I spent the best and most beautiful years of my life feeling unworthy. Unworthy of love, acceptance, abundance, and your like for me. In fact I was sort of suspicious of anyone who liked me. If I didn’t like me then what did you see in me? Or what did you want from me?
I know I Should Love Myself. In this world surprisingly glutted with anxious uncertain people, I believe low self-esteem is more of a norm than one would think. The Cult of Perfect is pervasive. And yet I am a vigilant amazonian fighter when it comes to my self-esteem. I deserve joy and happiness and I know that my esteem has absolutely everything to do with raising the happiness quotient.
Low Self-esteem is the soul plague of unworthiness because it robs us of our clear sight to see ourselves as the beautiful abundantly lucky people we are. We focus only at our lack and our not-enoughness. This is only exacerbated by a media-centric society that values people for wealth and thinness.
And this is how I fight the good fight every week to battle the low self-esteem. I go to the doctor. I ask for the support I need. I get medical and mental help. I share my authentic self every day. I put myself to creative challenges and make community online and in person. I exercise and am watching what I put in my face. I laugh a lot. And I write a lot.
What would it take you to respect you a little more today? To be your own hero? Are your anxieties running you off the happy highway of life too?
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Somehow I’ve decided that there is a box I am supposed to stay within. That to venture from the box is certain death. I somehow always know that I am not allowed to imagine myself anywhere else but in the Fear Box. I am denied access to the world of possibilities outside.
But I also know that the key to freedom is in having self-esteem enough to fill my balloon and sail over the walls of the box and out into the world. Feeling capable is the updraft. Capability however is stolen by low self-esteem.
I have honored my creativity over and over yet I wouldn’t call myself an artist. I have written over 1000 blog posts and yet would not say I’m a “successful” writer. But I have successfully pulled of many special events and parties, decorated Christmas trees, and birthed and raised two beautiful children. I am a highly capable person who is completely unaware of her capabilities. Because Fear claims that knowing these capabilities would be unsafe.
Staying small and staying safe would be my Fear’s dream vacation. But to my intellect and my inner artist, this is soul death. Once you see that you are smarter than your fear, grateful for it having kept you safe of course, but done kowtowing to it’s every twitch, you end up in charge of your future. A bridge to a new place.
I Can is about to fuel the rest of my life. And I will work harder and be more forgiving than I have ever been towards myself if I can taste the freedom of I Can.
And If you enjoyed what you read, subscribe, via the subscription box in the sidebar, to my thrice weekly posts via your emailbox. And visit me on Instagram to see my daily pictures, friend me or like my page on Facebook. Or come find me on Twitter or Pinterest too. I am always practicing Intentional Intouchness so chat at me please. I live for conversations.
I struggle with being myself. I have spent a lifetime trying to be the right me. “Just be yourself” confuses me. All the efforts to restore myself or find my way back are a nice concept but I don’t know if I ever felt 100 % safe to just to be me. I am working at re-being the me I was intended to be.
Ten years ago, I had a therapist tell me I had low self-esteem. I flew into bits because that was not who I thought I was. Except I realized she was right. Who I thought I was wasn’t who I really was.
And then this past November, I again hit a bump in the road that dumped me and the contents of my self-perception cart out onto the street and I feel like I am still picking myself up. Still deciding which bits are me and which I need to leave behind.
Perhaps we all go through this perpetual reconsideration of self. I somehow think many people just know who they are. I envy them. But I am in the process of fighting to find my footing when it comes to knowing who I am. I am not ashamed of this. It is all a very human process. And if anything I have shared helps you to give yourself permission to just not know, then I feel even better about my confusion.
I do know that I am inspired when I read my stories and hear others’ stories. Freedom from getting it right is in the letting it be.
And If you enjoyed what you read, subscribe, via the subscription box in the sidebar, to my thrice weekly posts via your emailbox. And visit me on Instagram to see my daily pictures, friend me or like my page on Facebook. Or come find me on Twitter or Pinterest too. I am always practicing Intentional Intouchness so chat at me please. I live for conversations.
It continuously occurs to me that the better I know myself, the better I can understand my value to the world and to you whoever you might be. When I connect with me I can connect with you. And becoming myself is one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do.
I envy those people (all except the narcissists) for knowing what they are and the strengths that they bring to what they do in their lives. What a gift to have such confidence in what you are, your strengths, your gifts, and your purpose. No, not everyone has this.
Becoming myself is one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do.
We had a little old cat who was skittish and had never been petted. Until one day I snuck a pet in. And she liked it. A lot. It took her 15 years to find out how great affection was. And then she was a pet junkie. How do you know something even exists unless you have felt it? Same with self-esteem.
Building self-esteem is like building something from air sometimes. You take it on faith that you need to build self-esteem and that it will work if you keep working it but it’s an act of faith. Without the faith you’re worth it, you’re not. See? Your actions prove your value but your value isn’t there yet. What I have noticed recently is that the surer I feel about myself, the easier it is to speak with others. I come from a place of knowing and this brings me ease. And I am all about the ease.
I don’t doubt my need for self-esteem building so that I may understand my weight and purpose in this world. Knowing and fulfilling my value to my fellow humans is one of the most important tasks/jobs I will ever have. And so I fight ever onward in the invisible storm of developing myself.
And If you enjoyed what you read, subscribe, via the subscription box in the sidebar, to my thrice weekly posts via your emailbox. And visit me on Instagram to see my daily pictures, friend me or like my page on Facebook. Or come find me on Twitter or Pinterest too. I am always practicing Intentional Intouchness so chat at me please. I live for conversations.
I have come to understand that the two areas of me that need the most work are self-trust and self-value. I believe that my lack of self-trust is what causes anxiety. And my lack of self-value is otherwise known as low self-esteem or self-worth.
It struck me the other day that I have truly believed for a long time that I am worthless. I almost laughed at the ludicrousness of this concept.
As children, we believe what we do about ourselves based on what our world shows us. Everything reflects our worth. And if my parents weren’t available to shower me with unlimited love right when I needed it, it must have reflected my lack of worthiness. And that stuff sticks around. The inner child’s decision of worthlessness will not be dissuaded because they are all ego, the center of the universe. Absolute importance or unimportance.
For
10 years, I have been working on raising my self-esteem. But while I
could see these parts of me that I disliked and wanted to rid myself
of, I was powerless to move from this magnetic grip that my low
self-esteem had on me. I was tethered to my recognitions of my
worthlessness. Because that is how it always has been. Until I
released myself.
The one two punch combination against my worthlessness began with understanding that I was bullying myself. That no man has ever oppressed me as well as I have oppressed myself. And I proceeded to shower compassion down on myself. And then I chose to alleviate my anxiety with my last resorted option : medication.
I have always had a knife to my throat as nothing I ever did was good enough. But now I have been released from my tether to my not good enough thoughts. Instead of seeing myself as fat, I see myself as pre-skinnier. I looked in the mirror the other day and caught sight of myself and thought that I was pretty. The fact that I can see the difference in the way I was as opposed to the way I feel now seems slightly miraculous. And I probably deserve a few miracles in my life
And
If you enjoyed what you read, subscribe, via the subscription box in
the sidebar, to my thrice weekly posts via your emailbox. And visit
me on Instagram to
see my daily pictures, friend
me or like my
page on Facebook. Or come find me on Twitter
or Pinterest
too. I am always practicing Intentional Intouchness so chat at me
please. I live for conversations.
My name is Shalagh Hogan, pronounced Shay-La. I'm the mother of a teen, a seven year-old, and I turned 54 this year. This blog was born in 2011 and my hope and joy as a writer, an artist, and an uber-creative, is that by sharing my journey of self-discovery, others will gain inspiration and permission for their own journeys.
