© 2012 Rosette Poletti and Barbara Dobbs
© 2012 French-speaking Association of Readers of the Urantia Book
In the entire universe, there is not another person who is exactly like me.
I am me and everything I am is unique.
I am responsible for myself,
I have everything I need here and now to live fully.
I choose to manifest the best of myself,
I choose to love, to be competent, to find meaning in my life and order in the universe,
I choose to develop, grow and live in harmony with myself, others and God.
I am worthy of being accepted and loved exactly as I am, here and now. I love and accept myself,
I decide to live fully from today.
Feeling good about yourself essentially depends on your self-esteem. Demonstrations of esteem and love allow us to develop our self-image. Then, self-confidence becomes essential for building our autonomy. Finally, self-stimulation is the fuel that gives us the desire to live, to put energy into the service of what motivates us.
Self-esteem is the love that founded us, that still founds us. This unconditional love in the sense of consideration, recognition, the value to which everyone has a right as a human being. It is about believing in yourself, having self-esteem in order to be able to develop self-confidence. Evaluating our capital of esteem allows us to develop confidence. After a self-portrait of our qualities and faults, we must learn to recycle our faults, which gives us a new credit of qualities that we can learn to validate. Identify past situations where we were particularly proud of ourselves. Estimating means determining a value, having an opinion. Self-esteem is not an innate quality. It must be built and developed with the help of the gaze of others.
Becoming autonomous consists of restoring self-image and building self-esteem by being fair, lucid and kind to oneself. Self-esteem reflects one’s own value as a person and conveys confidence in what we can do. Without running away from challenges and being true to ourselves, we congratulate ourselves on our successes and learn from our failures. If we have self-esteem, we do not run away from challenges. We are true to ourselves. Let us congratulate ourselves on our successes and learn from our failures.
Developing our self-esteem means wanting to become a whole person, healthy in body and mind. It means seeing the future positively, engaging in action, and strengthening our confidence in ourselves and our abilities. Self-esteem is reflected in our value. Through the experience of personal development, our level of self-esteem rises and we live in an inner feeling of security which translates into a positive and confident attitude. A good self-image reinforces positive thoughts, which will induce a process of success and achievement.
Remember: “We are truly ourselves only when we forget ourselves!” To restore self-esteem:
To achieve the gratifying self-image:
“Even if I didn’t succeed, I’m a good person!” Maintain self-esteem at all costs. This correct positioning allows us to erase the devaluations and other guilts that hinder our growth. Behaving responsibly means recognizing the reality of our mistakes in order to learn from them. We cannot achieve anything if we have not first imagined it. Our thoughts are therefore our main ally!
The effects of good self-esteem on a fulfilled and serene life are that:
She is aware of the values that guide her and their roots; she is not guided by irrational values accepted by those around her.
A person who has good self-esteem is in harmony with themselves and with the world around them. They are able to live fully and enjoy a quality of life. Self-esteem includes two complementary aspects:
In other words, self-esteem is about being and doing. It reflects the judgment we make about our ability to face life’s challenges, to understand and master problems, and to accept for ourselves the right to happiness, to joy, to the affirmation of our existence and our importance as a unique and irreplaceable human being.
Having good self-esteem means seeing yourself as competent and worthy of respect. Having poor self-esteem means not feeling worthy of living fully, believing that you are “not good enough.”
Most people fluctuate between good and bad self-esteem depending on their circumstances. Some people feel good about their abilities but do not feel worthy of being loved. Others feel worthy of being loved but do not feel competent. Self-esteem is always a matter of “degrees”; it is fluid. The more a person values himself, the more he can use his creativity in his work, the more he establishes positive interpersonal relationships, the more he treats others with respect, and the less he feels threatened by them. The more self-esteem is present, the more possibilities there are for living in joy.
When we reach adulthood, self-esteem is an experience that originates from the deepest part of ourselves. It is based on what we think about ourselves, how we see ourselves, how we feel about the person we are.
Becoming aware of one’s emotions in the face of situations and taking responsibility for them allows one to grieve, to let go and sometimes to forgive, to end situations. All of this allows one to accept oneself, to love oneself and to be able to love others and thereby to further increase one’s self-esteem.
Developing self-esteem is important because:
“What the mind gives attention to, the mind considers.
What the mind does not consider, the mind leaves aside.
What the mind continually considers, the mind believes and takes seriously.
What the mind believes and takes seriously, the mind eventually accomplishes.” (Anonymous)
Thus, the first requirement to be able to develop self-esteem as an adult is to recognize and become aware of this lack of self-esteem which hinders life.
To become ever more aware, it is useful to ask yourself: “Do I believe in myself? Do I respect myself? Do I do what I want to do? Do I believe that I deserve the best? Do I tend to blame others for what happens to me? Do I dare to be spontaneous in my relationships with others? Do I dare to say no? Do I dare to take risks? Am I a good communicator?”
Becoming aware of the problem is the beginning of the journey. We must then accept the idea that as an adult, whatever our age, it is possible to increase, improve our self-esteem. It is about deciding to change our “lifestyle”; it takes time, perseverance but it is possible!
Finally, when we have become aware of the problem, that we accept the idea of a change, of a positive evolution, we still have to realize that no one other than ourselves can make this change, we are responsible for building or improving the esteem that we have for ourselves. There is no one to blame, here, now, today, it is us and only us who have the power to decide and to get started.
This does not necessarily mean that we have to do everything alone. We can join a personal development group or undertake psychotherapy. Despite this, no one else can start for us, it is our choice and our responsibility.
It begins with becoming aware of what is causing the problem, then changing internal and external communication, readjusting erroneous thoughts, taking responsibility for one’s life, developing the capacity for compassion and deciding to honor one’s convictions.
The messages received from parents and all those who were present in our environment while we were growing up represent the constituent material of our self-esteem. We have recorded them and, little by little, incorporated them into our conscious and unconscious memory. Even if the parents have long since passed away, these messages received inhabit us and we have taken over from the adults present during our childhood, we tell them to ourselves all day long, we repeat them to ourselves internally. What was said to us and which was so painful for us, we repeat it to ourselves, sometimes in a revised and expanded version throughout our life. These messages that we give ourselves contribute to maintaining a poor self-esteem.
This is an internal communication, a sometimes incessant inner dialogue, which colors our entire existence and gives rise to our emotions and our actions. It is not the events that determine our emotions and our actions, but rather our interpretation of events, what we say to ourselves and what we say to ourselves about events.
The event represents only one aspect of a problem, it is the interpretation of this event and one’s ability to deal with it that counts above all. What is useful to know is that every human being can program their thoughts and thereby influence their emotions and behaviors. It is we who choose our thoughts, it is we who set in motion the devaluing internal dialogues or the positive and stimulating internal dialogues when we become aware of the way in which we communicate with ourselves.
It is possible to discover one’s inner dialogue by becoming aware of what one says about oneself in difficult circumstances in life.
The messages given by parents and other people in the environment are so well integrated that the person who has become an adult continues to repeat them to himself without realizing it.
The first step is to become aware of this state of affairs, then to identify the elements of this internal dialogue by noting them, for example. Then it becomes possible to modify the elements of this internal dialogue by giving yourself permissions, positive and encouraging messages. At first, this may seem artificial! But by persevering, by systematically changing negative messages into constructive permissions, self-esteem improves, influencing the emotional life and behavior of the person. (to be continued)
Rosette Poletti and Barbara Dobbs