Self-Esteem, Objectives:  Be able to define “self-esteem”.  Be able to figure out how high or how low your self-esteem is.  Be able to describe healthy ways to build your self-esteem.

What is self esteem ?  Self-worth  Confidence in our ability to think and cope with life’s challenges  Confidence in our right to be happy and successful  A feeling that we are deserving, entitled to assert our needs and desires

Benefits of high self-esteem  More persistent at a difficult task  Increased respect for oneself and behave in ways that encourage others to respect (Me)more  Improve unconscious behavior  Feel better, live better

The impact of self-esteem on our lives:  How we operate in the workplace  School  Home  How we chose our friends  Who we fall in love with

The higher our self-esteem  The easier we are able to pick ourselves up after a fall (tragedies,problems etc.).  The stronger the drive to express our true nature and the sense of richness within.  The better we are able to form nurturing vs. toxic relationships.  The tendency to be drawn to others with high self-esteem.

Our first steps to building self- esteem is to: Raise the level of our consciousness in the face of emotional resistance. Claim our personal power. Identify “pseudo-self-esteem”: someone that has a lot of worldly success but feels like a failure inside and has a deep sense of inadequacy.

Healthy vs. unhealthy self-esteem  Rationality, realism  Creativity  Independence  Flexibility  Ability to manage change  Willingness to admit mistakes  See others as inferior  Fear of the unknown  Inappropriate conformity or rebelliousness  Defensiveness  Over controlling  hostility

High self-esteem  Is the best predictor of personal happiness.  Is like having an emotional surplus, thus it is easier to love.  The opposite is emotional improvishment, which means you have a lot of unfulfilled needs.

Maslow’s hierarchy of needs  Draw a triangle  On the bottom put your basic human needs, food, oxygen, water, sex  Next put shelter, safety, health  Then love and belonging  Then education, learning, self-esteem  At the top:self-actualization

A self-actualized person displays:  Acceptance of self, others and nature  Self-direction, highly motivated  Problem-solving ability  Satisfying relationship with others

The needs are simple, but for many of us, we do not feel truly deserving of the higher level needs What is required for many of us, paradoxical though it may sound, is the courage to tolerate happiness without self-sabotage

Within ourselves we have:  Destructive voices  Memories, unconscious and conscious of failure  Fear  Self-doubt  Self-sabotage

Confronting those voices  Try not to run from them  Try not to ignore them  Challenge them to give reasons  Distinguish between fact and fiction,  Distinguish between feelings that are based on reality vs a non reality  perseverance is self-esteem building

Average self-esteem:  Fluctuate between feeling appropriate and inappropriate  Sometimes act wisely, sometimes foolishly  Inconsistent in behavior  This relationship with self reflects relationships with others

What causes low self-esteem?  Overly critical Parents  Significant childhood losses  Parental abuse  Parental alcoholism and drug addiction  Parental neglect/overprotectiveness  Parental rejection  Parental overindulgence

How can we improve our self- esteem?  Living more consciously  Taking good care of yourself  The practice of self-acceptance  The practice of self-responsibility  Self assertiveness  Developing support and intimacy  The practice of personal integrity

The practice of living consciously:  Watch your thoughts…do you find yourself saying:  I know I am not doing my best but I do not want to think about it.  I know the way I eat is wrecking my health but….  I know I am living beyond my means, but…

Living consciously means:  Being in the moment  A concern to understand the world around me  A commitment to learning  To seek clarity  Be aware of values that motivate me  Distinguish between facts and feelings

Self acceptance  Self-esteem is something we experience, self-acceptance is something we do.  Refusal to be in an adversarial relationship with self.  Listening to feelings can lead to a deeper awareness of important information

Self- assertiveness/responsibility  Willingness to stand up for self  Protecting boundaries  To live by your values  Learn to be kind without self-sacrificing  Cooperate with others without betraying our standards and convictions

Living purposefully  To live productively  Translating thoughts into reality  Answering questions such as: What am I trying to achieve ? Why do I think these means are appropriate ? Does the feedback from the environment convey that I am succeeding or failing ?

The practice of personal integrity  Is the integration of ideals, standards, beliefs and behaviors  When our behavior is congruent with our professed values, when ideals and practice match, we have integrity  When we have lapses in integrity it is detrimental to our self-esteem

One of the biggest enemies to high self-esteem is Laziness:  We do not challenge our inertia  We do not chose to be “awake”  We do not wish to experience discomfort  The greatest problem is that it becomes a vicious cycle and our “laziness” or inaction damages our self-esteem and we tend to become more lazy.

Self-esteem exercise  If I bring more awareness to my life today…..  If I boost my energy level by 5% today…  Write a letter to your “inner child”:  Start by taking a few deep breaths, picture yourself as a child,ask yourself are there any needs that were not met, then write a nurturing letter to sooth your “inner child”.