Tag Archives: friends

Develop Good Self-Esteem

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TWO VOICES IN YOUR HEAD

The mind is never quiet and there are these chattering voices with their non-stop monologue playing all the time.Do you recognize the ‘best friend voice’ in your head? How about that ‘worst enemy voice’? Which one seems to get the most time to talk?

List some of the negative messages your ‘worst enemy’ in your head sends you.

  • You can’t do this. You’re too stupid.
  • You’re not good enough.
  • Butterfingers! You’re so clumsy!
  • You’re just like Uncle Ken (implying his negative qualities)
  • ________________________________
  • ________________________________

Perfectionism and workaholism are two of the worst enemy voices.
Perfectionism focuses on the negative and keeps criticizing you for your failures – what you should or shouldn’t have done. The problem is that you believe this voice to be true which, by the way, it isn’t!
The workaholism voice keeps telling you to work harder, keep busy so you don’t have the time to listen to those negative voices. Taking this route doesn’t get rid of the voices.

THE SOURCE OF THESE NEGATIVE VOICES IN YOUR HEAD

These negative voices started when you were a child. Can you think of negative comments made to you as a child, maybe about your looks, maybe about your abilities. Give it some thought and write them down.

  • ____________________________________
  • ____________________________________

These could have developed into belief systems that continue to direct your life. Just because these voices come from within your head doesn’t necessarily mean they reflect ‘the truth’.

The story of Mark 

Mark’s father was a perfectionist so Mark grew up never believing that he was good enough, nothing he did was ever perfect enough to please Dad. In fact, Dad even went so far as to tell Mark that he would never get anywhere in life. This message was internalized and whatever he tried, whatever work he did, this worst enemy voice in his head kept telling him that ‘he would never get anywhere in life’. Trouble is we make our beliefs come true. Mark never held down a job for long and was constantly depressed because he believed this ‘worst enemy voice’ to be the truth.

INCREASING YOUR SELF-ESTEEM

Visualize the results you want

Just imagine that you are going to give a work presentation.
What mental picture gets conjured up? Success or failure?
How does this make you feel?
What thoughts come to mind?

The worst enemy voice
If you listen to the worst enemy voice inside your head, you might imagine yourself

  • dropping all your papers
  • stumbling over your words
  • feeling uncomfortable, unhappy, stressed out.

You then give your unconscious mind permission to influence how you do the presentation.

The best friend voice
However if you listen to the best friend voice in your head, the visualization could lead to success. Visualize yourself

  • holding your papers comfortably
  • speaking clearly and projecting your voice well
  • feeling happy, comfortable and in control of the presentation.

VISUALLY FRAME EACH DAY TO GET THE RESULTS YOU WANT

FRAME: The ‘worst enemy voice ‘day FRAME: The ‘best friend voice’ day
What you tell yourself Today is going to be awful – I’ve got that report to do As soon as I complete that report I can move on, do something enjoyable
How you act Procrastination Productive use of time
How others react to you Your negative, complaining attitude gets a similar response from your friends Your upbeat, positive attitude gets a similar response
Your self-esteem Plummets! Climbs!

FUTURE STRATEGY

If your ‘worst enemy voice’ starts arguing, don’t listen it – it’s lying! Let your inner ‘best friend voice’ talk back to the enemy. Forgive the people from the past who fed that worst enemy voice as you were growing up. Forgiving them, diminishes their power over you and allows you to move on.

Never, ever forget that you are an extremely precious person. Just being born into this world makes you precious, no matter what the enemy voice would like to tell you!

 


The Velveteen Rabbit

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EXCERPT FROM THE VELVETEEN RABBIT
By Margery Williams

“What is REAL?” asked the Rabbit one day, when they were lying side by side near the nursery fender, before Nana came to tidy the room. “Does it mean having things that buzz inside you and a stick-out handle?”

“Real isn’t how you are made,” said the Skin Horse. “It’s a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but Really loves you, then you become Real.”

“Does it hurt?” asked the Rabbit.

“Sometimes,” said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful. “When you are Real you don’t mind being hurt.”

“Does it happen all at once, like being wound up,” he asked, “or bit by bit?”

“It doesn’t happen all at once,” said the Skin Horse. “You become. It takes a long time. That’s why it doesn’t happen often to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get all loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don’t matter at all, because once you are Real you can’t be ugly, except to people who don’t understand.”

Moral of the story!

  • To grow into the person you are meant to be accept that part of life is getting hurt. That’s the ‘sandpaper’ that rubs down your sharp edges.
  • Accept others as they are without shouting at them for saying the wrong thing (in your opinion!). You really don’t want people ‘walking on eggshells’ when they’re with you. I’m not telling you to accept abuse as that’s a different matter and unacceptable.
  • Use each hurt as an opportunity to learn something about yourself. I just ask myself the simple question ‘what is this incident telling me about my belief systems.’
  • Sometimes we mind-read what we ‘think’ the other person has ‘really’ said and react to that, rather than what they have actually said. Become aware of this tendency. Pull yourself back into reality by asking yourself ‘what are the actual words the other person said’ and react to these words instead of what you imagine they’ve said.

Becoming a real person doesn’t happen often to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept.


Accepting Help

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Isn’t it true that many of us like to help other people, but are not so good at accepting help from others? We all have a need to be needed and when we help others we get this need met. This feels good.

But in order to give help we need someone who will accept our offer of help. Now this can be a problem because we have been taught to be independent and self-sufficient. Have you ever offered help to someone and your help has been rejected, even thought it’s clear that the person needs help? Your offer of help is rejected just so the other person can stay feeling self-sufficient and even feel proud of their independence.

Actually as humans we are meant to be interdependent, helping each other and receiving help from others. This is what makes for healthy relationships. When you reject someone’s offer of help you are stopping their ‘need to be needed’ from being met! You’re being quite selfish! So maybe think of an offer of help in another way. Somebody offers you help, think of the other person rather than yourself. By accepting the offer of help you’re giving the other person an opportunity to have their ‘need to be needed’ met. By accepting help you’re giving the other person a chance to feel good about themselves and build up their self-esteem.

Many years ago I read the book ‘The Road Less Travelled’ by M. Scott Peck,  a book I can highly recommend. I’d like to share an example of this principle from his book.

One Sunday as Dr Scott Peck left church it started raining. A patient of his who attended the same church, came up to him and offered him her umbrella. Dr Scott Peck’s reply was ‘no thank you, I’ll just run quickly!’ When he climbed into his car he realized what he had done and was furious with himself. By refusing her help, he had denied this young woman the opportunity to feel needed.

M. Scott Peck’s book, ‘The Road Less Travelled’ is available through Amazon. If you’re interested, just click on the book icon in the sidebar which will link you to Amazon.


Two-Faced!

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I was working in my garden this morning when I saw this caterpillar. It was so well disguised that I initially thought it was a rolled up dead leaf. It narrowly escaped the blades of my secateurs!  The rather strange lump on the right hand side is the caterpillar’s head!

 

I then looked at the ‘backside’ of the caterpillar and saw that it had another ‘face’. It looked like a big smiley face with a horn on top!

The two-faced caterpillar! Isn’t it true that we also wear ‘masks’. We put on a face that we think is more acceptable to the world. We pretend that we are somebody that we aren’t in order to be accepted. I suspect that the horn above that smiley face might be a dangerous sting for any potential predator looking to breakfast on the caterpillar! Wearing this type of ‘pretend’ mask can be dangerous to our mental health because in the long run it’s impossible to maintain. Also having a genuine relationship with someone who wears a ‘mask’ is difficult. We might be trying to be more appealing to others but in the end we are more likely to put them off!

Be true to yourself! You certainly will be far more appealing and interesting without that ‘pretend’ mask!

You might also be interested in these related links.

By the way I’d love to know what butterfly this caterpillar will turn into. If you’re a caterpillar expert please let me know.


Stay connected to friends!

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I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends

This was listed as the 4th most common regret in a study of elderly folk facing death. If you know what you could regret at the end of your life, then you could do something about it now, couldn’t you?

We don’t need masses of friends. But we do all need a handful of good friends who we can mutually depend on, love and support.  It really is difficult to have a meaningful relationship with huge numbers of people. We are not meant to live as isolated beings but maintaining relationships also needs work. It requires time and effort from both sides.

About 25 years ago a very dear friend and I drifted apart. We went our different ways and gradually we stopped putting in the necessary relationship maintenance! Imagine my delight when I received a message from her through Facebook all these years later. The relationship has been restored. I’m sure many of you have also had similar experiences, and the ‘catching up’ can be such fun!

The elderly people in this study expressed many regrets about not giving friendships the time and effort that they deserved. They faced death missing their long lost friends.

Stay connected to friends! Think of a friend you’ve neglected and make a plan to rectify this during the coming week. It’s wonderful to journey your life with old friends with whom you have a shared history. Your friends need your friendship just as much as you need theirs!