As some of you know, I've been spending a lot of time lately researching on love and dating for my book. And whether I'm reading the laughable 'The Rules', a spiritual guide to happiness or a scientific paper, I start noticing common themes to all of these various resources. And probably the most common one is the importance of 'self-esteem'.
Everyone talks about it these days but what is self-esteem?
Just think about it for a second. We are willing and happy to project esteem onto someone else, usually a person who has done something magnificent, unique, courageous, fantastic. To hold someone in high esteem is heavy, it means to respect and to honour. There is no doubt that in our minds that person is almost a saint. And there is absolutely nothing wrong with that. But what really bothers me (and God is my witness how little self-esteem I've had for myself) is why do we find it so difficult to hold ourselves in high esteem?...
Is it because we know how flawed we are? Because we know ourselves inside out and tend to be more critical than loving? But maybe the people we have high regard for are as flawed as we are. Maybe we're not even supposed to be perfect to be worthy of esteem. Maybe by starting with feeling esteem for ourselves, we will become perfect. I don't know...
But what I do know is this: having a high level of self-esteem is the main engine for attracting the right kind of love into one's life without any effort (I'll speak about this more some other time, but my view is that a true loving relationship is supposed to take little or no effort at all) and that self-esteem needs to be constant and consistent.
Imagine you've read all the self-help books in the world about how to get over a guy, how not to call a guy after you break-up, how to play the rules of dating etc, you've finally broken your destructive patterns and started to see the light at the end of the tunnel, but you're still allowing your boss not to treat you with the proper respect you deserve and feeling like a bit of a failure in the work place. And if that wasn't enough, you're still allowing your friends to only make last minute arrangements with you or use you as a listener to brag about their career achievements. Surely this is a sign of depleted self-esteem and in order to make your life (in every possible aspect) work is to make sure you're honouring yourself and the others every day, in every interaction.
Sure, sometimes we can't change people. Sure, we can rationalise into it as much as we want, we can tell ourselves it's just temporary and it doesn't matter anyway, but I tell you one thing: it does matter. Every day you are not defending your true self against esteem erosion, your core dies a little bit. Every day you carry on allowing people to 'mistreat' you, you're losing difficult to recover self-esteem and it impacts on every other aspect of your life. Sooner or later your new-found confidence in love will recede and you'll find yourself back in the attention begging seat.
So sometimes we can't change people. But we sure can change ourselves. Have a look at your life, is there something or someone not honouring you? What CAN and what WILL you do about it?
Every day is a choice for you to make.
It's YOUR LIFE I'm talking about.
Stay inspired.
Everyone talks about it these days but what is self-esteem?
Just think about it for a second. We are willing and happy to project esteem onto someone else, usually a person who has done something magnificent, unique, courageous, fantastic. To hold someone in high esteem is heavy, it means to respect and to honour. There is no doubt that in our minds that person is almost a saint. And there is absolutely nothing wrong with that. But what really bothers me (and God is my witness how little self-esteem I've had for myself) is why do we find it so difficult to hold ourselves in high esteem?...
Is it because we know how flawed we are? Because we know ourselves inside out and tend to be more critical than loving? But maybe the people we have high regard for are as flawed as we are. Maybe we're not even supposed to be perfect to be worthy of esteem. Maybe by starting with feeling esteem for ourselves, we will become perfect. I don't know...
But what I do know is this: having a high level of self-esteem is the main engine for attracting the right kind of love into one's life without any effort (I'll speak about this more some other time, but my view is that a true loving relationship is supposed to take little or no effort at all) and that self-esteem needs to be constant and consistent.
Imagine you've read all the self-help books in the world about how to get over a guy, how not to call a guy after you break-up, how to play the rules of dating etc, you've finally broken your destructive patterns and started to see the light at the end of the tunnel, but you're still allowing your boss not to treat you with the proper respect you deserve and feeling like a bit of a failure in the work place. And if that wasn't enough, you're still allowing your friends to only make last minute arrangements with you or use you as a listener to brag about their career achievements. Surely this is a sign of depleted self-esteem and in order to make your life (in every possible aspect) work is to make sure you're honouring yourself and the others every day, in every interaction.
Sure, sometimes we can't change people. Sure, we can rationalise into it as much as we want, we can tell ourselves it's just temporary and it doesn't matter anyway, but I tell you one thing: it does matter. Every day you are not defending your true self against esteem erosion, your core dies a little bit. Every day you carry on allowing people to 'mistreat' you, you're losing difficult to recover self-esteem and it impacts on every other aspect of your life. Sooner or later your new-found confidence in love will recede and you'll find yourself back in the attention begging seat.
So sometimes we can't change people. But we sure can change ourselves. Have a look at your life, is there something or someone not honouring you? What CAN and what WILL you do about it?
Every day is a choice for you to make.
It's YOUR LIFE I'm talking about.
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| The Holstee Manifesto |
Stay inspired.
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