Growth

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Self-Help And Spiritual Growth To

 Achieve Permanent High Self-Esteem

If you are searching the web for self-esteem, self-help or spiritual growth you are probably coming across advice like…

  • focus on your achievements
  • say affirmations
  • be nice to yourself
  • fake it until you make it

These people mean well, but I doubt the great spiritual teachers of the past or influential psychologists of our time would answer a student’s question about self-esteem by instructing them to focus on aspects that reinforce your current experience of yourself.

I want to show you how to do work on yourself that is hugely rewarding, meaningful, simple and transformational. First I want to talk a bit more about how you got in this predicament in the first place… Read More

________________________________________________________________

Do you sit there and search for answers to help yourself? Do you think you are into self-help but deep down wish or wait for someone to save you, help you or make you better

Do you fantasise about becoming rich, fit, funny or popular and think you will feel better then? Helping yourself is about going inwards to discover what is true.

There is the truth of the way ‘It’ is which is more in the domain of spiritual growth, and then there is your truth that is more in the domain of self-help.

There is the truth of you as a seemingly separate object we call a person – your experience of life; your emotional truth, your perceptions and interpretations and ideas of the way you and the world are.

The Open Secret

And the secret of self-help is to start with being brutally honest about what is true for you in each moment… Read
More

Improving Your Self Esteem, Overcoming Low Self Esteem, Ways To Improve Self Esteem, Enhancing Self Esteem, Raising Self Esteem

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Improving Your Self Esteem

Improving Your Self Esteem Clipart Image of a Bald Woman's Head

Imagine improving your self esteem to a level where life was enjoyable and inspiring.  A life where you felt like you were a part of something bigger.  Kind of like the feeling you get when you get offered a job or you receive an invitation to a party.  You feel that you are wanted, have some value and feel greater self-esteem.

Why do some people feel that their lives are worthwhile and yet others
feel like they are a waste of space and a burden?

Are their jobs more important?  Is it because they were blessed with a better personality or greater intelligence?  The truth is there could be a dozen reasons why you think someone is better or more deserving or ‘together’ than you.

If you are serious about overcoming low self-esteem you can notice the pattern between those that do have and those that don’t.  The most permanent and powerful way of enhancing self esteem is to look at what these people think of themselves, not what they think of their achievements.

Be very clear that anything you have WILL NOT and CAN NOT make you feel differently about yourself.

The advertisers and marketers do a great job of linking products, goods and services to your self worth and they convince us through clever advertising that owning stuff and having stuff is the way of raising your self-esteem.

When you look at it closely the thought process you go through in raising self esteem by your possessions or achievements is via what you think others will think of you.

If you get the new gadget, car, or house with a certain address you feel better for a short while because you feel that others think of you differently and that makes you feel better about yourself, for about 2 to 9 days if you are lucky.

Improving your self esteem permanently is about changing what YOU think of yourself irrespective of what others think.  In fact you can’t raise your self-esteem while you care what others think of you.

So how do you change what you think of yourself?

You discover who you are, accept it and embrace it.  Cherish the unique individual that you were created as.  You become conscious, grateful and in awe of that which you are and that which created you as opposed to that which you have.

As you become more conscious, which seems to be the only thing to do while here on earth, you transform from believing you are something to knowing that you have that thing.

For example you might think you are the body but as you become directly conscious of reality you know that you have a body.  You then might think you are the feelings and thoughts until you transcend this and see that you have thoughts and feelings and so it goes on into infinity.

You continue to discover the truth and each time you raise your consciousness you permanently raise your self esteem.  Or more accurately you leave behind the illusion of who you falsely think you are and realise you are in reality OK.

The fastest ways I have experienced of improving your self-esteem is through shadow work and also the personal peace procedure of
EFT.

Improving Your Self Esteem business man with personal goals on the wall: family - car and a house

Can you see that improving your self-esteem permanently is about knowing the truth of you in reality, as an existence, as a being rather than trying to make the illusion a better feeling illusion?

Human Shadow, Shadow Work, Shadow Self, Shadow Projection, Healing The Shadow

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What Is The Human Shadow?

Who You Think You Are

Every human being has an idea of what sort of person they are.  The human shadow is everything that does not exist within your accepted self-image.

Who You Think You Are Not

In reality a human being seems to be a potential to be anything at any time rather than one fixed way.  Therefore your self-image keeps you trapped in one way of being.  You feel stuck.  Anything that comes into your awareness that doesn’t fit with your accepted self-image makes you feel bad.

When you feel bad your mind continues to focus on all the parts of your life that seem to not be working.  Then you feel even worse.

This all continues until you wake up to the fact that your self-image is just a mental idea.  It is just a concept; a creation of the mind.  It is not actually you but rather it is how you think you are.

Who Are You Really?

I nor anyone can’t tell you who you are because we would just be exchanging information.  You can’t use the mind and its functions such as intelligence and reasoning to discover the truth of your existence.

The task is to release attachment to being one particular way and instead be willing to experience and be everything.  This is closer to who you are in reality, rather than your self-image.  Even if this way you think you are was full of neat sounding traits like intelligent, sexy, funny, lively, loving you still have the potential as a human being to experience all the opposites.  If you do experience one of these opposite traits one day you would feel terrible because you were attached to being the positive trait.

It is all the opposites that lie outside of your accepted self-image that we call the human shadow.

When you accept that you can and do experience EVERY potential human trait you transform your experience of life.  Life begins to flow effortlessly.

How Do You Discover Your Shadow?

You discover your shadow self not through your mind but via awareness.  Just by watching and observing each moment and what you feel and believe to be true about yourself and the world.

The quickest way is to watch and observe your shadow projection onto other people.  This is when you have some negative feeling towards another person because you judge them to be a certain way.  It is extremely subtle and is why so many people go around feeling annoyed and irritated with others.  Anything that does not fit within your accepted self-image gets projected by your mind onto someone else in your life.

If you are sure you are never rude then rude people will show up in your awareness.  If you believe that you are stupid but don’t accept that about yourself as a potential human experience then you will dislike someone else because you think they are stupid.  Whatever is in your shadow shows up in the outside world.

What Can You Do About This?

Healing the shadow is about reclaiming these traits that you project onto others.  A human is potential not fixed.  You are not one way so work to not care about being a certain way.  If you were to get in with a bad crowd who did drugs and crime and joined a gang you would change.

What you need to do is what they call shadow work.  Healing the shadow means finding all the traits that are outside of your accepted self-image and welcoming them back like long lost children.  The human shadow has within it huge potential for growth and getting your life back on track.

Help Low Self Esteem, Overcoming Low Self Esteem, Enhancing Self Esteem, Raise Your Self Esteem, Boosting Self Esteem

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How You Can Help Low Self Esteem

What Is Low Self Esteem?

I don’t know if people think that a definition will help low self-esteem but there are numerous different attempts at defining self-esteem.

beautiful woman doing yoga exercises in a tranquil location help low self esteem

These usually end up being quite wordy and abstract, just a bunch ofwords that have nothing to do with what causes a lack of it or a feeling of having it or how to help low self-esteem.

The experience of low self esteem is what we need to talk about.  As with anything it is making the words fit the experience that provides value.  An experience of low self-esteem is based upon the belief of being not good enough, not worthy, defective, missing something, not complete.

So What Should I Do?

I didn’t have particularly low self esteem and wasn’t looking at how to help low self-esteem but in 2007 after a couple of years of spiritual and personal growth I discovered something simple yet profound.  I realised that it was the ideas of my mind that thought there was something missing or something wrong.  It then became a process of helping my mind ‘see’ the truth and when this is done the mind relaxes into peace.

Because the mind doesn’t know any better and because we give it so much importance in our western culture the mind can only lead you to believe there is something wrong.  It seems there is something missing because from its point of view there is.  Your mind knows it is not you but you believe that it is you.  Talk about pressure!

Imagine if you were assumed to be a rockstar or a great politician and everyone believed it and expected you to be that.  After a while you might think you are this rockstar or politician as well but deep down you would know you are not.  So also the mind has this pressure from you on it and it doesn’t like it!

Because you think you are where you experience your mind to be, i.e. in your head, you think that is you.  As I say though, the mind is not you, it is something you have to use, just like your body is for you to use and so here we have this terrible misplaced sense of identity.

How Do I De-Identify From My Mind?

Drop into your body.  Feel from your body, your heart, your navel, anywhere and everywhere that you feel aliveness.  When you are ‘in’ your body, meaning when your attention and awareness is on the feeling of being alive in this moment you are much, much closer to who you really are.

From this present feeling awareness the mind disengages from all its endless chatter.  You can notice that at times the mind will take your attention away from your body and play out a scenario such as

  • mentally rehearsing a conversation or scenario
  • replaying a proud moment from your past
  • making up a conversation that you wished happened
  • replaying a tragic memory

or some other content.

When it does, return to being conscious of your body now and notice the thoughts and internal chatter stops.

Do this as a way of life.  It can be difficult as it feels good to engage in a whole lot of mind activity.  We get to feel powerful, justified, proud, respected, loved, pitied, in control and so the list goes on.  Ultimately though you need to be curious and explore the realisation that your mind is not you.

You are here now, experiencing what is real right now.  I am not saying you are your body but I am saying attention on your body is a way to deeper understanding and peace.

So How Does All This Help Low Self-Esteem?

Wen you realise you are not your mind, you can be vigilant at not believing what you think is true about you.  Your mind will communicate to you via your negative emotions what it believes is true or acceptable for you.

When you feel shame or guilt or any other emotion, stop drop into your body and be curious what your mind believes to be true that caused you to feel that way.

Man crouching on beach help low self-esteem

You might find you are ashamed to be a man or a certain race or feel that you are not smart enough.  Your job is to accept yourself however your mind chooses to interpret events.  If your mind tells you that you are not clever just drop into the body and say something like ‘I hear you, so what’  Likewise with ugly, fat, boring, dirty etc.

Accept every distinction your mind makes as being OK and you will be playing the mind at its own game and it will give up.  This is one powerful way to help low self-esteem.

Hades the Greek God, Archetypes And Myths, Unconscious Personality, Self-Esteem, Self-Confidence

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Hades
The Greek God

Hades the Greek God in mythology is the archetype of the personal and collective unconscious outside of awareness that stores all the memories, feelings and aspects not yet embraced. It is a powerful aspect because what ever you disown will own you.

The word archetype describes what Carl Jung identified as patterns of behaving that arise from the collective unconscious of humankind. The pattern of being is not unique to an individual; it is available to manifest in each of us because we each reflect a part of the whole.

To recognize Hades active within your life look
for…

  • reclusive and withdrawn from the world
  • introverted and value own reactions and responses to
    the outside world more than the outside world.
  • ambition, communication and social skills are generally
    lacking
  • few friends if any, preferring to be alone

Possible drawbacks to living the Hades archetype…

  • often goes unseen and unnoticed
  • lack of emotional connection with others
  • feel alienated from a society that rewards ambition and
    achievement
  • distanced from own emotions

This information has been summarized from the book Gods in Everyman by Jean Shinoda Bolen.

If you recognize your patterns of acting and being in the world from the above list and are curious about what you can do to change, then first and foremost use this information as proof that you are not different, defective or a victim of your past programming.

The above shows the commonality in the human experience when certain innate energies are active. As such begin by accepting that you do indeed own these particular traits and let it be OK that you do.

This will slightly raise your self-esteem and self-acceptance for each trait you own.  
If you would like some guidance or clarification, please contact me, I would love to help.

Fear Public Speaking, Tips On Public Speaking, Public Speaking Anxiety

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Do You Fear Public Speaking?

If you fear public speaking, sure things may get better after you have done a number of speeches but if you want to actually transform yourself and your life so that the excessive nerves don’t come there are some tips on public speaking below.

It is the same in any area of life, there is nothing extra special about the feelings that come from thinking about standing in front of people speaking and that public speaking anxiety.

Yes it is true that if you know what you are speaking about and have practiced and prepared things will no doubt be easier but if you fear public speaking, take the issue you have and use it to transcend and transform who you are currently.

One way you could approach this is through self-hypnosis or affirmations.  This is a reprogramming of your ideas and beliefs about yourself and others; changing the instructions to yourself about how to feel when you speak in front of others.

This may work but it doesn’t change ‘you’. To me it is like papering over cracks in the wall. To fill in the cracks and smooth them over, so to speak, there needs to be a change in the way you think about yourself, others and life.

Firstly

Firstly on a physical level place your feeling attention just below your belly button and allow breathing to come from there.  Don’t breathe from there but just let breath happen while you feel fully conscious of that area of your body.  This is where the power is, this is where we are centred and grounded.  Martial artists know this and spend hours meditating and learning to ‘be’ from this spot.

Whenever you feel out of your depth and anxious, at any stage of life, immediately go back to ‘being’ there.  Don’t try and push the feelings away or ignore them, they will get bigger.  Instead just let them be there and acknowledge them.  Talk to them, I don’t care just be there with them without resistance.

The opposite to this is to be in your head and then the mind will run amok and you will feel all out of control. When you are in your body and conscious of your centre and of breath the mind disengages.

Secondly

Secondly, speak from this place. Let the breath push the words up your centre and out your mouth.  Enjoy feeling the words on your tongue and lips.  Speak slowly enough that you can feel them and notice how good the words feel on your tongue and lips. Again you will be conscious of your body and the mind disengages.  When you do this you will sound controlled, authoritative, calm and powerful.

Thirdly

Thirdly, stand with both feet firmly on the floor.  Don’t stand with all your weight on one foot or lean against anything.

Be in your body and let your body be deeply connected to the floor.

When you do these things, at at any time of your life, you are in your own reality. Your reality is yours so embrace it and cherish it.  Other people can’t get inside your reality, you let them in.

I don’t know if that makes sense but if you fear public speaking it can be overcome when you become more conscious of what is going on.

Enhancing Self Esteem, Overcoming Low Self Esteem, Raise Your Self Esteem, Boosting Self Esteem, Help Low Self Esteem

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Enhancing Self Esteem

What are some of the ways of enhancing self esteem?  As I mention elsewhere many times genuine self esteem comes from becoming directly conscious of your true nature.

Back view of Caucasian mid-adult woman standing on Maui, Hawaii coast with arms outstretched and head thrown back.

When you know the stillness within is actually a connection with the divine and you cultivate this connection, it is the only way of overcoming low self esteem.  Your self esteem transforms into something authentic, real, absolute.

So unless cultivating this knowing and connection is the base of your work to raise your self esteem anything else you do will be more of a cover up job than a permanent change.

However, the below points are things you can do as a way of enhancing self esteem.  Think of them as supplements rather than solutions.

  • Belong to a group

One of our fundamental needs as humans is to feel that we belong to a group.  We want to feel that we are the same as at least one other person in some way.  This is why it hurts so much if we are not invited or included in a group when we are children.  It is about safety, confirmation that we are not too defective, feeling we have some worth or value etc.

  • Volunteer

Helping others does feel good.  It is unusual for someone to help others purely because they can, usually there will be some selfish reason.  I don’t mean selfish in a critical way just as an observation that helping others feels good to the helper.

  • Dance

casual lovely girl dancing - hands frame

Music, movement and freedom seems to connect us internally or bring about something within us that we don’t normally experience.  It seems the body, mind and spirit all loves to feel movement and can leave you feeling grounded and connected, which is important for self esteem.

  • Sing

Singing when done correctly begins from deep down in the abdomen and also here is a strong sense of being.  Down in the navel below the belly button is your centre.  It is from here that breath, voice and energy seem to begin.  So singing allows you to access this place and provides a way to express your unique, authentic sound

  • Workout/fitness

Most people have experienced being at their physical best at some stage.  Not only does the brain and body make nice feeling chemicals when we exercise but there is something about taking active interest and care of your body which brings its own rewards for how you feel and treat yourself.

  • Teach

No matter how little you know about something you will know more than people who know nothing about it.  You can specialise in being the teacher to new beginners. Once they have learned from you what you can teach they will naturally move onto the next teacher.  That is normal, perfectly fine and is rewarding to know you make a difference to someone’s understanding.

  • Connect with someone

This can just be a 2 second connection in the store.  Have a think about whether you experience any moments of connection regularly.  This is not just an interaction but a connection.  Walk into a store with the purpose of making a 2 second connection with the person who asks you if they can help.  You don’t even need to say anything if that is not easy for you.  Just look at them in the eye for 2 or 3 seconds as you say ‘no thanks’.  There is a HUGE difference between looking at someone’s eyes and looking into their eyes.

For example look at the picture here and notice you can vaguely glance in the direction of her eye or you can take a couple of seconds to see the eye directly.

  • Receive bodywork

It feels good not only physically but in all ways to have someone’s attention on you.   When you have a massage or reflexology or Alexander Technique you are being touched by another human in a non-needy, gentle and caring way.  This is beneficial to your sense of well-being and your connectedness.

Enhancing self-esteem is still about spiritual principles of feeling grounded, centred, connected and with service to others.  Notice that enhancing self-esteem has nothing to do with buying stuff.

EFT Technique, Personal Peace Procedure

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Increase Your Inner Peace With

The EFT
Technique

What Is It?

The EFT technique is a simple routine anyone can do at home and is having results where nothing else has helped.  It stands for Emotional Freedom Technique.  It is also casually known as Tapping, due to the action of tapping on several acupressure points on your body.

Like all good things, it was discovered by accident that tapping on these acupressure points while mentally focusing on an issue, brought a resolution to that issue.

Why Does It Work?

As elsewhere I mention that the key to personal and spiritual growth is awareness and acceptance of everything that you are and everything that has happened.  It is no surprise then that the EFT technique involves speaking the statement ‘Even though I …. I deeply love and accept myself while you tap on these points primarily on your head’.

My personal use of EFT as been most effective completing what Gary Craig (the man who has taken EFT to the world) called the Personal Peace Procedure.  Here is a video explaining it all.  I highly recommend watching it and doing this procedure.

I agree with Gary Craig that if everyone would list out the major events in their life, especially those that still have some emotional charge and rawness to them and performed the procedure then inner peace, contentment, inspiration and self-esteem would be more prevalent.

I even have heard from a woman who was diagnosed with Borderline Personality Disorder who tapped every night on a memory or two and has never experienced BPD symptoms again.  What happens is all the similar memories that have trapped emotions with them are neutralized and as a result the internal turmoil and angst goes also.

If you find this difficult to do on your own then please search for an EFT practitioner in your area.  A beauty of EFT is that it doesn’t require you to relive traumatic events or go talk over them endlessly like you would in conventional therapy.