How To Build Your Self-Esteem Permanently
If you are searching the web for self-esteem you are probably coming across activities and advice like…
- focus on your achievements
- say your 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 educate you on a simple way to work on your life 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.
Paradox
There is a paradox that to think you have to do something to change yourself means you are missing something; are not quite complete as the unique, one-of-a-kind human being that you are.
These things that others suggest you do to feel better about yourself may cause a temporary change in your feelings; you might feel more positive, more motivated or less critical of yourself for a few minutes or a couple of hours or days depending on what is going on in your life, but has your self-esteem really changed by thinking more positively or doing some activity? Has your experience of yourself changed in who or what you think you are?
Probably not!
As soon as YOU are back in relationship with your experience of life and another person, then YOU are going to be the same that you have always been.
The same old defects and stuff you wished weren’t there will still be there.
The same negative talk and harsh judgment of yourself. The same denials of certain traits and denials of natural and normal human characteristics.
There needs to be a change in the way you approach the world and yourself. There needs to be a change in your awareness of what is really going on.
Changing the idea of who you are is really just like rearranging the food on your plate and thinking you have something different.
Trying to block out all the bad traits you have is not going to work because you have those traits.
Ignoring them doesn’t make them not exist.
Anything you don’t freely admit to will hurt you. It will make you suffer until you can become aware of yourself as having that trait, being brutally honest and accepting that trait in your experience of life.
Understand that all human beings at some point in their lives will display a trait or could potentially display a trait. This is crucial to how you like yourself.
Good and Bad
In our little idea of who we are and the self-image we have, we cut the world into two.
We then agree to accept that we have the good half and we deny and spend our lives desperately trying to avoid anyone, including ourselves, noticing that we actually do have the ‘bad’ traits as well. Of course you are likely not aware that your self-image (ego) does this denial, but somewhere in your past, most likely to ensure being looked after and loved, you subconsciously learned that there were certain traits that were not acceptable.
Note: I notice the common way of teaching children recently is to say in a wise, forceful voice ‘that is not acceptable’ as the child does something child-like
When something is not acceptable you shove that trait or the potential for that trait to the deep, dark recesses of your experience, hopefully never to be seen again.
The problem arises because you are whole and complete and everyone in the world will at some point experience being rude, lazy, selfish, mean, greedy… I will talk more about why you experience everything elsewhere, but for now just take it has truth that you are everything.
When you shoved these traits down the back they did not disappear. How could they, there is no real you with which to decide not to be something?
Your self-image is an idea of who you are and who you think you should be. It does a great job at convincing you and others that are none-the-wiser that you are a certain way absolutely. Maybe you like to come across a certain way – kind, nice, generous for example – or tough and strong maybe, but that is not an absolute reality, it is not a Truth of the way things really are in existence.
They Are Still There
These traits you decided you never wanted to be there never went away.
As you go about your life they will always be there and they will always show up in your interpretation of how you are sooner or later. So what do you think that does to your thoughts of yourself when these ‘bad’ unacceptable traits keep coming up in your awareness?
The solution is shadow work.
Shadow work begins with an understanding of the reality that you are not really, really, really a certain, fixed, absolute way. You are whole, alive, conscious and will experience every interpretation on the scale from bad to good at some stage.
There are times you will be uglier than some but more beautiful than others. There will be times when you will seem rude and other times you will seem polite.
Other times you will be intelligent compared to someone else yet another time someone smarter will be in your awareness and interpretation.
Maybe you just are stupid compared to the majority of the population. So what? If that is how it is in your experience, so be it.
I really am talking about your brutal honesty and acceptance in your own awareness of these traits.
You could have shoved ‘rude’ to the back because you were always told to be good and polite.
This rudeness, until it is accepted as being an OK part of you, will continue to cause problems for you whenever it shows up. It will show up in some way in YOUR universe. It will show up in some part of your experience of life and you will feel terrible when it does. The trait won’t stop showing up in your life as a problem until it is allowed to be there without resistance.
It Is OK To Be Rude
It is OK to be rude. In certain circumstances it is appropriate to behave in a way that someone else might judge you as rude. Maybe to get what you want or to stand up for yourself you will come across as rude.
It is only an interpretation.
My self-esteem went through the roof when I had this realisation and worked to go through over 1,000 traits and accept that I had displayed them or could display them all.
No exceptions. Brutal honesty and making it perfectly OK that as a human being I am imperfect and just trying to get along. I do the best with my level of awareness in each moment. In relation to others (compared to others) who have different values and desires, you will behave, say or do something that could be called ‘bad’.
Accept that.
I even have a little giggle to myself when I interpret myself as ‘bad’ and remind myself that I am just doing my best and certainly don’t need extra judgment. When you do this, that judge will quieten down in your head and let you simply be who you are.
Apart from this your effectiveness and ability to interact with the world and others will sky rocket also. You will no longer have little parts of your psyche trying to show up and sabotaging you. These parts of your psyche will simply rest and leave you to create your world.
As you own and accept everything about yourself you will love yourself so much that it hurts sometimes! And how can you have low self-esteem when you love yourself?
Impossible.
Related Pages Below..
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Definition Of Self-Esteem
You likely have an idea of a definition of self-esteem. A self-esteem definition could be anything describing feeling bad about yourself, or good. One of the main causes of feeling not good enough in my experience is a lack of self-acceptance. It is not related to your achievements or what you do or have in the external world… Read More
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Overcoming Low Self-Esteem
Transforming your experience of yourself is the key to overcoming low self esteem. In 2007 two years after I had my first and most profound enlightenment experience I realised how I could learn more about my conditioning and programming.
Unfortunately you and everyone else grew up with less than ideal influences and messages. You are subject to the messages from your parents and teachers about what is right and wrong. However Mum and Dad or whoever took care of you have their own unique hurt and fear and this shapes the messages you receive.
Your self-image and your ideas of what is acceptable and expected is formed from these messages and your own unique interpretations of what you experience… Read More
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Signs Of Low Self-Esteem
How to spot the most common signs.
- Feeling apologetic for your existence
- Feeling embarrassed to let others see you spend time on your-self, e.g. grooming
- Feeling that you are a burden to others… Read More
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11 Ways To Improve Self-Esteem
Things to change about the way you think of yourself and others. Start to undo the ego and beliefs and
instead go for what is true about life and you!…Read More
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Improving Your Self-Esteem
Learn why nothing you own or posses or achieve has the power to permanently change the way you feel about yourself… Read More
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Help Low Self-Esteem
How and why your mind is responsible for low self esteem and what you can do about it starting today…Read
More
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Enhancing Self-Esteem
The approach to raising self esteem that I promote is all about aligning yourself with spiritual principles. It does not require you to believe a religion or follow a guru, it just asks you to notice
what makes human beings feel good… Read More
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Raise Your Self-Esteem
It is up to you how much work you wish to do in transforming your experience of life. Put it this way, Buddha sat alone under a tree for six years and I bet he wasn’t lonely or felt unworthy. If you are to have high self esteem you will need to have an experience of what a self actually is… Read More
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Boosting Self-Esteem
You can have short-term boosts to your self esteem but these are ego based and disappear as quickly as they come. Or you can go for permanent, long-term transformation that brings naturally high self
esteem… Read More
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The Process of Raising Self-Esteem
Maybe reading these will open up a new life of possibility for you. Some might think it sounds scary but if you are serious about discovering…Read More
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Self-Esteem Poems
The most relevant self-esteem poems to this website and shadow work. These poems all express the importance of self-acceptance. Ellen’s is wise and I also love Rumi’s. Although they are not strictly obviously self-esteem poems, they are about complete self-acceptance and that is the crux of self-esteem help… Read More
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Self-Esteem Quotes
Below is a selection of self-esteem quotes spoken from a place of clear awareness describing a main cause of low self-esteem.
People think it is a virtue to disown parts of themselves of which they disapprove. All they succeed in doing is to keep themselves stuck with those parts forever. They have cut off the only means of growth or transformation. Nataniel Branden.. Read More
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