Soaring Self-Esteem
We formulate who we are through a lifetime of experience. As children, our self-confidence is either nurtured or destroyed depending on how we interpret events.
When on holiday with her parents at the seaside, she formed a play friendship with an older boy who was a skilled sandcastle builder. At the end of the day, having been a very willing assistant to the boy’s efforts, my friend thought she deserved at least a kiss. Unsurprisingly the boy wasn’t into kissing girls and told her this in no uncertain terms! The sense of rejection she felt has haunted my friend throughout her life. The interpretation she put on this tiny event was that men would reject her.
Unless you have very forward-thinking and sensitive parents who are ready to reinterpret these messages, hundreds of assumptions are formed before we reach adulthood. A teacher could have told you that you’ll never amount to anything in your life, or your first boyfriend could have told you that you’re fat. The trick is to know that everyone is filtering the ‘truth’. In other words, everyone is wearing different, funny-coloured pairs of spectacles and seeing their own version of the truth.
Full house
Getting your own house in order first is the key to self-esteem. Knowing the boundaries of what you will and won’t accept is vital. In this way, those around you aren’t defining who you are the whole time. If you went by their reflections, you would never know who you’re trying to be. You can’t please everyone all of the time. The only thing you can do is do the best for yourself and know where your limits are.
Will-o’-the-wisp
Self-confidence is a will-o’-the-wisp that can disappear as fast as you’ve captured it. The trick is to build on your esteem foundations so that you can refer to your successes and know that you have a core of confidence that will never be knocked. Start building up your own library of successes in your life, from when you won the Tennis Improvement Cup to getting into university. If you can put these mementos into a scrapbook, great. Collect photos and certificates of your glorious moments so that you then have a permanent record of wins that you can go back and refer to, no matter how bad things get in the future.
Tagged under:boundaries reflections Self Care self confidence sensitive parents spectacles will o the wisp
