Enhancing Self-Esteem


When your self-esteem is high you will have an easier time managing worry. Also, coming to grips with the fear underlying your worry actually serves to raise your self-esteem. As you learn to accept your fear, you also tend to feel better about yourself, which of course is what self-esteem is all about. But there are other ways to elevate your self-esteem. They are direct and, in one sense, simple. However, nothing comes for free. While these techniques are simple to describe, they are, by their very nature, challenging to implement.

Picture yourself getting into your car to drive somewhere a few miles from where you are now. Of course, you know that as you drive along you will have to deal with a variety of matters. A cyclist may swerve in front of you in order to avoid a manhole cover. A jaywalker may force you to slow down. The car right in front of you might jam on its brakes. No worries. You probably take for granted that you will have to deal with these things. Some of them may even be life threatening , but you have faith in yourself. You know you can handle whatever comes up.

That faith is key. When it comes to the thing that triggers your worry, you lack that faith. Why? We will see that it is because that trigger reminds you of a personal fear, and your self-esteem, based on an abiding faith in yourself, is not high enough to compensate.

Consider Joyce, a client I saw for a period of twelve weeks. She was a home-care nurse. When we spent time together she had sixteen patients spread across town. Joyce spent her days going from one patients house to another. She tended to work alone, visiting each patient, checking in on current health matters, entering data into a portable computer, and moving on. She liked her job. It gave her lots of freedom.

One worry bout of many she described for me was particularly frightening for her. She explained that she was waiting for her husband at the family cottage. It was a Friday night and traffic was bad on the way to ˜˜cottage country. He was supposed to be there by 6:00 P.M. Joyce had come up the day before, in order to avoid the traffic. By 9:00 P.M. Joyce was in panic mode. Her husband had not arrived and had not called her from the road. He had a mobile phone and usually was pretty good about staying in touch.

Joyce and I talked about the possibility of having faith during worrisome times in order to alleviate the anxiety. We talked about how some people use their faith in God as a source of strength. Other people, we said, have faith in themselves faith that they will effectively deal with whatever comes up, similar to our belief in ourselves when we drive down a busy roadway.

I asked Joyce what she lost faith in to make her so anxious while waiting for her husband. ˜˜Was it a matter of not having faith in your husband?

˜˜No, Wallys a good driver and I trust him to do what he says hell do.

˜˜What was it, then? Joyce paused , calmly running through the possibilities. ˜˜Lets see. Well, I was afraid he was in an accident. I was afraid he was hurt. I visualized how stressed he would be if there was a crash. I knew how afraid he would be. I was afraid he was killed in an accident .

Joyce started to cry. Her thoughts were taking her to her deeper fears. ˜˜I feel so guilty, she said.

˜˜Why guilty, Joyce? ˜˜Because my fears were selfish. ˜˜How so? ˜˜Because if he died, I would be alone! Its so terrible of me. I think I was more worried about being left alone than I was about him!

˜˜And what would it mean to be alone? Then the tears came in a flood. ˜˜I dont want to be alone! I would be so empty! I feel so empty! And I feel so guilty for saying this! Im so sorry, Wally!

I got her to set the guilt aside for a moment and stay with her fear of being alone. I asked her, ˜˜Where does that fear come from, Joyce? Why are you so afraid of being alone?

She answered that the fear of being alone was her most frightening thought. She had grown so accustomed to letting Wally manage their affairs that she could not envision surviving without him.

I repeated the big question: ˜˜So, if we go back to how worried you were and we link it to a lack of faith in somethingwhat did you lack faith in?

˜˜Myself. I lacked faith that I could deal with being alone. I was frightened of being all by myself. I have no faith in myself .

Faith in oneself is the touchstone of self-esteem. One of the characteristics of people with high self-esteem is their firm belief that they will be able to deal with whatever life delivers. So Joyce and I turned to the topic of self-esteem.

Can self-esteem be manufactured? We have already referred to how knowing oneself and ones fear more intimately tends to allow self-esteem to blossom, but can we just produce it? This is a huge question.

My experience is that the challenge of elevating self-esteem is best met indirectly. The most powerful tool is to start doing things you dont want to do. It seems strange , but its true.

Joyce took the subway to reach my office for her visit one day and I presumed she was going to take the subway on her return trip. I said to her, with a smile, ˜˜Tell me, when you get off the subway and you walk along the platform to the exit, what existential choice do you face?

She didnt know what I was getting at. ˜˜Well, I said, ˜˜do you take the stairs or the escalator in order to get to ground level?

˜˜I take the escalator. Why do you ask? Not wanting to overburden her, I asked her if it was a long escalator ride. When she said it was not too bad, I said, ˜˜Goodtake the stairs.

˜˜What? ˜˜Take the stairs. ˜˜Okay, but why? ˜˜Because you dont want to. ˜˜What does this have to do with my worry problem? ˜˜Everything. It is time you practiced the art of overriding your impulses. Im not kidding.

Joyce scrunched her nose and tilted her head as if to ask, ˜˜Are you crazy?

I explained this simple principle that I learned, albeit in a different context, from the writings of M. Scott Peck. When we feel worry, there is an impulse inside us that we give in to. What a worrier has to learn is how not to give in to it. We have to practice the skill of overriding these body impulses. The ability to override impulses is one manifestation of self-esteem.

I asked Joyce to try it for the fourteen days between our visits . Three times a day she had to do things she didnt like doing. If she wanted ice cream, she had to wait fifteen minutes. If she wanted to go home quickly, she had to take the long route instead. They had to be little things for the prescription to be realistic.

There are some very interesting reasons why overriding impulses works. The most interesting one to me is based on the principle that self-esteem goes down when we give in to our physical and social impulses. Giving in is like insulting the self.

This was terrible news for Joyce. Its bad news for many people. After all, if youll forgive the circularity, most of us like what we like and dont like what we dont like. Joyces plea was, ˜˜Are you telling me I have to go on a diet? I hadnt actually thought of that possibility, but I couldnt help but respond as a traditional therapist: ˜˜Do you think you should go on a diet?

Ultimately, Joyce and I settled on the initially stated challenge. Three times a day, for fourteen days, she would do little things she didnt want to do.

Two weeks later she returned with a smile on her face. ˜˜I actually feel better! she said. ˜˜Every time I took the stairs, by the time I got to the top, I looked back and said, just like in the movies, ˜I did that. I worried a bit over the last two weeks, but not as much as usual. And I do honestly feel better about myself.

Over time, Joyce did get adequate control over her bouts of worry. A combination of following the practical guidelines, getting connected with her root fears, and elevating her self-esteem did the job. When circumstances arose that historically would have evoked a severe worry response, she was better able to preempt a severe reaction. She felt more in control because she knew she could control her impulses. She knew where they came from and she accepted them as helpful parts of her personality.

It takes courage to deal with a worry problem. It can be likened to descending a dark stairwell to the basement of a haunted house in search of a spooky clanging sound. We fear what we might find. But getting down there, finding the light switch, exploring the place, we discover what we knew all along. There is a source for every noise. There are no ghosts. Next time, well have faith in ourselves.




Face It. Recognizing and Conquering The Hidden Fear That Drives All Conflict At Work
Face It. Recognizing and Conquering The Hidden Fear That Drives All Conflict At Work
ISBN: 814408354
EAN: N/A
Year: 2002
Pages: 134

flylib.com © 2008-2017.
If you may any questions please contact us: flylib@qtcs.net