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Topic: Rebuilding Your Self-Esteem (continued)

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Topic: Rebuilding Your Self-Esteem (continued)

12 years ago 0 +0 / -0 1022

Sunrise... I love the new name. Maybe send a note via Feedback to see if they can change your profile name too. This is wonderful. I'm so pleased for you and I like how Sonia said " ... with respect to the morning" ... cuz I read it as saying respect in the morning and isn't that a great way to start your day? ... with respect and honor for yourself

12 years ago 0 +0 / -0 270

Some great questions and answers! Oftentimes, talking through our challenges really helps to understand them and eventually master them as a result.

jdoe (Sunrise)

Really liked the imagery you described with respect to the morning. Keep the inspiration coming!

Remember, we are here for you both!

Yours in support,

Sonia

12 years ago 0 +0 / -0 2508

Original Post by: ~m

Jdoe ... congratulations! I am so very touched to hear of you considering a screen-name change. Would it hurt to go ahead and change it before you completely learn the lesson of self-care? Seems to me that would be a first step. I feel such an ache in my heart when I see you logged on as jdoe. You've let us see that you are so much more than a non-person... an unknown and unknowable... sounds like you are beginning to let yourself see more and more of this as well. Good work my friend... good work!

Pete ... so much energy wasted on hating you. No wonder you are not happy with what you create... there must be little energy left to create something pleasing. And if it were pleasing... you could not see it for the shadow of hate. I used to be that way about my artwork.. about myself. It's still something I need to be aware of or I get paralyzed... Creativity is my balance... it is what I need to do or my world tilts so hard I slide off into the abyss.

Telling yourself you are great is disingenuous... you don't trust yourself or believe in yourself so how could you possibly listen to such blather? For me, I needed to SHOW myself (and acknowledge the evidence) that I was OK. OK... not great, not terrible... ok... good enough... doing the best I can in the moment... open to learning new things. And you? What can you tell yourself about you that resonates as true?

Hi ~m

Just wanted to let you know I am going ahead and coming up with a new name now.".Sunrise."..I wake up each morning waiting for the sun to come up..I love this time of the day. It is so peaceful and quite with the sun just beginning to illuminate the sky. It is a fresh start and a brand new day. This is something I never thought I would be saying because morning were always the hardest for me but now I look forward to them..Since I have really changed I thought it was time to change my name to reflect how I really feel now...The profile setting here on the site would not let me change my name on the forum so you will still see jdoe at the top of my posting but I will be signing my writing Sunrise from now on..

Thanks for encouraging me to take this first step..

Sunrise

12 years ago 0 +0 / -0 1022

Jdoe ... congratulations! I am so very touched to hear of you considering a screen-name change. Would it hurt to go ahead and change it before you completely learn the lesson of self-care? Seems to me that would be a first step. I feel such an ache in my heart when I see you logged on as jdoe. You've let us see that you are so much more than a non-person... an unknown and unknowable... sounds like you are beginning to let yourself see more and more of this as well. Good work my friend... good work!

Pete ... so much energy wasted on hating you. No wonder you are not happy with what you create... there must be little energy left to create something pleasing. And if it were pleasing... you could not see it for the shadow of hate. I used to be that way about my artwork.. about myself. It's still something I need to be aware of or I get paralyzed... Creativity is my balance... it is what I need to do or my world tilts so hard I slide off into the abyss.

Telling yourself you are great is disingenuous... you don't trust yourself or believe in yourself so how could you possibly listen to such blather? For me, I needed to SHOW myself (and acknowledge the evidence) that I was OK. OK... not great, not terrible... ok... good enough... doing the best I can in the moment... open to learning new things. And you? What can you tell yourself about you that resonates as true?

12 years ago 0 +0 / -0 223

Yeah, I'm in the same species of boat as jdoe. I really do find it difficult to love and nurture myself, to feel as if I deserve such things.

My strengths, such as I can perceive, seem to me to be everyday, unexceptional, not worth celebrating because they are so insignificant. Whereas my weaknesses and failings ... I could go on all year in tedious detail, because they are at the forefront of my thinking all the time, dominating and colouring my whole life.

Activities that I should enjoy I find flat and frustrating, and generally lead to more despair. Probably because what I aspire to do are creative things (writing, music), and I am never happy with what I create. I am always aware of my shortcomings in terms of application, knowledge, technique, imagination. It's silly in a way, and I wish I could just relax and enjoy doing these things for what they are - I have no aspirations to be a professional writer or musician, so does it matter what I produce? It shouldn't, but to me it does, too much.

To find any kind of significant self-esteem, self-respect, self-love, whatever we name it, looks like a huge turnaround to achieve, a complete sea-change in how I think from moment to moment. That's big, and intimidating to even consider.

As I posted on my blog, I'm trying to give up smoking right now. I'm hoping that that will, apart from the self-evident benefits for my physical health (which I have been consciously and deliberately neglecting for years) and wallet, have a positive impact on my self-esteem. I'm doing okay at the moment, but have had a couple of lapses, from which I am trying to learn rather than despairing about them or giving up the attempt.

I try to tell myself I'm great, that life's little achievements are worth celebrating, but it just does not ring true. It feels like false, empty gestures and ultimately pointless when faced with the edifice of self-contempt I have constructed with ruthless efficiency over the years, and which I inhabit so easily. Is it courage that I need to abandon the specious comfort and deceptive familiarity of sending my mind doen the same old tracks year on year?

Truly, it is a struggle.

12 years ago 0 +0 / -0 2508

This is something I struggle with on a daily basis..The last paragraph and last line here says it all..I am hoping that as we go through this topic and the program that I will learn how to do this. I really do need to love myself a little and take care of myself a lot better than I do. I should be loving my inner child and the woman I am now. They both deserve at least this from me. When I learn to do this I will change my name from jdoe "Jane Doe "to something more appropiate because jdoe is a real person that needs to be loved and nurtured. She deserves a real name...She is not a unknown a non person..She is trying to find herself again..I think it all starts with getting to know herself, accept herself and love herself for once in her life..Now is her time to live...

jdoe...

12 years ago 0 +0 / -0 12049

Topic: Rebuilding Your Self-Esteem

Members,

Has an illness, addiction or other left your self-esteem in the gutter? In the weeks to come, we will be exploring various strategies to help rebuild your self-esteem:

Being kind to yourself

Being kind to yourself is essential in rebuilding your self-esteem. This includes:

· Making sure you eat well, sleep enough and get active.

· Engaging in pleasurable activities

· Patting yourself on the back for ALL accomplishments, big or small!

· Remind yourself how great you really are! You have lots of strengths! And the weaknesses you’re not so crazy about, you can work on and grow into an even better version of yourself!

· Tell yourself it’s OKAY if you don’t achieve everything you had set out to do, big or small. Plans life and other need constant revision and remember you may have been put on a different path you can’t see yet.

What does this all have to do with self-esteem you might ask? Everything! If you don’t believe you deserve the basics and learn to start loving yourself, it makes it harder for others to do the same.

It is not selfish, it is self-nurturing!

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Topic: Rebuilding Your Self-Esteem (continued)