Have you ever tried to cut out a certain pattern of thinking or tried to stop repeating a particular behavior like overeating or drinking, and felt powerless? would you like to know how to Build Your Self-Esteem the right way?
If you are like most people, at some point in your life you’ve found yourself going in and out of painful feelings that affect Your Self-Esteem.
As a human being, hurt, angry, or sad feelings are embedded at one level of your consciousness.
Most of the problems we create for ourselves in life are due to the vain attempt we make to rid ourselves of pain by acting out in a reactionary, unconscious way.
One of the predictable reasons for failure can be summed up in Einstein’s statement:
“You can’t solve a problem at the same level it was created.”
Make decision to leave the floor of pain...and Build Your Self-Esteem
Think of your being as having levels or states of being—like floors...
When you are on a certain floor (having a particular thought plus a feeling) it is very likely that you will engage in certain habitual behaviors such as eating, drinking, crying, watching TV, taking a drug, going on the computer, or distracting yourself.
Which of these behaviors you indulge in is determined to a large degree by your history, and one isn’t necessarily better or worse than another.
However, all these behaviors keep you on the same floor, spinning your wheels trying to come up with a conscious solution to your challenge, unless you choose to take the elevator and LEAVE THE FLOOR.
That’s right,
The sooner you concede to the fact that the solution will not be found on this floor, the closer you are to touching true freedom.
This realization could take days, weeks, months, years, or a lifetime.
The elevator that can take you out of painful thoughts and feelings is not a physical vehicle but a mental/spiritual vessel...
The elevator is higher thought through prayer, meditation, self-hypnosis, poetry, writing, movement, music, or art.
Building your self-esteem and getting on this elevator requires a conscious decision to leave the floor of pain and letting go of the need to stop trying in vain to find a resolution on the floor of pain.
After You Make The Decision . . .
Instead, choose to go up to a new level (within) and ask to see the situation you are dealing with from a new perspective.
This higher floor, or deeper dimension, is a consciousness that is more expansive and that readily is permeated with love, forgiveness, oneness, and an acceptance that we all make mistakes.
In this higher state of consciousness, ask your deep, wise self, “What is my next right action?”
your self-esteem is derived from your actions.
Even though you may hear me place a lot of emphasis on awareness of your thoughts, the truth is that your self-esteem is derived mostly from our actions.
When we take the right action, we feel good about ourselves, and we are more likely to take the next right action in the following moment.
However, when we take “wrong” actions we feel bad—we are likely to feel guilt, shame, blame, regret, anger, or frustration...
Unfortunately,
wallowing in negative feelings is likely to cause you to take another wrong action, thereby perpetuating a downward spiral of thought, feeling, and action.
As important as it is to feel and acknowledge your own feelings and have compassion for them, staying at your emotional level for too long only increases your identification with an inner wound, a sense of being a victim, and a justification for wrong action.
Your life is truly your Hero’s Journey. To make your way forward, reach for the elevator, ladder, or rope to your next highest level of consciousness.
It is here, from within a deeper inner dimension that you can be of most service to others, by leading them to a greater state of consciousness within themselves.
Unlocking Your Inner Rooms
Within your psyche, there are many rooms...that you have to enter to build your self-esteem
Go within and find an empty room with white walls...
This room represents your consciousness...
On the walls, see in writing all your mistakes...
Watch how it makes you feel to judge yourself and dwell on your errors and poor judgment.
Now, imagine that you take a bucket of soapy water and a sponge and erase all the harsh words.
Imagine that the walls are white again.
Imagine that you can expand the wall space and bring more light into the room.
If you like, add windows, a skylight, plants, and soft music in the background.
Invite anyone who can support you to be with you. You may choose to invite an ancestor or any highly developed being of love whom you may know of.
Take a moment to feel your excellent qualities that are both activated and dormant.
Think of the positive intentions you have had and any right actions you have taken to help yourself or to make the world a better place.
It can be helpful to take a physical sheet of paper and list your positive qualities, intentions, and actions.
Now imagine that you can write on the walls of your beautiful, expanded room...
On the walls, write in gold ink your positive qualities, intentions, and good actions.
On these walls, imprint images of all the positive interactions you have had and will have and the good choices you’ve already made and will make in the future, that let you know you love and respect yourself, others, and this planet.
spend more time in this room.
Haven’t you spent enough time trying to squash painful thoughts and experiences and small thinking?
Instead, expand out to your true nature of love and fullness...
Feel the tangible fact that there is a whole world of consciousness, beyond what you are currently experiencing, to tap into. You don’t have to stay small or dependent on such a limited set of life experiences.
Commit to yourself to spend more time in this room...
Explore the vastness of the unknown possibilities for greater love and a greater sense of wholeness, fullness, and completeness all within the bounds of high integrity and self-care.
Don’t try to get rid of, justify, condone or judge.
Just expand to something greater, more pure, more reverent, and more worthy of your attention with the intention of stepping into the greatest potential for yourself.
The paradox is that you already are that greater expression of yourself—your only task is to uncover, discover, and live that.
You are what you dwell on. Don’t focus on the small and negative—yours or other people’s mistakes.
Just get off the floor...
Be careful not to sink lower with a wrong action that hurts yourself or others.
Rather, soar higher by tapping into your inner courage and strength.
This is the hard choice you have available to you each day—to go higher instead of lower because often the lower mind wants to pull you down.
How can you follow your higher mind?
You can access your higher mind through prayer, meditation, or self-hypnosis and watch your consciousness and your self-estem and your life transform.
Visit the old room of mistakes from time to time just to see how far you’ve come.
Acknowledge and thank yourself and use that information to affirm to yourself how much you are changing and growing in this life.
Notice all the old, unproductive behaviors you’ve already released and make an inner commitment to release one more for today.
Pick just one more unproductive behavior to take with you today to your higher inner level—your expanded inner room—and transform it into something more pure and more worthy of your life force energy.
Take your life back. Declare to yourself, “Today I release being a victim.”
Imagine setting your intention to transform “victimhood” not by dwelling on the belief that you are superior or right, but by humility...
Can you release your judgment of the other knowing that holding the other in judgment only hurts yourself?
Can you accept that you will never truly know why people behave as they do and why certain events occur?
What if forgiving that person who hurt you is necessary for you to be forgiven for those mistakes that you have made?
What if the entire incident was simply a way for you to be presented with an opportunity for you to travel within yourself to a higher dimension?
Remember, that if you weren’t hurting from this scenario, it would be another...
The people involved are only players in your drama...
All incidents that put you on the emotional floor are there as opportunities to travel higher. Often the fact that they are painful helps you to let go more quickly, to surrender that pain, and have the courage to seek something greater.
Ask yourself, “What is the next right action I can take?” remembering that...
Your self-esteem is a direct result of your actions, not your thoughts and feelings.
The key is, however, that your thoughts and feelings drive your actions, and therefore you must take your dark emotional states up to a higher level within your consciousness to get a second opinion and guidance to see things from a new perspective, to be guided to the right action.
Pray . . .
meditate . . .
practice self-hypnosis . . .
practice self-awareness . . .
choose to lift your consciousness . . .
surround yourself with that higher intention . . .
take right action . . . and watch your life transform.
