Archive for the ‘Self-esteem, self-respect’ Category

Self-esteem. Lesson #3. Be Healthy

Posted: August 1, 2011 in Self-esteem, self-respect
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Self-esteem. Lesson #3

First of all, thanks again for all your emails and correspondence. It’s nice to know that this is helping some of you and I appreciate the feedback.

So now you’ve decided to have self-esteem and should be taking responsibility for it.

Most excellent!

Now the next step is to be well and healthy.

I’ll wait while you stop screaming because that’s pretty much the reaction I have when I hear anyone talk about health. Then they start babbling  on about weight loss and exercise and right around that point I start looking for some cake or cookies to eat.

I find them and I eat them as I sneer. Childish, yes, but it makes me feel better, damn it!

As far as I’m concerned, all of us have been heavily betrayed by the medical and health fields because if they were doing their job, more of us would be healthier and taking less drugs.

But that’s not the case. We as a nation diet more than any other country and we are also the most overweight people in the world. You can research it yourself, but here’s a start: http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/overwt.htm

What does this have to do with self-esteem? It has a lot to do with it because it is very hard to feel good about yourself if you aren’t taking care of yourself and don’t feel well. I personally have a much better attitude about myself and life in general when I physically feel well and energetic.

There’s no need to buy another book on dieting; we have too many as it is. We know we shouldn’t eat sugar and carbs and we need to exercise. The human body was not made to sit for long periods of time watching TV (which hopefully you are no longer doing or have cut it way down) or sitting in front of a monitor all day long.

The human body was designed to procreate and burn energy. It’s meant to move, run, jump and basically keep moving until its exhausted and then it’s designed to sleep.

All you need to do is keep moving. Cut out the junk food as best as you can. If you are sick, seek medical care and keep moving. Put better food in you and throw away your scale. You know when you feel good and when you don’t.

I took me many years to find a sane way of eating and it’s simple. Protein and good carbs. No sugar but I do break this rule on the weekends. I’m against being a slave to my body and how it looks but if it doesn’t feel well, then I don’t feel so good about myself. Sort of a no brainer, but some things just need to be said.

I’ve had some success with clients on just making the changes above. It’s not a big deal and nor should you make it into one. Just watch what you eat as best as you can. I want you to try this for the coming week and if it works for you, keep doing it:

1)      Cut out all sugar and bad carbs but this comes with a warning: You might go through some withdrawal such as getting a headache, feeling achy and tired. You might also find yourself with some intense cravings for them. That’s OK. Just keep telling yourself you are healing.

2)      Throw away the damn scale. Pick it up and run to the trash can and toss it. Have a farewell party for it if you need to, but dump it and dump it now.

3)      Remember that all the self-esteem you want is already there inside you. It may be buried deep or it may be right on the surface, but it’s there. We are just slowly removing the layers of what gets in the way of it, step-by-step.

4)      Be more physically active. This can be as simple as walking around the block or going to the gym. It doesn’t matter as long as your increase your activity level and decrease the times you are sitting.

5)      Go help someone. Find someone who needs help and give it to them. This could be helping someone carry groceries to checking in on a neighbor who is lonely. Whenever I start to feel a bit sorry for myself, I do this and it makes me feel better about myself.

6)      Stop complaining and whining if you’ve gotten into this bad habit. Keep a smile on your face and sit down and write down all the things that are right about you. Some people call it counting your blessings and it’s a good thing to do once in awhile. Email them to me if you’d like or leave them as a comment on my blog.

7)      For the next week, I want you to practice something. I want you to be as kind to people as you can. Every day when you wake up, tell yourself that you will be as kind as possible and do it. Then at the end of the day, write down how your day went. Do this every day for a week along with everything else you are working on and let me know how you feel after that.

I’ll tell you a little secret and that is, self-esteem and self-respect has nothing to do with the way people treat you. People will treat exactly as you want them to. If you don’t feel you are worth the effort, then so be it. If you are unkind to people, it’s only because you aren’t BEING kind to yourself and others. So what if someone is rude to you? Maybe they are dealing with too much that day or maybe they just lost a child or maybe they’re just mean. Whatever the reason, cut them some slack and try to be kind to them.

When you are unkind to people, if comes right back at you. This doesn’t mean you allow people to take advantage of you or allow them to harm you. It means that you grant them the right to be who they are and continue on. Take the high road as often as possible and treat others the way you want to be treated.

Try this as best as you can and keep a log.

What have you got to lose? Maybe a bad attitude is all, right?

Self-esteem. Lesson #2. Take Responsibility

Posted: July 25, 2011 in Self-esteem, self-respect
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OK, hopefully by now you’ve done the first lesson – deciding to have self-esteem.

If you have done that, then good for you. If you haven’t, go back and read the first lesson and when you’ve done that, come back to this one. Based on the emails I’ve been receiving (and I think I’m caught up on all of my responses) many of my readers are enjoying this and have all ready noticed a big difference. I am always glad to hear this and to hear from you. Please keep them coming.

Now we go onto lesson #2 and it’s simple:

Take responsibility for your self-esteem

Sounds easy, right? Well, in theory it is but what I’ve come to learn and realize is that this is 24/7. When I use the word responsibility, I’m not talking about feeling bad or shameful or having the viewpoint that this is something you “just have to do because someone said so,” or anything along those lines.

What it means is accepting the fact that it is up to you to have it or not have it. It is a self-determined action you take because you want to and for no other reason than that.

Besides, who says you must have a reason for anything? You don’t. You can do something just because you want to.

Remember, you’re the only one that can give away or take back your self-esteem. No one else has that power over you but you. Self-esteem is only about how you feel and respect yourself. If it is high, then your actions will show it. The same is true if it is low.

Many years ago, I made some changes that actually helped me to feel better about myself. You might want to do them also and see if it helps you.

1)      Stopped buying and reading women’s magazines.

I grew up reading magazines for teenagers. I was fascinated by make-up and hair styles and clothes. Unfortunately for me at the time, I looked the exact opposite of what was fashionable. At that time, everyone wanted straight blonde hair. I have curly and unruly black hair.

I spent most of my teenage years with large curlers in my hair with a cap. This complimented the braces, headgear and acne cream that was slathered all over my face. The 30 extra pounds I was carrying was just a bonus.

At that time, Yardley was the most popular brand and eventually Twiggy arrived on the scene and the excessive dieting started. As hard as I tried, there was nothing I could do about my hair. It was hopeless, but my whole life was devoted to straightening it and then avoiding any and all situations that would make my hair frizz. This meant never going to San Francisco unless I could tie my hair back. I lived in the pool as a child but the moment I decided I wanted to look like everyone else, I stopped going and the few times I did go, I made sure not to get my hair wet.

Yes, it is possible to go swimming without getting your hair wet. It’s very difficult and requires a tremendous amount of maneuvering and staying away from anyone who might splash you. I became very good at treading water in an attempt to look super cool.

I hated getting out of the pool and would rush back to the lounge chairs and try to cover up what my brothers referred to as “thunder thighs” while at the same time feeling quite envious of the thin, tan and blonde girls.

But I was reading these magazines all the time along with every romance novel I could find. I was convinced that if I just bought the next product I would be the way they said I was supposed to be.

I kept this up until my mid-30’s when I realized that I had been reading the same articles for years. Sure, it was a different name of the product but the message was the same – “You’ll never be good enough until you a) buy this product or b) wear this outfit or c) look exactly like these models.”

The reason these models get paid so much is because NO ONE looks like them. I starved myself. I got up every morning and jogged in the dark with my Mom and a neighbor. I drank diet sodas, stopped eating sugar and no matter what I did or how much weight I lost, I still didn’t feel like I was good enough.

Why? Was it because of what the magazines and TV shows were telling me? Not really, though they aren’t much help because in order to sell you something they first have to make you feel like you need to change something about yourself.

No, I felt this way because I agreed with them. I held the magazines and TV shows up as the right way to be for me. I decided that they knew who and what I should be and as long as I kept buying into it, they would continue to sell it.

There wasn’t a particular moment of clarity for me but I do remember the last magazine I bought. I don’t even remember the name of it, but I felt myself feeling worse and worse about myself until I threw it across the room and watched it hit the wall and fall to the floor.

I was done and I haven’t looked back since.

I also stopped worrying about how I looked or what I weighed. Instead I researched and concentrated on my health and let the weight go where it wanted to go.

I disagreed completely and totally with all of it.

I let my hair be curly and I wore what I liked and what I could afford.

Then I did the next thing:

2)      Stopped watching TV.

This is a hard one for most. At the time, we didn’t have the internet and I would watch a movie once in a while, but I stayed away from any form of entertainment that I thought was stupid and mindless. I would read a book or call someone and the few times I would sit in front of the TV, I would be very selective about what I watched. I would still be envious of the perfect women with perfect clothes and make-up and hair, but now I was aware that it made me feel bad about myself. When that happened I would:

3)      Find something I liked about myself.

This could be anything from my smile to my curly hair to my uneven jaw. It didn’t matter just as long as I found something that I liked. It works every time.

So when we are talking about taking responsibility for yourself, it is acknowledging the fact that you control how you feel about yourself and all of your actions. It’s also admitting that outside influences affect us and deciding to either not let them or disagreeing with them to such an extent that we remove them from our lives.

I strongly suggest staying away from anyone or anything that makes you feel less than great about yourself.

In summary, try doing the following this week:

1)      Don’t buy or read another woman’s magazine.

2)      Turn off the TV and internet and find something else to do like reading, writing, walking. Anything except watching TV.

3)      Everyday write down one or more things that you like about yourself.

4)      Email it to me and let me know how you are doing.

I have the utmost faith and confidence in you. Disagree with anyone who tells you who you should be or how you should look. They don’t know what they are talking about.

Even me if you think so. How you feel about yourself is senior to anyone else. What you think is what you think and you don’t need anyone’s approval. Not now. Not ever.

Self-esteem. Lesson #1. Decide

Posted: July 18, 2011 in Self-esteem, self-respect

Lessons in self-esteem.

Esteem: To consider good or important; value highly. Self-esteem would then be to regard oneself in this way.

What do you think? You think we need a little bit more of this in ourselves and others? I sure do.

I’m not famous, I’m not published and I’m not someone who has a book to sell or a workshop or CD’s anything else to sell you. Hell, I didn’t even go to college so I don’t have any fancy degrees.

But I’ve been working with people my entire life and I’ve noticed a subtle but important change in people over the years and it startled me.

People in general don’t seem to like themselves very much. I see this in so many ways:

1)       Feeling inferior or uncertain.

2)       Scared about failure so not even taking one step towards something they want.

3)       Sleeping with anyone that comes along that has a pulse.

4)       Obsession with one’s looks.

5)       Obsession with one’s weight.

6)       Convinced they must have someone (boyfriend/girlfriend) in their lives to feel value.

7)       Staying in an abusive relationship because they are afraid to be alone.

8)       Looking to others for self-esteem.

9)       Thinking what people think of them is more important than their opinion of themselves.

10)   Feeling unworthy.

And my favorite sign of lack of self-esteem:

11)   Insisting and enforcing their viewpoint that they have it. This is almost always done in a hostile tone.

This list goes on, but you get my point.

I decided to put together all of my experiences in this subject along with what I have found has worked for me and for others. My intent is to open this up to anyone that has an interest in improving their own sense of value and hope that it helps you.

In any course you take it is best approached step-by-step. Do one thing really well and then go onto the next thing. There are a couple of key things that I am going to start with because without them you won’t be as successful.

The most important thing to know about self-esteem is this: If you don’t have it, it’s because you gave it away. No one took it from you. You wrapped it up in a pretty little package and gave it away. Everyone does this for a different reason and none of those reasons are relevant or important.

Why? Because you’re going to get it back, all by yourself, and I don’t care why you gave it away  in the first place. Getting back one’s self-esteem has nothing to do with what happened in the past and has everything to do with today and tomorrow.

So your first step is to DECIDE you are going to get it back.

Remember when you were a child and life was fun? You were anyone you wanted to be and it was real. You could fly, dance, sing and in your mind you went to wonderful places and met fun people. Maybe you actually did go there and meet those people. You knew no one was better than you. You had your dreams and they were real and alive and you KNEW it.

Take a moment and think back to a time when you were happy. Find the happiest moment you can and don’t read further until you have that moment back.

Take your time and enjoy it. I’ll wait….

That moment when you were your happiest is still there and it’s real. OK, I get that it’s buried a bit or maybe a lot, but it’s there, right? That’s what you want back. There’s only one thing we really want and that’s to be happy.

But you can’t be happy if you don’t like yourself anymore.

And believe me no one will ever love you like you love yourself. It’s not possible. So if you don’t like yourself much then what you get back is more of the same. If you don’t respect yourself, no one else will.

We’ve all heard that cliché that I just typed and I was going to apologize for it, but in this case it happens to be true.

So the first step is deciding that you are worth the effort, that you want it back and then some (it’s always a good idea to have some in reserve for when life smack you upside your head) and that you are going to do it.

Now a word of caution; the second you make this decision, you might feel a backlash come in. This can come from previous failures or remembering times when you hated yourself or something bad that you had done. You might feel anything from shame, blame, regret or anger. Negative emotions will come in.

Ignore it. Ignore it. Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain. It doesn’t matter what you have done up to this minute. It doesn’t matter who you are, what you’ve done or not done. Shove it aside and keep doing that. Just keep repeating the decision to yourself.

In other words DISAGREE with anything negative you feel or think about yourself. Just disagree.

This is your first lesson. There will be more to come as this is a gradient approach and it is unique and personal to each person. We all have our problems and none of us are perfect, but at least we are standing at the plate and swinging.

More lessons to come, so if you want to receive them, please subscribe to this blog. If you find this helpful, please tell others to come on board. I would really like your feedback on how it’s going as we walk down this path together. Whoever you are, I know you are valuable. I just want to make sure you know that too.

I am more than happy to help anyone one-on-one, so if you would like to do that, subscribe and then follow me on GooglePlus and send me an email. I am also on Twitter.

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