July 1 In nature there are neither rewards nor punishments-there are consequences Robert G. Ingersoll Only the very young imagine that they can play with fire without getting burned. The rest of us, looking at the world under singed eyelashes, have learned to our regret that the bill for heedless behavior eventually comes due.
If we thought we could drink or smoke with impunity, the passing years showed us our mistake. If we told ourselves that charm would forever disguise lack of accomplishment, we discovered that “forever” has a short run. If we procrastinated, hid, and lied to avoid responsibility, we ran out of people who would take us seriously. In short, we had to face the consequences of our own behavior.
Most of us are crushed when the piper demands payment. We’re embarrassed, ashamed, and disappointed in ourselves. Our self-esteem, already propped up on slender sticks of pretense, takes a nosedive. But there is a bright side to this gloomy picture. Indulgences that have hardened into habits give us clarity and focus. Instead of vaguely wishing that our lives were different, we can immedtiately hone in our target habits. We may be mortified, but we’re not confused about what needs to be done. The day of reckoning that we avoided so long may be the best day of our lives. Because from that day forward, we can divest ourselves of our miserable habits the same way we acquired them-one day at a time.
Daily effort to improve myself has consequences, too.
July 2 Trouble and perplexity drive us to prayer, and prayer drives away trouble and perplexity. P. Melanchthon No one ever said that achieving and maintaining positive self-esteem was trouble free. Doable, certainly, but not without some setbacks. The fact is the course that leads to this worthy goal is pitted with trouble and perplexity.
Many have found that prayer, our conscious contact with God as we understand God to be, is an invaluable help in the effort. Partly because prayer helps us both to realize and experience that we do not have to carry the load alone.
When trouble and perplexity slow us down and trip us up, our tendency is often to pull back, push others away, and isolate. We withdraw into the mind-set that says, “I am alone with these awful burdens. I m must carry them all by myself.” Self-esteem is often demolished under this crushing weight. We simply cannot handle some problems without help. Many times prayer keeps us moving. We either have to reach for the stars or stop our journey.
The road is hard. Thank God I do not have to go it alone.
July 3 The property of power is to protect. Blaise Pascal Just think of how wonderful it would be! When we read about powerful people, our imaginations take off. If only we were the ones in charge! At last we could have our day in the sun. We could buy anything we wanted, do anything we wanted, make other people do anything we wanted them to do….And that’s the trouble with power. Whether we’re individuals or nations, we tend to confuse power with force. Somehow we want to use it to make other people submit.
The fact is that we can be power brokers if we want to. If we use the kind of power we have, instead of the kind we don’t have we can empower other people to fly free, to unburden their loads, to throw off some crippling self-definition. This is power indeed.
We don’t need high connections or advanced degrees to wield this power. All we need is the wisdom and the willingness to give a smile or a compliment to someone accustomed to put-downs, or an ego-building invitation to someone hiding in the shadows. These are the simple tools of the truly powerful.
To help others be all they can be is to “play God’ in one of the few legitimate ways open to us. If this isn’t big-time power, what is?
To promote another’s freedom and growth is to guarantee my own.
July 4 Every person’s feelings have a front-door and a side-door by which they may be entered. Oliver Wendell Holmes A familiar song tells us to whistle a happy tune so no one will know we’re afraid. Unlikely as it may seem, there’s a lot of truth to that. Acting the way we would like to feel really does help us feel that way.
In a university experiment, psychological researchers asked student volunteers to make six different facial expressions. The six emotions to be expressed were fear, surprise, disgust, sadness, anger, and happiness. The findings were surprising. When the volunteers looked afraid, their bodies reacted as if they really were afraid; their heart rates speed up and their skin temperatures dropped. For the most part, appropriate physical reactions also occurred when the other emotions were portrayed.
“Act as if….” Is an important coping technique in many self-help programs. If your are fearful, act as if you are the bravest person you know. If you’re having a down day, act as if it is your job to cheer everybody else up. The point, of course, is not to fool yourself about how you really feel. Pretending is just the technique; practice is the point.
When I “act as if,” I can accelerate a positive result.
July 5 Time cools, time clarifies; no mood can be maintained quite unaltered through the course of hours. Thomas Mann The search for serenity does not lead us to a state of full-time bliss. The idea that we should never have a bad day is another of our unrealistic expectations. No one, no matter how hard they’re “working the program,” has a good day every day. Who knows what the trigger is? Maybe it’s gloomy weather or hormones or a skipped breakfast. But the fact is that we all feel down sometimes.
Emotional stability is an important component of self-esteem. Wild mood swings and chronic crankiness are symptoms of deeper disorders that need attention. Often, deeply buried anger is the wellspring of the attitudinal misery that is bubbling up. Work with a counselor or support group can usually relieve such unhappy, long-term conditions.
But for the ordinary ups and downs of life, good old-fashioned acceptance is the best remedy we’ve got. Even people with naturally cheerful dispositions and even tempers get up on the wrong side of the bed once in a while. While we strive for emotional balance, we need to remember that stable and static aren’t the same thing; our goal is an acceptable, comfortable range.
The upside is that bad days are just as fleeting as good days.
July 6 This free will business is a bit terrifying anyway. It’s almost pleasanter to obey, and make the most of it. Ugo Betti Many of us bristle like porcupines if anyone dares to tell us what to do. We’re insulted by the very idea that we need advice or guidance of any kind. Allow ourselves to be bossed around? Never! Thank you very much, but we’ll make our own decisions.
Yet the vast majority of us are crowd followers at heart. Our dress, talk, tastes, and habits are almost always styled by the dictates of one community or another. In our need to fit in, we have formed and shaped ourselves very carefully to be “a part” rather than “apart.” Business executives and college professors may criticize the peer pressure that has gang members wearing their distinctive colors. But what of all those pinstripes and wing tips marching in lockstep? What of all those rumpled tweed jackets and baggy wool sweaters? Is that not conformity?
Most of our waking hours are spent following guidelines that are not of our own making. We go along to get along, keeping pace with our fellows as best we can. The fact that we do conform is unquestionable. To ask ourselves why we so hotly proclaim otherwise is the real question in our search for greater self-awareness.
In matters of dress and style, crowd following is usually harmless; in matters of substance, less so.
July 7 I never heard of anyone stumbling on anything while sitting down. Charles Kettering If we are to live full lives, we need to get clear about what we want to accomplish, and pursue those goals with energy and determination. Some say, “Oh, if I had only gone to college!” If they are sincere, there is no reason not to get started. They well might say, “But it will take me ten years. I’ll be too old.” But how old will they be ten years from now if they don’t go to college?
So many of us, probably most, never reach our potential. Mostly because we never get started. Whatever we can do, or think we can-we need to begin it. Procrastination is so comfortable and inviting. Inertia can so easily become a way of life. We need to resist, though. We must take that first step, which is a struggle with our own limited self-image. Once we are on our feet and moving the battle is half won.
If we just get started and keep on going, we’ll immediately earn a better reputation with ourselves. Our chances for success will improve as our self-image improves. It’s never too late to get started.
I can do whatever I believe I can do.
July 10 Have the courage to live. Anyone can die. Robert Cody Many a popular novel or movie has a touching death scene. Often, one of the principal characters chooses death as the only possible response to some unbearable melancholy or star-crossed love. “How romantic,” we say. “He gave up his life for her. He died for love!” Yet in the real world, far more often the greater sacrifice is to live for love.
Self-esteem and the will to live go hand and hand. Many of us have come close to drowning in a swamp of bad luck, tragic family of origin events, betrayal, and sheer exhaustion. All could become reasons, easily justified, to die, either physically or spiritually. All we have to do is to give over our spirits to cynicism, negativity, or passivity. We die by simply defaulting on life.
Choosing life is what takes courage. Never are we more alive or loving than when we get up off the mat and try again, take another risk when the scars of past wounds still lie red and vivid on our souls. That is life. That is self-esteem. Living is the proof of love. Anyone can die.
For all its hardship, my life is precious to me.
July 11 Conquered unhappiness always lies in back of tranquility. David Grayson Some nuggets of wisdom are rarely recognized. One of these is the fact that a gift is hidden in any problem. Most of us, of course, would handle our problems with ten-foot tongs if we could. The quicker we can do something about our problems and forget about them, the better. We want to move on to more cheerful pursuits.
But unhappiness, which is caused by problems, has a value of its own. When we dash away from it too quickly, without considering its whys and wherefores, we can lose on an enlightening truth: Traversing troubled water without drowning is no small thing. The fact that we’ve managed to do it at all proves that we’re doing something right. And our bouts of unhappiness have even more specific lessons to teach.
Rebounding after betrayal teaches us to be prudent with our trust. Overcoming discouragement teaches us to make sure that our expectations are realistic. Besting the blues teaches us that the sun will come up in the morning. Such lessons learned are gifts that came to us wrapped up in problems.
Some lessons can only be learned on the battlefield.
July 12 Whining is a great deal of self-pity pushed through a small hole. Anonymous Even whiners recoil from the sound of whining. But although it makes people cover their ears and leave the room , whining is more of a symptom than a cause. People whine because they sense they have no power, no choices, and consequently, no responsibility. Whining is the sound of victimhood.
People with adequate self-esteem don’t whine. They might very well acknowledge a problem or pain-but then they take appropriate steps to remedy the situation. Whiners stop short of action. They just sit in their pain and make noise about it, like coyotes baying at the moon.
Heaven knows all of us have sadnesses to bay about. But we don’t have enough time for griping and complaining once we take responsibility for our lives. We’re too busy working on the attitudes and behaviors that set up our ill fortune in the first place. We’re not sitting now, we’re moving and doing. The last thing we want to hear is the sniveling sound made when self-pity is pushed through a small hole.
Most of my “bad luck” is directly attributable to conditions I allowed to develop.
July 13 A smile goes beyond language; it is understood by all persons. Joanie Roy Some situations strike us speechless. Obviously something needs to be said, heartfelt joy or sorrow needs to be communicated, but the words fail to come. We stand there dumb.
Perhaps a friend has been killed in a car accident; how can we possibly express our grief to the family? Even worse, what can we say to a loved one who is dying? In our embarrassing loss for words we may even avoid seeing such a person until it’s too late for talk. Happy situations can also strike us dumb. On the day of our daughter’s wedding, there may be no words to express the happiness, pride, and pleasure we feel.
Often, when communication fails, we feel that we have failed-and our self-esteem plummets. But words are not the only way we have of communicating. Sometimes just a touch, a hug, or simply our presence, says far more than words ever will. Sometimes a smile, a nod, a thumbs-up sign, says it all.
Just being there for people delivers a comforting message.
July 14 Take time to deliberate; but when the time for action arrives, stop thinking and go in. Andrew Jackson To be stalled in indecision is to be trapped in one of the worst hells there is. Most adults don’t need anyone to tell them that straddling a fence is painful. They’ve done it before and they know how it feels. So why do they keep finding themselves in the same predicament?
Efficient decision making is a skill. And like all skills, it must be practiced before it is learned. Of course, some decisions are devilishly difficult. But even those that will clearly take us from a bad place to a good place can make us defensive and uncomfortable. After all, our shaky self-esteem is put on the line every time we make a judgment. When we declare ourselves, we risk disapproval and maybe even blame. It takes courage to be the one who makes the decision.
But “waiting for a better time” is rarely a valid tactic. When will a better time be? When will it be easier? When will they or we hurt less? No matter how much we dread what we have to do, what is to be gained by hesitating? Until we dare to decide, there’s no way off the fence and out of the pain.
My self-esteem profits as my decision-making skills increase.
July 15 Death, like life, is an affair of being more frightened than hurt. Samuel Butler Death is no doubt the unmentionable of all unmentionable topics. Just the word itself makes us feel nervous and fluttery inside. Bad enough if the idea of dying crops up in our own minds-worse yet if it comes up in conversation, which, to our great relief, it rarely does. And even then, as if in a never-discussed but commonly understood conspiracy, nearly all of us have one or two glib remarks to make before we quickly change the subject.
The truth is we’d rather not talk about death because we’d rather not think about it. Yet death is a central fact of life. If we’re so afraid of death that we can’t look at it, wonder about it, or talk about it, how can we ever come to the serenity of acceptance? We can’t hide and understand at the same time. We can’t prepare for what we won’t acknowledge.
Of all realities, the death of our loved ones and eventually ourselves is the most certain. How healthy and wise it is to put all that fear and dread right out on the table where we can look at it in the light of our beliefs, our experience, and our best thinking. What growth to becoming willing to talk about death with a trusted friend. What peace to discover that fear, not death itself, has all along been the stumbling block.
When I avoid the subject of death, I avoid reality.
July 16 A stumble may prevent a fall. Thomas Fuller
Everyone trips up once in a while. AS skillful as we are, as carefully as we go, sooner or later a crack in the sidewalk is going to get us. Pratfalls aren’t fun, of course, but they’re not all that important, either. Occasionally, a good self-inflicted smack may be just what we need.
Say that we made a rash judgment. Or did something that, in hindsight, was undesirable or even shameful. If we stop to think about it, we can often figure out the whys and wherefores of our mistake. Maybe we were especially tired that day. Maybe we took out anger on an innocent person because we were afraid to confront the person who really made us angry. Self-respect can be salvaged if we use our slipups to help us become more aware.
Life is full of hazards. After we’ve taken a few falls, we can learn to catch ourselves before we go down. An occasional stumble may be a warning. If we learn from them, our blunders can be our blessings.
My self-esteem profits when I profit from my mistakes.
July 17 There is joy and comfort in a thick skin. Dr. James Bender
Hurt feelings-who needs them? Many of us do, in the spite of the fact that they are painful and terribly destructive of our self-esteem. We can get a lot of mileage out of our misery.
“Feeling hurt” can be our way of controlling other people. Extremely thin-skinned people are good at using the most trifling incidents to create a grievance. By taking offense, they take power. Perhaps they demand apologies from a family member who forgot to mail a birthday card. Or maybe they’re after sympathy for a difficult, but commonplace, life situation, or for ordinary, everyday hardships. In any event, they use their distress to claim other people’s attention. In skillful hands, emotional frailty can be an effective club indeed.
It’s our choice if we want to feel good by feeling bad. But it’s really not fair to twist other people’s arms of sympathy.
Sometimes I may need to toughen up a bit; I don’t have to bleed to be loved.
July 18 Responsibility is proportionate to opportunity. Woodrow Wilson
Reaching out for more responsibility seems akin to giving yourself a hot foot or volunteering for a root canal. Who needs it? Yet in the realm of self-esteem, deliberately taking on responsibility makes all the sense in the world.
Self-esteem depends on a competent self-image. And competence only comes from repeated experience. Without sufficient experience of success, all of our claims to competence are just so much chest beating. Experience means doing, not waiting for a chance to do, but getting out there and mixing it up. Often that means proactively reaching out and making something happen.
Opportunities to prove that we are competent, capable people are everywhere-if we’re willing to take the responsibility. Volunteer at a children’s hospital or an old folks’ home. Help out at the PTA or Little League. Whatever your choice, set a deadline and then share it with someone who will hold you accountable. The rewards will surprise you.
Initiative creates its own opportunities.
July 19 Who would you see if you saw yourself walking your way? Chester Davison
Recently a man was relating an amusing incident that had a heavy impact on his self-esteem. While on a Chicago business trip, he went out for an early morning walk. He began to notice that other pedestrians were tending to avoid him. As soon as they caught sight of him, they looked away. No amount of attempted eye contact worked. As he approached, people would cross the street or give him a wide berth.
Ugly, angry, negative thoughts started popping into his mind. At first he condemned them. Then he began to wonder what was wrong with him that he was being treated this way. Stopping at a coffee shop to lick his wounded self-confidence and to warm up, he caught sight of himself in a large mirror. Then he understood! As friendly as he knew himself to be on the inside, his outside told a different story. He had forgotten to shave, his hair was mussed, his eyes were heavy and rather bloodshot as a result of a long, tedious meeting the night before. He knew who he was inside, but now he got a look at how others saw his outside!
His comment about who would you see if you saw yourself walking your way made his listeners think. Inside and outside don’t always match. We need to investigate further before we draw any hard and fast conclusions-about ourselves or others.
Appearances are sometimes deceiving.
July 20 If you do not raise your eyes, you will think that you are the highest point. Antonio Porchia
Too much concentration on self results in what some people call “belly-button gazing.” Rather than healthy self-examination, that unattractive phrase describes self-absorption-a total focus inward. Hardly the balanced view necessary to help us find our place in the universe!
Raising our eyes shows us that we are part of a world much bigger than ourselves. When we look up and around at the glory that surrounds us, we can’t help seeing our own concerns in a new perspective. Just watching and listening to the birds in the trees tends to modify situations that we may have taken too seriously. And when hopelessness holds us in a bear hug, an effective escape has always been to lie back and look at the clouds, realizing that all removing, changing, and no two clouds are the same.
Raising our eyes also raises our hearts. The balanced view has breadth and height as well as depth, panoramic majesty as well as personal misery. A realistic sense of self depends on the balanced view.
I wear blinders when I concentrate too closely on myself.
July 21 Making terms with reality, with things as they are, is a full-time business for the child.
Milton R. Sapirstein
As much as we’d like to, we can’t give self-esteem to our children any more than we can give youth to the aged or health to the sick. Certainly we can and must do our best to protect them when they’re small. And we should strive to model the self-respectful behavior we want them to imitate. But self-esteem is a prize that nobody else can win for you. Claiming it is an inside job.
Some child development experts of yesteryear made us believe otherwise. They suggested that any unhappiness in our children’s lives would have long-term effects. Awful effects that would be our fault. So we stopped making unpopular decisions and started walking on eggshells around our kids. We neglected our own lives to lavish them with attention. We praised them whether they deserved it or not. In short, with all the best intentions, we led them to believe that this is not the real world at all, but Disneyland. And we gave them all the rides for free.
Now both parents and experts know better. They know that even young people have to struggle to be strong. The problem-solving skills that make us confident can only be learned by facing some problems. Frustration teaches inventiveness, and patience. And in the long run that’s just what self-esteem is based on-the proven ability to take care of ourselves.
I improve the odds for my children’s self-esteem when I stop cushioning their every fall.
July 22 The voice is a second face. Gerard Bauer
Because none of us lives in a vacuum, most of our success in life depends on the success of our key relationships. Different people use different modes or styles to get through to one another. Some methods, as well as some messages, are more productive than others. It’s a valuable exercise to think about how and what we usually communicate.
Some of us try to influence others with overpowering logic, others by talking so sweetly we can hardly be refused, and still others dominate by sheer volume. Sometimes we deliver threats as jokes and pleas as compliments. None of these manipulated communications do us or our relationships much good.
In the long run there is no message more worthy of delivery than simply saying it is safe to be with us. When we say straight out that we will do our best to be a port in the storm and a willing listener, that we will not mindlessly say the careless word or inflict the careless wrong, we are saying all that anyone wants to hear. The style doesn’t matter if the substance is there.
Heartfelt communication tends to be plain rather than fancy.
July 23 Assumption is the mother of screw-up. Angelo Donghia
It may be truthfully said that assumption is not only a hotbed of error, but also the cause of much self-esteem bashing. Especially if we place our self-worth in other people’s hands. And most especially if we don’t tell them about it.
Martha’s assumptions flattened her spirits every day. Unknown to Eric, her boss, Martha used him as a mirror to check out her self-worth. Every day she looked to him for approval-not just the normal, appropriate approval that a good employee deserves-but the kind of deep affirmation that children need from their fathers. Martha assumed that Eric’s approval would make up for the love she missed. But she was wrong. Not only did Eric not know what she was looking for-he had no interest in being her father. So her assumptions set her up for disappointment time after time.
We can’t assume something is true just because we need it to be true. When expectations are based on wishes rather than facts, our self-esteem is as fragile as a flower in a blizzard.
Examining my assumptions may help me light up some dark corners.
July 24 Women have felt the need to pretend to be happy in order to be feminine. Gloria Steinem
Responsible people do what they have to do. Figuring out what we have to do, unfortunately, is a lot harder than it looks. How many “shoulds” should we listen to? How many are true? Should we really behave, think, and feel differently than we do? Who says so?
Those of us who are females with families have been held responsible for too many “shoulds.” In our efforts to be everything to everybody, we’ve too often become nobody to ourselves-always standing at the end of the line when wants and needs are being addressed. Obviously this doesn’t do a lot for our self-esteem. What’s even worse is the popular culture’s insistence that we should be happy about it.
But unrealistic ideals are not healthy. No one should be bullied into pretending happiness-or accepting responsibility for other people’s happiness. Because the goal itself is false, pursuing that goal diminishes self-esteem.
In general, pretending is of little use in building a better, happier life. Pretending that is grounded in delusion and denial is not true femininity or true anything else that has any values.
I am free to choose my own goals and the means of achieving them.
July 25 It is easier to confess a defect than to claim a quality. Max Beerbohm
Self-esteem can stumble when we so bravely and thoroughly confront our flaws that our flaws are all we think about. We can get too good at searching out imperfections-so good that we spend most of our time concentrating on what’s wrong rather than what’s right. What we must not do-whether it’s bossing other people around or leading up on junk food-can become the focus of our lives.
Certainly it makes sense to identify and work against our personal pitfalls. But we are who we are and many of our deep-seated characteristics have an upside as well as a downside. If boldness is in our nature, we need to learn to control it and use it-not wipe it out. If we’re control-crazy, we need to learn to lighten up-not let go completely. The major characteristics of our personalities are almost always double-edged swords that cut both ways. The trick is to use them for and not against our own best interests.
Self-knowledge includes awareness of our strengths as well as our weaknesses. When we can accept that both pluses and minuses often come wrapped up in the same package, we can stop being so hard on ourselves and start working with what we have.
A balanced self-image is the only true self-image.
July 26 I take care of me. I am the only one I’ve got. Groucho Marx
What makes us think we don’t measure up? Why do we expect so little from ourselves? What kills our self-respect? The answers vary. Consider these:
The best way to enhance our self-esteem is by direct action. Take on some responsibility that we have been dodging, enroll in a gym class to improve our appearance and health, practice ignoring small annoyances, or start looking for healthy friends.
We need not worry about overcompensating. It doesn’t often happen, but when it does it can sometimes lead to greatness. As a child, Winston Churchill was a stutterer who also lisped. By working on his shortcomings, he became a world-class orator. So, too, working on our shortcomings is what will raise our self-esteem and bring us success.
Self-awareness is the springboard to successful living.
July 27 All men should strive to learn before they die what they are running from, and to, and why.
James Thurber
In our quest for a healthier self-image, some of us find it hard to accept that long-ago events are still holding us back. We figure that if we can’t remember the past very well, or hardly ever think of it, it must have been erased somehow. Out of sight, out of mind. Out of mind, out of reality.
But what was doesn’t disappear just because we turn away from it. Imagine a car that was in an accident twenty, thirty, or forty years ago. If this car had simply been parked, unrepaired, wouldn’t it still be dented? Or would the years that passed somehow have made it whole? When we’re talking about cars instead of people, we know very well that time alone doesn’t pound out dents. Work pounds out dents.
If we were neglected or otherwise abused as children, the fact is that there was damage done-first and foremost to our self-esteem. The words and deeds that put us down, that shut us out, are the dents that underlie our negative self-definitions. If they haven’t been looked at and worked on, they’re still there. That long ago “lifewreck” might have been just a fender bender or it might have been a head-on collision-but the results will be with us until we stop denying what happened.
After a car accident, blaming the driver is not nearly as important as getting busy pounding out the dents.
July 28 We often give our enemies the means for our own destruction. Aesop
Of course, our self-esteem takes a whipping when others come at us with hurtful comments, criticisms, and put-downs. What makes it even worse is when these cutting remarks are justified.
Margaret is a wonderful young, lady who has very little sense of how wonderful she really is. Her self-esteem is downright flimsy. One of her worst nightmares is that someone in her crowd will accuse her of being an “airhead.” Yet Margaret has also slipped into a most unfortunate habit. When a situation comes up that might make her look dumb, she tries to fend it off by pretending that she wasn’t paying attention. If she doesn’t understand what is happening, she reasons, she can’t be held responsible for making an off-base remark of a foolish decision.
But this strategy, of course, only makes her appear to be what she’s trying not to be-an airhead. Her behavior gives friends and foes alike all the ammunition needed to shoot her down. Clearly, she set herself up for the name-calling she most dreaded. Until she learns to deal with the cause of the criticism, she’s not likely to get a different result.
I will no longer hand out rocks for people to throw at me.
July 29 We never reflect how pleasant it is to ask for nothing. Seneca
Few of us retain independent judgment as to what makes a successful life. Our “gotta have it” society actually induces need as it barrages us with images of the glorified selves we will be once we have “it”-whether it be a better body or a bigger car. The result is an abiding sense of ourselves as incomplete. And when self-completion always hinges on acquiring one more thing, self-esteem will always be left waiting in the wings.
Do we need-or even want-everything we think we do? Must we always be in the position of waiting for, saving for, wishing for…? Is there any such thing as that “last thing” we must have to put us over the top? Or have we mindlessly bought into a false image of ourselves as lacking and hungry? Could it be that we already have what we really need?
Independent judgment enables us to make a distinction between necessities and add-ons. Are we able to think, to love, to laugh? Can we see and enjoy the beauty in the world? Are there people who care about us? If that isn’t enough, there is no such thing as enough. How gratifying to stop putting happiness on hold!
Serenity is knowing that I already have what I need.
July 30 Anxiety is the space between “now” and “then.” Richard Abell
Everybody hates to be anxious. The sweating palms, the thudding heart, the nagging little headache that wakes us up in the middle of the night. But occasional anxiety is not only unavoidable, it’s necessary. Without unrest, why would we ever stir ourselves to move forward?
The growth of self-esteem is often fertilized by several good doses of anxiety. When we’re feeling really uncomfortable, we tend to seek comfort. Frequently that comfort comes in the form of the relief we feel when we stop procrastinating. There may be anxiety in putting pen to paper, but even more anxiety in not writing that letter we need to write. And apologizing out loud once can’t be more stressful than practicing that apology over and over again in our own minds.
Personal growth takes risk, energy, and dissatisfaction with the status quo. If that means an occasional bout of anxiety, then so be it. When we learn to accept the message that anxiety is trying to deliver-that we need to get up and going-we’ll have a lot less to be anxious about.
I can channel my anxiety into creative energy.
July 31 When a child, my dreams rode on your wishes, I was your son, high on your horse. My mind a top whipped by the lashes of your rhetoric: windy, of course. Stephen Spender
There is a delicate balance-in the pursuit of personal growth, in general, and self-esteem, in particular-between loving and courting acceptance from our parents and being enslaved by the need for that acceptance.
It is helpful, as the poet tells us, to recognize that our “dreams rode on your wishes,” but also to know that those wishes and rhetoric may indeed have been “windy.” When we consider our parents and the role they played in shaping our self-esteem, it is only fair to acknowledge that they were and are only human.
Just like us, our parents were shaped by their origins. They too, had their disappointments, their needs both met and unmet. They, too, had their share of good and bad life experiences-some of which, just like ours, were the result of nothing more than random luck. They, too, were subject to the windy rhetoric of others. Understanding, patience, and forgiveness are as good for us to give as to get. On either end, we profit.
I take a major leap when I allow my parents the same rights I allow myself.
If we thought we could drink or smoke with impunity, the passing years showed us our mistake. If we told ourselves that charm would forever disguise lack of accomplishment, we discovered that “forever” has a short run. If we procrastinated, hid, and lied to avoid responsibility, we ran out of people who would take us seriously. In short, we had to face the consequences of our own behavior.
Most of us are crushed when the piper demands payment. We’re embarrassed, ashamed, and disappointed in ourselves. Our self-esteem, already propped up on slender sticks of pretense, takes a nosedive. But there is a bright side to this gloomy picture. Indulgences that have hardened into habits give us clarity and focus. Instead of vaguely wishing that our lives were different, we can immedtiately hone in our target habits. We may be mortified, but we’re not confused about what needs to be done. The day of reckoning that we avoided so long may be the best day of our lives. Because from that day forward, we can divest ourselves of our miserable habits the same way we acquired them-one day at a time.
Daily effort to improve myself has consequences, too.
July 2 Trouble and perplexity drive us to prayer, and prayer drives away trouble and perplexity. P. Melanchthon No one ever said that achieving and maintaining positive self-esteem was trouble free. Doable, certainly, but not without some setbacks. The fact is the course that leads to this worthy goal is pitted with trouble and perplexity.
Many have found that prayer, our conscious contact with God as we understand God to be, is an invaluable help in the effort. Partly because prayer helps us both to realize and experience that we do not have to carry the load alone.
When trouble and perplexity slow us down and trip us up, our tendency is often to pull back, push others away, and isolate. We withdraw into the mind-set that says, “I am alone with these awful burdens. I m must carry them all by myself.” Self-esteem is often demolished under this crushing weight. We simply cannot handle some problems without help. Many times prayer keeps us moving. We either have to reach for the stars or stop our journey.
The road is hard. Thank God I do not have to go it alone.
July 3 The property of power is to protect. Blaise Pascal Just think of how wonderful it would be! When we read about powerful people, our imaginations take off. If only we were the ones in charge! At last we could have our day in the sun. We could buy anything we wanted, do anything we wanted, make other people do anything we wanted them to do….And that’s the trouble with power. Whether we’re individuals or nations, we tend to confuse power with force. Somehow we want to use it to make other people submit.
The fact is that we can be power brokers if we want to. If we use the kind of power we have, instead of the kind we don’t have we can empower other people to fly free, to unburden their loads, to throw off some crippling self-definition. This is power indeed.
We don’t need high connections or advanced degrees to wield this power. All we need is the wisdom and the willingness to give a smile or a compliment to someone accustomed to put-downs, or an ego-building invitation to someone hiding in the shadows. These are the simple tools of the truly powerful.
To help others be all they can be is to “play God’ in one of the few legitimate ways open to us. If this isn’t big-time power, what is?
To promote another’s freedom and growth is to guarantee my own.
July 4 Every person’s feelings have a front-door and a side-door by which they may be entered. Oliver Wendell Holmes A familiar song tells us to whistle a happy tune so no one will know we’re afraid. Unlikely as it may seem, there’s a lot of truth to that. Acting the way we would like to feel really does help us feel that way.
In a university experiment, psychological researchers asked student volunteers to make six different facial expressions. The six emotions to be expressed were fear, surprise, disgust, sadness, anger, and happiness. The findings were surprising. When the volunteers looked afraid, their bodies reacted as if they really were afraid; their heart rates speed up and their skin temperatures dropped. For the most part, appropriate physical reactions also occurred when the other emotions were portrayed.
“Act as if….” Is an important coping technique in many self-help programs. If your are fearful, act as if you are the bravest person you know. If you’re having a down day, act as if it is your job to cheer everybody else up. The point, of course, is not to fool yourself about how you really feel. Pretending is just the technique; practice is the point.
When I “act as if,” I can accelerate a positive result.
July 5 Time cools, time clarifies; no mood can be maintained quite unaltered through the course of hours. Thomas Mann The search for serenity does not lead us to a state of full-time bliss. The idea that we should never have a bad day is another of our unrealistic expectations. No one, no matter how hard they’re “working the program,” has a good day every day. Who knows what the trigger is? Maybe it’s gloomy weather or hormones or a skipped breakfast. But the fact is that we all feel down sometimes.
Emotional stability is an important component of self-esteem. Wild mood swings and chronic crankiness are symptoms of deeper disorders that need attention. Often, deeply buried anger is the wellspring of the attitudinal misery that is bubbling up. Work with a counselor or support group can usually relieve such unhappy, long-term conditions.
But for the ordinary ups and downs of life, good old-fashioned acceptance is the best remedy we’ve got. Even people with naturally cheerful dispositions and even tempers get up on the wrong side of the bed once in a while. While we strive for emotional balance, we need to remember that stable and static aren’t the same thing; our goal is an acceptable, comfortable range.
The upside is that bad days are just as fleeting as good days.
July 6 This free will business is a bit terrifying anyway. It’s almost pleasanter to obey, and make the most of it. Ugo Betti Many of us bristle like porcupines if anyone dares to tell us what to do. We’re insulted by the very idea that we need advice or guidance of any kind. Allow ourselves to be bossed around? Never! Thank you very much, but we’ll make our own decisions.
Yet the vast majority of us are crowd followers at heart. Our dress, talk, tastes, and habits are almost always styled by the dictates of one community or another. In our need to fit in, we have formed and shaped ourselves very carefully to be “a part” rather than “apart.” Business executives and college professors may criticize the peer pressure that has gang members wearing their distinctive colors. But what of all those pinstripes and wing tips marching in lockstep? What of all those rumpled tweed jackets and baggy wool sweaters? Is that not conformity?
Most of our waking hours are spent following guidelines that are not of our own making. We go along to get along, keeping pace with our fellows as best we can. The fact that we do conform is unquestionable. To ask ourselves why we so hotly proclaim otherwise is the real question in our search for greater self-awareness.
In matters of dress and style, crowd following is usually harmless; in matters of substance, less so.
July 7 I never heard of anyone stumbling on anything while sitting down. Charles Kettering If we are to live full lives, we need to get clear about what we want to accomplish, and pursue those goals with energy and determination. Some say, “Oh, if I had only gone to college!” If they are sincere, there is no reason not to get started. They well might say, “But it will take me ten years. I’ll be too old.” But how old will they be ten years from now if they don’t go to college?
So many of us, probably most, never reach our potential. Mostly because we never get started. Whatever we can do, or think we can-we need to begin it. Procrastination is so comfortable and inviting. Inertia can so easily become a way of life. We need to resist, though. We must take that first step, which is a struggle with our own limited self-image. Once we are on our feet and moving the battle is half won.
If we just get started and keep on going, we’ll immediately earn a better reputation with ourselves. Our chances for success will improve as our self-image improves. It’s never too late to get started.
I can do whatever I believe I can do.
July 10 Have the courage to live. Anyone can die. Robert Cody Many a popular novel or movie has a touching death scene. Often, one of the principal characters chooses death as the only possible response to some unbearable melancholy or star-crossed love. “How romantic,” we say. “He gave up his life for her. He died for love!” Yet in the real world, far more often the greater sacrifice is to live for love.
Self-esteem and the will to live go hand and hand. Many of us have come close to drowning in a swamp of bad luck, tragic family of origin events, betrayal, and sheer exhaustion. All could become reasons, easily justified, to die, either physically or spiritually. All we have to do is to give over our spirits to cynicism, negativity, or passivity. We die by simply defaulting on life.
Choosing life is what takes courage. Never are we more alive or loving than when we get up off the mat and try again, take another risk when the scars of past wounds still lie red and vivid on our souls. That is life. That is self-esteem. Living is the proof of love. Anyone can die.
For all its hardship, my life is precious to me.
July 11 Conquered unhappiness always lies in back of tranquility. David Grayson Some nuggets of wisdom are rarely recognized. One of these is the fact that a gift is hidden in any problem. Most of us, of course, would handle our problems with ten-foot tongs if we could. The quicker we can do something about our problems and forget about them, the better. We want to move on to more cheerful pursuits.
But unhappiness, which is caused by problems, has a value of its own. When we dash away from it too quickly, without considering its whys and wherefores, we can lose on an enlightening truth: Traversing troubled water without drowning is no small thing. The fact that we’ve managed to do it at all proves that we’re doing something right. And our bouts of unhappiness have even more specific lessons to teach.
Rebounding after betrayal teaches us to be prudent with our trust. Overcoming discouragement teaches us to make sure that our expectations are realistic. Besting the blues teaches us that the sun will come up in the morning. Such lessons learned are gifts that came to us wrapped up in problems.
Some lessons can only be learned on the battlefield.
July 12 Whining is a great deal of self-pity pushed through a small hole. Anonymous Even whiners recoil from the sound of whining. But although it makes people cover their ears and leave the room , whining is more of a symptom than a cause. People whine because they sense they have no power, no choices, and consequently, no responsibility. Whining is the sound of victimhood.
People with adequate self-esteem don’t whine. They might very well acknowledge a problem or pain-but then they take appropriate steps to remedy the situation. Whiners stop short of action. They just sit in their pain and make noise about it, like coyotes baying at the moon.
Heaven knows all of us have sadnesses to bay about. But we don’t have enough time for griping and complaining once we take responsibility for our lives. We’re too busy working on the attitudes and behaviors that set up our ill fortune in the first place. We’re not sitting now, we’re moving and doing. The last thing we want to hear is the sniveling sound made when self-pity is pushed through a small hole.
Most of my “bad luck” is directly attributable to conditions I allowed to develop.
July 13 A smile goes beyond language; it is understood by all persons. Joanie Roy Some situations strike us speechless. Obviously something needs to be said, heartfelt joy or sorrow needs to be communicated, but the words fail to come. We stand there dumb.
Perhaps a friend has been killed in a car accident; how can we possibly express our grief to the family? Even worse, what can we say to a loved one who is dying? In our embarrassing loss for words we may even avoid seeing such a person until it’s too late for talk. Happy situations can also strike us dumb. On the day of our daughter’s wedding, there may be no words to express the happiness, pride, and pleasure we feel.
Often, when communication fails, we feel that we have failed-and our self-esteem plummets. But words are not the only way we have of communicating. Sometimes just a touch, a hug, or simply our presence, says far more than words ever will. Sometimes a smile, a nod, a thumbs-up sign, says it all.
Just being there for people delivers a comforting message.
July 14 Take time to deliberate; but when the time for action arrives, stop thinking and go in. Andrew Jackson To be stalled in indecision is to be trapped in one of the worst hells there is. Most adults don’t need anyone to tell them that straddling a fence is painful. They’ve done it before and they know how it feels. So why do they keep finding themselves in the same predicament?
Efficient decision making is a skill. And like all skills, it must be practiced before it is learned. Of course, some decisions are devilishly difficult. But even those that will clearly take us from a bad place to a good place can make us defensive and uncomfortable. After all, our shaky self-esteem is put on the line every time we make a judgment. When we declare ourselves, we risk disapproval and maybe even blame. It takes courage to be the one who makes the decision.
But “waiting for a better time” is rarely a valid tactic. When will a better time be? When will it be easier? When will they or we hurt less? No matter how much we dread what we have to do, what is to be gained by hesitating? Until we dare to decide, there’s no way off the fence and out of the pain.
My self-esteem profits as my decision-making skills increase.
July 15 Death, like life, is an affair of being more frightened than hurt. Samuel Butler Death is no doubt the unmentionable of all unmentionable topics. Just the word itself makes us feel nervous and fluttery inside. Bad enough if the idea of dying crops up in our own minds-worse yet if it comes up in conversation, which, to our great relief, it rarely does. And even then, as if in a never-discussed but commonly understood conspiracy, nearly all of us have one or two glib remarks to make before we quickly change the subject.
The truth is we’d rather not talk about death because we’d rather not think about it. Yet death is a central fact of life. If we’re so afraid of death that we can’t look at it, wonder about it, or talk about it, how can we ever come to the serenity of acceptance? We can’t hide and understand at the same time. We can’t prepare for what we won’t acknowledge.
Of all realities, the death of our loved ones and eventually ourselves is the most certain. How healthy and wise it is to put all that fear and dread right out on the table where we can look at it in the light of our beliefs, our experience, and our best thinking. What growth to becoming willing to talk about death with a trusted friend. What peace to discover that fear, not death itself, has all along been the stumbling block.
When I avoid the subject of death, I avoid reality.
July 16 A stumble may prevent a fall. Thomas Fuller
Everyone trips up once in a while. AS skillful as we are, as carefully as we go, sooner or later a crack in the sidewalk is going to get us. Pratfalls aren’t fun, of course, but they’re not all that important, either. Occasionally, a good self-inflicted smack may be just what we need.
Say that we made a rash judgment. Or did something that, in hindsight, was undesirable or even shameful. If we stop to think about it, we can often figure out the whys and wherefores of our mistake. Maybe we were especially tired that day. Maybe we took out anger on an innocent person because we were afraid to confront the person who really made us angry. Self-respect can be salvaged if we use our slipups to help us become more aware.
Life is full of hazards. After we’ve taken a few falls, we can learn to catch ourselves before we go down. An occasional stumble may be a warning. If we learn from them, our blunders can be our blessings.
My self-esteem profits when I profit from my mistakes.
July 17 There is joy and comfort in a thick skin. Dr. James Bender
Hurt feelings-who needs them? Many of us do, in the spite of the fact that they are painful and terribly destructive of our self-esteem. We can get a lot of mileage out of our misery.
“Feeling hurt” can be our way of controlling other people. Extremely thin-skinned people are good at using the most trifling incidents to create a grievance. By taking offense, they take power. Perhaps they demand apologies from a family member who forgot to mail a birthday card. Or maybe they’re after sympathy for a difficult, but commonplace, life situation, or for ordinary, everyday hardships. In any event, they use their distress to claim other people’s attention. In skillful hands, emotional frailty can be an effective club indeed.
It’s our choice if we want to feel good by feeling bad. But it’s really not fair to twist other people’s arms of sympathy.
Sometimes I may need to toughen up a bit; I don’t have to bleed to be loved.
July 18 Responsibility is proportionate to opportunity. Woodrow Wilson
Reaching out for more responsibility seems akin to giving yourself a hot foot or volunteering for a root canal. Who needs it? Yet in the realm of self-esteem, deliberately taking on responsibility makes all the sense in the world.
Self-esteem depends on a competent self-image. And competence only comes from repeated experience. Without sufficient experience of success, all of our claims to competence are just so much chest beating. Experience means doing, not waiting for a chance to do, but getting out there and mixing it up. Often that means proactively reaching out and making something happen.
Opportunities to prove that we are competent, capable people are everywhere-if we’re willing to take the responsibility. Volunteer at a children’s hospital or an old folks’ home. Help out at the PTA or Little League. Whatever your choice, set a deadline and then share it with someone who will hold you accountable. The rewards will surprise you.
Initiative creates its own opportunities.
July 19 Who would you see if you saw yourself walking your way? Chester Davison
Recently a man was relating an amusing incident that had a heavy impact on his self-esteem. While on a Chicago business trip, he went out for an early morning walk. He began to notice that other pedestrians were tending to avoid him. As soon as they caught sight of him, they looked away. No amount of attempted eye contact worked. As he approached, people would cross the street or give him a wide berth.
Ugly, angry, negative thoughts started popping into his mind. At first he condemned them. Then he began to wonder what was wrong with him that he was being treated this way. Stopping at a coffee shop to lick his wounded self-confidence and to warm up, he caught sight of himself in a large mirror. Then he understood! As friendly as he knew himself to be on the inside, his outside told a different story. He had forgotten to shave, his hair was mussed, his eyes were heavy and rather bloodshot as a result of a long, tedious meeting the night before. He knew who he was inside, but now he got a look at how others saw his outside!
His comment about who would you see if you saw yourself walking your way made his listeners think. Inside and outside don’t always match. We need to investigate further before we draw any hard and fast conclusions-about ourselves or others.
Appearances are sometimes deceiving.
July 20 If you do not raise your eyes, you will think that you are the highest point. Antonio Porchia
Too much concentration on self results in what some people call “belly-button gazing.” Rather than healthy self-examination, that unattractive phrase describes self-absorption-a total focus inward. Hardly the balanced view necessary to help us find our place in the universe!
Raising our eyes shows us that we are part of a world much bigger than ourselves. When we look up and around at the glory that surrounds us, we can’t help seeing our own concerns in a new perspective. Just watching and listening to the birds in the trees tends to modify situations that we may have taken too seriously. And when hopelessness holds us in a bear hug, an effective escape has always been to lie back and look at the clouds, realizing that all removing, changing, and no two clouds are the same.
Raising our eyes also raises our hearts. The balanced view has breadth and height as well as depth, panoramic majesty as well as personal misery. A realistic sense of self depends on the balanced view.
I wear blinders when I concentrate too closely on myself.
July 21 Making terms with reality, with things as they are, is a full-time business for the child.
Milton R. Sapirstein
As much as we’d like to, we can’t give self-esteem to our children any more than we can give youth to the aged or health to the sick. Certainly we can and must do our best to protect them when they’re small. And we should strive to model the self-respectful behavior we want them to imitate. But self-esteem is a prize that nobody else can win for you. Claiming it is an inside job.
Some child development experts of yesteryear made us believe otherwise. They suggested that any unhappiness in our children’s lives would have long-term effects. Awful effects that would be our fault. So we stopped making unpopular decisions and started walking on eggshells around our kids. We neglected our own lives to lavish them with attention. We praised them whether they deserved it or not. In short, with all the best intentions, we led them to believe that this is not the real world at all, but Disneyland. And we gave them all the rides for free.
Now both parents and experts know better. They know that even young people have to struggle to be strong. The problem-solving skills that make us confident can only be learned by facing some problems. Frustration teaches inventiveness, and patience. And in the long run that’s just what self-esteem is based on-the proven ability to take care of ourselves.
I improve the odds for my children’s self-esteem when I stop cushioning their every fall.
July 22 The voice is a second face. Gerard Bauer
Because none of us lives in a vacuum, most of our success in life depends on the success of our key relationships. Different people use different modes or styles to get through to one another. Some methods, as well as some messages, are more productive than others. It’s a valuable exercise to think about how and what we usually communicate.
Some of us try to influence others with overpowering logic, others by talking so sweetly we can hardly be refused, and still others dominate by sheer volume. Sometimes we deliver threats as jokes and pleas as compliments. None of these manipulated communications do us or our relationships much good.
In the long run there is no message more worthy of delivery than simply saying it is safe to be with us. When we say straight out that we will do our best to be a port in the storm and a willing listener, that we will not mindlessly say the careless word or inflict the careless wrong, we are saying all that anyone wants to hear. The style doesn’t matter if the substance is there.
Heartfelt communication tends to be plain rather than fancy.
July 23 Assumption is the mother of screw-up. Angelo Donghia
It may be truthfully said that assumption is not only a hotbed of error, but also the cause of much self-esteem bashing. Especially if we place our self-worth in other people’s hands. And most especially if we don’t tell them about it.
Martha’s assumptions flattened her spirits every day. Unknown to Eric, her boss, Martha used him as a mirror to check out her self-worth. Every day she looked to him for approval-not just the normal, appropriate approval that a good employee deserves-but the kind of deep affirmation that children need from their fathers. Martha assumed that Eric’s approval would make up for the love she missed. But she was wrong. Not only did Eric not know what she was looking for-he had no interest in being her father. So her assumptions set her up for disappointment time after time.
We can’t assume something is true just because we need it to be true. When expectations are based on wishes rather than facts, our self-esteem is as fragile as a flower in a blizzard.
Examining my assumptions may help me light up some dark corners.
July 24 Women have felt the need to pretend to be happy in order to be feminine. Gloria Steinem
Responsible people do what they have to do. Figuring out what we have to do, unfortunately, is a lot harder than it looks. How many “shoulds” should we listen to? How many are true? Should we really behave, think, and feel differently than we do? Who says so?
Those of us who are females with families have been held responsible for too many “shoulds.” In our efforts to be everything to everybody, we’ve too often become nobody to ourselves-always standing at the end of the line when wants and needs are being addressed. Obviously this doesn’t do a lot for our self-esteem. What’s even worse is the popular culture’s insistence that we should be happy about it.
But unrealistic ideals are not healthy. No one should be bullied into pretending happiness-or accepting responsibility for other people’s happiness. Because the goal itself is false, pursuing that goal diminishes self-esteem.
In general, pretending is of little use in building a better, happier life. Pretending that is grounded in delusion and denial is not true femininity or true anything else that has any values.
I am free to choose my own goals and the means of achieving them.
July 25 It is easier to confess a defect than to claim a quality. Max Beerbohm
Self-esteem can stumble when we so bravely and thoroughly confront our flaws that our flaws are all we think about. We can get too good at searching out imperfections-so good that we spend most of our time concentrating on what’s wrong rather than what’s right. What we must not do-whether it’s bossing other people around or leading up on junk food-can become the focus of our lives.
Certainly it makes sense to identify and work against our personal pitfalls. But we are who we are and many of our deep-seated characteristics have an upside as well as a downside. If boldness is in our nature, we need to learn to control it and use it-not wipe it out. If we’re control-crazy, we need to learn to lighten up-not let go completely. The major characteristics of our personalities are almost always double-edged swords that cut both ways. The trick is to use them for and not against our own best interests.
Self-knowledge includes awareness of our strengths as well as our weaknesses. When we can accept that both pluses and minuses often come wrapped up in the same package, we can stop being so hard on ourselves and start working with what we have.
A balanced self-image is the only true self-image.
July 26 I take care of me. I am the only one I’ve got. Groucho Marx
What makes us think we don’t measure up? Why do we expect so little from ourselves? What kills our self-respect? The answers vary. Consider these:
- Are we looking too much for the approval of others?
- Are we perfectionists, expecting too much from ourselves?
- Are we intimidated by the lost battles and failures of the past?
- Are we overimpressed by the success of others?
- Are we trying to escape responsibility by claiming to be a failure?
- Are we lacking a sense of proportion? Do we tend to make mountains out of molehills?
- Is our sense of humor weak? Can we laugh at ourselves?
The best way to enhance our self-esteem is by direct action. Take on some responsibility that we have been dodging, enroll in a gym class to improve our appearance and health, practice ignoring small annoyances, or start looking for healthy friends.
We need not worry about overcompensating. It doesn’t often happen, but when it does it can sometimes lead to greatness. As a child, Winston Churchill was a stutterer who also lisped. By working on his shortcomings, he became a world-class orator. So, too, working on our shortcomings is what will raise our self-esteem and bring us success.
Self-awareness is the springboard to successful living.
July 27 All men should strive to learn before they die what they are running from, and to, and why.
James Thurber
In our quest for a healthier self-image, some of us find it hard to accept that long-ago events are still holding us back. We figure that if we can’t remember the past very well, or hardly ever think of it, it must have been erased somehow. Out of sight, out of mind. Out of mind, out of reality.
But what was doesn’t disappear just because we turn away from it. Imagine a car that was in an accident twenty, thirty, or forty years ago. If this car had simply been parked, unrepaired, wouldn’t it still be dented? Or would the years that passed somehow have made it whole? When we’re talking about cars instead of people, we know very well that time alone doesn’t pound out dents. Work pounds out dents.
If we were neglected or otherwise abused as children, the fact is that there was damage done-first and foremost to our self-esteem. The words and deeds that put us down, that shut us out, are the dents that underlie our negative self-definitions. If they haven’t been looked at and worked on, they’re still there. That long ago “lifewreck” might have been just a fender bender or it might have been a head-on collision-but the results will be with us until we stop denying what happened.
After a car accident, blaming the driver is not nearly as important as getting busy pounding out the dents.
July 28 We often give our enemies the means for our own destruction. Aesop
Of course, our self-esteem takes a whipping when others come at us with hurtful comments, criticisms, and put-downs. What makes it even worse is when these cutting remarks are justified.
Margaret is a wonderful young, lady who has very little sense of how wonderful she really is. Her self-esteem is downright flimsy. One of her worst nightmares is that someone in her crowd will accuse her of being an “airhead.” Yet Margaret has also slipped into a most unfortunate habit. When a situation comes up that might make her look dumb, she tries to fend it off by pretending that she wasn’t paying attention. If she doesn’t understand what is happening, she reasons, she can’t be held responsible for making an off-base remark of a foolish decision.
But this strategy, of course, only makes her appear to be what she’s trying not to be-an airhead. Her behavior gives friends and foes alike all the ammunition needed to shoot her down. Clearly, she set herself up for the name-calling she most dreaded. Until she learns to deal with the cause of the criticism, she’s not likely to get a different result.
I will no longer hand out rocks for people to throw at me.
July 29 We never reflect how pleasant it is to ask for nothing. Seneca
Few of us retain independent judgment as to what makes a successful life. Our “gotta have it” society actually induces need as it barrages us with images of the glorified selves we will be once we have “it”-whether it be a better body or a bigger car. The result is an abiding sense of ourselves as incomplete. And when self-completion always hinges on acquiring one more thing, self-esteem will always be left waiting in the wings.
Do we need-or even want-everything we think we do? Must we always be in the position of waiting for, saving for, wishing for…? Is there any such thing as that “last thing” we must have to put us over the top? Or have we mindlessly bought into a false image of ourselves as lacking and hungry? Could it be that we already have what we really need?
Independent judgment enables us to make a distinction between necessities and add-ons. Are we able to think, to love, to laugh? Can we see and enjoy the beauty in the world? Are there people who care about us? If that isn’t enough, there is no such thing as enough. How gratifying to stop putting happiness on hold!
Serenity is knowing that I already have what I need.
July 30 Anxiety is the space between “now” and “then.” Richard Abell
Everybody hates to be anxious. The sweating palms, the thudding heart, the nagging little headache that wakes us up in the middle of the night. But occasional anxiety is not only unavoidable, it’s necessary. Without unrest, why would we ever stir ourselves to move forward?
The growth of self-esteem is often fertilized by several good doses of anxiety. When we’re feeling really uncomfortable, we tend to seek comfort. Frequently that comfort comes in the form of the relief we feel when we stop procrastinating. There may be anxiety in putting pen to paper, but even more anxiety in not writing that letter we need to write. And apologizing out loud once can’t be more stressful than practicing that apology over and over again in our own minds.
Personal growth takes risk, energy, and dissatisfaction with the status quo. If that means an occasional bout of anxiety, then so be it. When we learn to accept the message that anxiety is trying to deliver-that we need to get up and going-we’ll have a lot less to be anxious about.
I can channel my anxiety into creative energy.
July 31 When a child, my dreams rode on your wishes, I was your son, high on your horse. My mind a top whipped by the lashes of your rhetoric: windy, of course. Stephen Spender
There is a delicate balance-in the pursuit of personal growth, in general, and self-esteem, in particular-between loving and courting acceptance from our parents and being enslaved by the need for that acceptance.
It is helpful, as the poet tells us, to recognize that our “dreams rode on your wishes,” but also to know that those wishes and rhetoric may indeed have been “windy.” When we consider our parents and the role they played in shaping our self-esteem, it is only fair to acknowledge that they were and are only human.
Just like us, our parents were shaped by their origins. They too, had their disappointments, their needs both met and unmet. They, too, had their share of good and bad life experiences-some of which, just like ours, were the result of nothing more than random luck. They, too, were subject to the windy rhetoric of others. Understanding, patience, and forgiveness are as good for us to give as to get. On either end, we profit.
I take a major leap when I allow my parents the same rights I allow myself.
