Saturday, September 1, 2012

5 Steps to increase your self-esteem

http://www.purposefairy.com/2705/five-steps-to-increase-your-self-esteem/

1. Assume 100% Responsibility
2. Change Your Mind
3. Break Free From Past Conditioning
4. Accept yourself completely
5. Commit yourself to continuous learning and improvement
I love the links posted by friends.  Sometimes I get so caught up in the day-to-day living I forget to stretch and think about other things.  I have spent over 9 years in counseling.  I am reaching the point of heading off on my own.  I was taught all these different steps in no particular order.  Some I had to revisit over and over and over and... you get the idea.

I was quite amazed by the assuming 100% responsibility of my life.  Phrases such as, 'I have to...', 'I have no choice....', 'I must....' were replaced with 'I want to....', 'I choose to...', 'I see the benefit to...'  No body is holding a gun to my head when I make my choices.  I wake up every morning with a brand new day.  I choose to go to work.  I choose to obey traffic laws.  I choose to eat chocolate.  No matter what, the chocolate did not jump into my mouth...yup, I put it there all by myself.  Silliness but turning my life over to someone else is silly, too.  I reclaimed my life.

Change your mind....I love the quote, "If you always do what you have always done, you will always get what you always got."  I needed help through counseling to believe this was possible.  Counselors did not take over the job of directing my life, they persuaded me to change my thinking.  I change my thinking, I change my actions, I change my life.  Not everyone I knew liked the changes.  But since I am 100% responsible of my life than I decided what is best for me.  Sometimes I negotiate with someone I want in my life but I choose to negotiate because they are important to me.

Breaking free from my past.  Some people would think that because I didn't remember my past, I was free from my past.  Nothing could be further from the truth.  Triggers would set me off but I felt like I was boxing with my own shadow and it was winning.  I was entangled in the tendrils of fears and worries from things I couldn't see.  I always thought I was just a weird kid with an over active imagination.  Finding out I was a scared kid being raised in insanity rocked my world but the shadow warrior became 3D and I could fight it.  I put that warrior back in my past where it belonged.  I learned from my past but it no longer owns me. This is a continuing process as I accept and let go of past conditioning and step into self mastery.

The power of accepting myself completely was tough.  There were parts of myself that I passionately hated.  KavinCoach realized his approach to my suicidal thoughts need alteration when he stated to me, "You don't feel sorry for yourself, suicide would be an execution."  My very cool, "Yes," altered counseling in a very significant way.  KavinCoach taught me the importance of loving myself, all of myself; past, present, ugly, childish, raging anger, the whole kit-n-caboodle.  This was not an easy task.  Ironically, for me, I needed to accept all myself before I could integrate.  It was like my mind needed to be all on the same wave length to heal to a whole mind.  In my opinion, self love is the gate way to loving all.

I graduated from college, I am in the process of graduating from counseling, but I am not at the end of my learning.  I believe in continuous education and taking what I learn to make my life deeper and wider with more experiences.  I do believe the statement, "There is no one so ignorant that you cannot learn something from them."  I watch, I study, I read, I talk, I share information and analyze how to improve myself.  I don't think of myself as a perfectionist.  More in the idea of I am evolving to become the self that Heavenly Father sees me to be.  From an early memory of 30 years ago, God answered my prayers by the feeling that He had faith in me and my desire to love my little family.  I don't have a perfectly clean house but I don't qualify as a hoarder.  I don't have the perfect body but I am learning to take care of what I have.  I don't have untold wealth but the things I value can't be purchased with money.  I am learning and growing and loving where my life is headed.  Not pain free or leisurely but it is my life and I love it.





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