In my last post I wrote about self esteem as a learned concept.
Let’s look now at a self-development plan where we can let go of our own self-image. Let’s find the way to answer the question ‘how to improve self-confidence and have more joy in our life?
Think about your own self-image – what do you think about yourself? What do you tell yourself? How do you feel when you believe those words?
Let’s say that you regularly tell yourself that you’re ‘not good enough’. Your mind knows that this concept is problematic as it raises immediately the question of defining ‘not good enough’. Defined according to whose opinion?
Set aside a clear time frame for the next exercise – something between 5- 10 minutes and decide that in this time you will explore the experience of your automatic responses. This dialogue you have with yourself shapes your self esteem, so in this exercise, listen to that dialogue. Put a timer on to remind you when the exercise is over.
First- think about yourself as being ‘not good enough’ (or any other image you may have). Start noticing how this feeling is being manifested in your physical experience – do you bend your back? Do you tighten your chest? Do you have any pressure in your eyes? Is there tension in your hands?
For a few moments let this feeling take over the entire space of your conscious thought and being. Think of the age you started to feel this way and notice how old this feeling is. If you bend your back, bend it a bit more, if you tense your diaphragm area let it be even tighter and so on.
Then move to the second part of the exercise: Decide to fully go against this feeling. Let go at once of any tension and pressure you might experience; breathe deeply, stand, move, dance, or sing. Shake this feeling away from you just like you do to your body when you get snow or dirt on your clothes.
The timer is on, to make sure you will get to the second part. So if the timer went off and you are still exploring your experience of your self-image, it’s time to let go and shake it away from you.
The more you do it, the more your being will notice that your self-esteem is only a set of beliefs. It is simply a combination of things you decided one day (for whatever reasons) to put upon yourself. Now that you’re an adult you can recognize the beliefs that work for you and those that work against you and when you see them, shake them away with the wind and build a new version of your self-esteem.
