Creating Self-Esteem: A Gift to Yourself

One of my recent clients began our initial session with the following comment,

“I think I am my own worst critic.”

Doesn’t it seem tragic that a person would carry around a harsh, inescapable critic inside his/her own mind—a critic that can seldom, if ever, be pleased? Unfortunately, this is all too common a situation.

Another statement that is often heard is,

“I think I’m my own worst enemy.”

Again, this is not exactly a prescription for feeling good since what we think is what we experience. Not only is this approach an ineffective self-management strategy, it is also unenjoyable! I want to add that I think it is unnecessary as well, but furthermore, that even if that has been our approach thus far, we have the ability and potential to change our view, no matter what our age.

Basically, self-esteem is what you think and feel about your self. (For me, it is what I think and feel about my self.) In other words, if you think well of your self and feel good about being you most of the time, then you automatically have high self-esteem. If you think poorly of your self and feel that you are not okay most of the time, then you automatically have high self-esteem. If you think poorly of your self and feel that you are not okay most of the time, then you have low self-esteem.

As you may have noticed, I put think and feel together. The reason is perhaps best explained in Albert Ellis’ writing on the topic of Rational-Emotive Therapy (RET). The fundamental thesis of RET, as I see it, is: you feel or experience what you are thinking.

In other words, what you are thinking about (rational activity) is what you are experiencing (feeling or emotional activity). Possibly the most graphic and colorful way of presenting this is Ellis’ statement, “The reason people feel shitty is that they are thinking about shit. Further, they are going to continue feeling shitty until they change their mind.” Another variation is, “The reason people feel shitty about themselves is they are thinking that they are nothing but shit to begin with.”

Thus, you can see from my initial definition of self-esteem (what we think and feel about our selves) is a direct result of our own activity, i.e., our mental activity. And, since it is our own mental activity, it is entirely within our own domain, province, or response ability. We own it. It is not up to others. What other people think and feel about us is other­ esteem, the esteem of others, and not within our direct control.

By starting from the position that our self-esteem is not dependent on the thoughts of others, this certainly simplifies matters considerably. Your self-esteem is up to you, mine is up to me. If we have spent much of our life, up to now, thinking and feeling badly about our selves, it doesn’t matter, we can change that style of thought now. We do not have to wait until we have gained the esteem of others even though that could give us some positive excuses if we needed some.

To illustrate this distinction, we can recall the example of Freddie Prinz who starred in the TV show, “Chico and The Man”. As you may remember he had all the other-esteem anybody could ask for. In addition, he had all the things that we seem to be holding our breath for: status, wealth, good looks , promising career, etc. His suicide is clear evidence that he did not like himself: that he thought of himself in negative and self­-destructive terms. With that kind of thinking, he felt so badly that he killed himself.

Many readers are likely to say to themselves at this point, “Changing my thoughts is not an easy thing to do.” (This is a very typical thought to have.) In other words, when we think about changing our thinking, then we are likely to stop ourselves from changing our thinking easily by thinking that changing our thought is difficult. (I might add, if we think we can, or we think we can’t, either way, we are right.) In this way, we can convince ourselves that we are in mental “chains.”

One of my favorite stories about this point is from the East, a Zen story. The young student eagerly approaches the master and earnestly inquires, “Master, what is the way to liberation and freedom?” The master responds with a question, “Would you show me your chains?” The student looks at his wrists and ankles in a perplexed manner and responds, “But I don’t have any chains.” At this point, the master asks, “Why, then, would you be interested in liberation and freedom, when you are already unchained?”

That is an “unusual” story, but it reveals our position in own life. It can be seen either as positive or negative. The good news is that we are already free, free to think (and therefore to feel) anything we want. The bad news is that we live in a culture or context where the custom is to use our freedom to point out how “unfree” we are. However, if we assume that we own our own thinking, anybody who wants to can change their mind.

Therefore, if you have been using your freedom to think that you are not okay, and consequently, you have felt bad about yourself up until now, it doesn’t matter in terms of what you can do now and in the future. Perhaps a clearer way of saying this is that you are free to “do” you differently than you have. You can use the awareness of your freedom to create (think about) your self as okay and feel good about yourself, now.

When you were born, you did not have any thoughts about who you were. You entered life from your mother’s womb with an intact nervous system, complete with all the necessary reflexes. In addition, you (if you are reading this) arrived with the potential to learn language as well as the ability to think. Of course you also had some feelings upon arrival, perhaps even some feelings about your arrival—however, I think those feelings were reflexive, the result of shock. I think most feelings in infancy were poorly differentiated and of a more or less reflexive nature. Since we can’t interview infants, nobody can prove me wrong in my speculation anymore than I can prove I am right.

Back to the question of the mind at birth. I don’t think I had one, nor did you. We had the potential for mind but no mind yet. The reason I say this is that we had no language, nor even an appreciation of language. Our parents could discuss any topic and it made no difference to us because we did not know what they were talking about, we had no decoding ability, no interpretative framework.

During our early months, our ears were bathed in a sea of words. We didn’t know what they meant at first. As we continued our growth while immersed in words, we began to acquire some basic language due to our potential to learn. I think of the computer and the mind as having some rough parallel and the early period of our life was when we “booted up our computer” and began developing a mind of our own.

Eventually, the booting up period diminished and we began the more adult form of word processing, which we can call speaking, writing, and reading. All these activities are based on what we call thinking, something we didn’t do when we were born but developed the capability to do later. Incidentally, a thought is not tangible in the sense that we can look at it or weigh it, however, it is very real to the person doing the thinking.

As adults, we have developed our own mind and now have the ability to use this interpretive framework to encode (talk and write) and decode (listen and read). The kinds of thoughts we have are sometimes lumped into groups called beliefs. The faceless people that make up definitions at Webster’s define belief as a “conviction that certain things are true.”

Now back to self-esteem, it seems to me that our thoughts about ourselves (our self-esteem) is a belief system that we hold in our minds, a conviction that certain things (about ourselves) are true. Are you with me so far? Now my next question is, when did we begin putting together this belief system? Obviously, the foundations were developed in early childhood . What was our situation or condition at that time? Answer: We were relatively helpless and dependent.

Dependent on others for our very existence because we could not feed our selves or clothe our selves (although we did our own breathing, sucking, and swallowing, etc.) . The “giants” in our environment did it for us. We could not help but learn (develop a self-image) that we were not enough compared to the adults around us. We were picked up and put in the car seat whether we wanted to or not. There were times when we would scream our heads off and the adults would not yield to our demands. We could not help but learn about our impotence to get the world to be just the way we wanted it.

Just as the foundation is important to the structural underpinnings of a house, the initial learning experiences of our childhood become the foundation of our belief systems about our selves and the world around us. The word processing of the adult is based on the boot disc of childhood. Not only did we develop a sense of impotence, we also were immersed in a language that seemed to be primarily focused on good and bad, right and wrong. We were sent to our room or otherwise (maybe not so wise on the part of the other sometimes) punished while being told that we were “bad”. We were rewarded for being “good”.

Even if the ratio of “good” to “bad” comments were even, the experiences around being “bad” and punished were more memorable. Since we were unable to act like adults, we frequently made “mistakes” and endured surprising consequences. Since our parents wanted us to learn good manners and acceptable behavior, they frequently corrected, criticized, and admonished us. I remember a line from somewhere where the comedian said, “I was six years old before I learned that my name was not No No.” We were likely to learn to be self-critical rather than self-accepting.

Now as adults, we are likely to look at our selves through these belief systems about that self we began to develop in childhood. We probably have beliefs (convictions of things that are “true”) about our selves based on our early experience. We may also have convictions about our convictions or beliefs about our beliefs, specifically that we cannot change our convictions or beliefs. I think (and believe) that we can!

To me, our self-image or self-esteem is our thoughts about our selves, what we have “conjured up” about our selves. We are the initiators and the “experiencers” of our thoughts, if we were brain dead, we wouldn’t have thoughts and feelings. I have an idea of who and what I am. Obviously, my idea of me is not me since I am more than an idea. It is simply an idea of me which I create in my mind. Thus, I am the creator of my idea of me and I am free to make up any view or idea of me. Nobody can stop me. I can make up a positive view or idea of me even though that is not the norm.

I also have an idea of who and what you are. Of course, that is not you, you are over there and my idea of you is in my mind and thus, my creation of you. I do not interact with you when I am with you, I interact with my idea of you. So I create me (my idea of me) and I create you (my idea of you) in my mind. Further, since I “have no chains,” I can use my mind any way I want. I could make up me to be wonderful and I could make up you to be wonderful. I could relax since I wouldn’t have to prove my self and I wouldn’t have to worry about you as a threat. A great benefit to my self. However, this is not the norm in this puritanical context since we base our self-esteem on our early patterning when we learned a negative view of our selves.

This helps us understand why the client opened with the line, “I think I am my own worst critic.” What is interesting to me is that most of our internal experience is based on our beliefs (our thinking), it is not the world out there dictating our experience. We know this through the expression, one person’s meat is another person’s poison.

An actual example of this statement could be the eating of a piece of meat. The one individual orders a steak and eats it with great gusto. A vegetarian might throw up just thinking about eating a piece of dead cow. Each may think their experience is determined by the act of eating the meat because their belief system seems invisible to them. However, there has to be two different belief systems involved because the meat is identical. Since they each are likely to have a common belief system of no awareness of a belief system (hence, no ownership), they will each attribute their experience to the eating of the meat with little or no awareness of their role in determining their experience.

Ellis says that it’s as easy as ABC. He makes the A the Antecedent event, a fancy name for stimulus, what’s going on in the environment. He makes the B stand for the Belief and the C for the emotional Consequence, another word for response. He states that events do not cause our emotional response, we have a belief that results in the response. Take two people on a float trip: the one experiences the grandeur of nature while the other one can’t wait to get back to civilization. Going to a dance may be agony for one person and ecstasy for another. (The question is why do these two people get married?)

Thinking about beliefs and self-esteem, it would appear that we do not necessarily see our selves as others see us. Each of us has a “story” (belief) about what kind of a person each of us is. We experience that (our own) story. As the author of that story, couldn’t we change it? Couldn’t we rewrite parts of it?

Only if we were aware that we were the author, that we did not like the story, and that we had the pen in our own hand. Yes, we may have had negative experiences in our childhood, why should we continue to give that portion of the story the central role?

Who could stop us from saying that was a tough time, I’m glad it’s over and I have a choice about how I treat me from here on? We could change our story from I used to be my own worst enemy, to now I am my own best friend.

Next, I would like to use an analogy from the field of art. Each day, as the painter (originator or creator) of your life, you will get a fresh canvas. By the end of the day, you will have filled that canvas with whatever you have thought and felt that day. If you look at that painting at the end of the day and basically don’t like it or don’t feel good about it, then you are free to use different colors and brush strokes the next day when you get your fresh canvas. For example, imagine that although I have all the colors available to me, I have consistently chosen to use dark purple, black, and brown while making short, jagged lines. At the end of the day, I end up not liking my painting (the experiences I produced).

As you can easily imagine, it doesn’t make any difference how long I have been doing this from this moment on, I am free to use pastels and make sweeping circles and huge hearts with wide ranging movements. Initially, I may feel a bit awkward about the change of painting styles. As I continue to experiment with my new style, I will become more accustomed to it. I can also feel excitement and enthusiasm that I create with my new story, reveling in my freedom of choice. I don’t need to intimidate myself or limit myself just because the majority of artists around me continue to use dark colors and little jagged lines. Others may be puzzled or look at me askance. My works may not be included in a major exhibit but the internal joy and sense of freedom that I experience is my most valuable guide and feedback.

Okay, so you have never considered yourself the artist in or of your life before; you nevertheless are. You don’t have a choice about that! The brush is in your hand whether you like it or not! It reminds me of a cartoon where the person is standing on the deck of a ship with the wheel in his hand saying, “Due to circumstances beyond my control, I have been left in charge of me.” It is true that we do not control the wind and waves (the external environment), yet we are in charge of the wheel (the internal environment). We are free to use our wheel (steer into) to complain about the wind, which seems to be the norm in this culture.

Perhaps I can use another metaphor to clarify this viewpoint. As you well know, the function of having a thermostat in your house or apartment is to keep the temperature inside at a comfortable level. It is clear that changing the thermostatic setting changes only the internal environment, not the external environment (weather). Obviously, the external environment can fluctuate a great deal and have little impact on the internal environment, except perhaps making it necessary to change the thermostatic setting slightly to maintain comfort. Clearly, the environment internal to the house is relatively independent of the external environment. Although they are interactive to some extent, internal does not control external and external does not control internal.

Similarly, even though there are some interactive effects, self-esteem does not “control” other-esteem, nor does other-esteem “control” self-esteem. If that were the case, everybody who was popular or famous would feel good about themselves.

To push this idea further, imagine for a moment that I am your friend and that I have just called you on the telephone because I am freezing and shivering inside my house. I complain to you about my discomfort and yet you know that I have a thermostat with a fully functional furnace. I go on and on about the weather being so cold and my feeling so miserable. When you think about the way the game is ordinarily played, you try to cheer me up, distract me, or sympathize with me. As part of my external environment, you are incapable of affecting me, which may help you appreciate the futility of trying to “cheer up” a friend who is “doing” depression.

In contrast, it would be far more appropriate for you to suggest to me that I turn the thermostat to heat and elevate the temperature setting. In other words, do something different, myself. Unfortunately, this is a relatively rare response in terms of how the game is played in this culture. If you do tell me to take better care of myself, I am likely to “do upset” because you are not being sympathetic and understanding. Furthermore, you don’t even care since I don’t detect any distress in your voice. I conclude that you are not much of a friend so I hang up and call somebody who will be more sympathetic and understanding. I keep calling until I find somebody who will stay on the line with me, at least until they tire of my whining and complaining.

I recall a Peanuts cartoon strip where Peppermint Patty is talking on the phone with Charley Brown saying, “I’m having trouble in school again, Chuck, what do you suggest?” He volunteers the following, “Be sure to do your homework, don’t sleep in class, and never try to give a report on a book you haven’t read.” Her response is, “I hate talking to you, Chuck.” Isn’t that an excellent “capture” of the way we feel when we get advice on what we can do rather than sympathy or blaming somebody else?

This seems to be the “norm” in this culture, little awareness of our own response ability. Generally speaking, people are sitting inside their “envelope of skin” (their domain) with a fully functional system (freedom, choice, and response ability), looking at the external environment (others) and complaining how bad they feel, wishing things “out there” were different so that they could feel good “in here.” Ironically, it’s as if they are holding their breath, waiting for the weather outside to change before they feel comfortable. They want the people out there (external environment) to start treating them better (warm up), and then they will feel better—not a moment before. Sounds pretty ridiculous, doesn’t it?

A question I once heard in this connection is, “Are you a thermometer or a thermostat?” There is quite a difference. A thermometer only registers the temperature of the surroundings in a passive manner . The thermostat, however, has the capacity to sense and set the temperature for comfort internally while taking into account the external situation, and yet not being controlled by what is going on outside. Since you don’t have any chains, you can change your mind even if you have been living your life up to now as a thermometer.

Because this seems like such a serious issue to most people, this might be a good time to remember something Oscar Wilde said, “Life is far too important to be taken seriously.” I prefer this approach to the alternative “Life’s a bitch, and then you die.”

I like to see the humor in things, which goes along with the old adage, “Laughter is the best medicine.” I invite you to chuckle at your self. As soon as you do, you will feel better. You will see how well and immediately your thermostat works!!! Of course, if you are normal, you may negate this option by saying to your self that there is nothing funny about the way you have been forced to live your life.

As a consultant, I see clients who are “doing” upset, worry, anxiety, guilt, depression, addiction, resentment, jealousy, envy, rumination, etc. (Have I left anybody out?) What that means to me is that they are sweltering or freezing emotionally. They are not taking good care of themselves. From my perspective, that is exactly like holding their breath, waiting for someone else to help them adjust their thermostat.

Since I am only part of their external environment, one of my early “confessions” in the way I “do” therapy is to indicate to my clients that I can’t help them. Many of my clients create surprise initially; however, when I smile and explain the concept of “response ability,” they begin to understand that changing their own temperature is up to them, since they alone have their hand on their psychological thermostat.

One of my approaches is to say that there is nobody in here but me, so I must be doing all of me, not just a part of me. Further, based on the premise that there is nobody in there but you, you also must be doing all of you. Thus, I can’t get “out of here” and “into there” to change or fix you; there is no room “in there” for me. If I am doing me and you are doing you, i.e., I run my temperature with my thermostat and you run your temperature with your thermostat, then I am unable to change your thermostatic setting (your comfort level). Most clients respond at this point with some kind of statement that they are aware that they need to learn to help themselves.

An analogy that may be useful is to position myself as a coach. I may use the local Baseball Cardinals to illustrate what I am talking about. The Cardinals have a batting coach whose function is to provide some input and feedback for the players. He may say things like lower your left shoulder, widen your stance, change your grip, or keep your eyes open. It is up to the player to experiment and pick out what is useful for improving his performance. It is clear that the player is in charge of himself, that the coach never bats for the batter. The coach is interested in all the players functioning better, he does not take sides. Thus, I can counsel both the husband and the wife in a marital situation and make suggestions about how they can use their internal thermostatic control more advantageously and quit “pretending” that their spouse is in control of their emotions .

Usually at this juncture, I add the bonus. If nobody can help you psychologically, then nobody can hurt you psychologically; help and hurt come as a pair. If you are playing the game as if you can help somebody, then you are automatically operating in the illusion that you can also hurt them if you say the “wrong” thing. This implies that you had better be extra careful choosing what you say. I have the delusion or belief that there is an alternative illusion.

I might add that I previously used this worry about saying the wrong thing to paralyze myself during my initial years as a therapist (when I was “normal” ). I put tremendous pressure on myself by viewing my clients as if they were in a precarious position with tenuous control of themselves in regard to their thinking and feeling. Therefore, I was exceedingly careful about what I said. In other words, I was freezing my self inside and attributing it to the weather outside (the “fragile” client). The joke was that somebody (client) who was not using their control to produce comfort went to consult with me (one who also was not using my control to produce comfort). As you can well imagine, most of the time neither of us felt better at the end of our inter-action.

As I became more and more serious, I produced sufficient discouragement to get out of clinical work and go into Industrial Psychology for seven years. I told myself that I couldn’t take the “pressure” of seeing clients under such intense conditions. I was oblivious to, or unaware of, my response ability. I did not see alternative ways of viewing the situation; I thought my only choice was to “get away.” However, I had forgotten one of the secrets of the universe: “Wherever I go, there I am.” Thus, I took my serious approach with me, although I eventually changed my mind. Incidentally, I would like to find the clients that I “worked with” 25 years ago and apologize to them. Maybe we could even have a good laugh together.

Now I operate in a different illusion, delusion, thought pattern, reality—whatever you want to call it. In a therapy situation (a consultation) where l can’t help or hurt my client, my only job is “doing” me and the only thermostat that I control is mine. So, I usually let my clients know that since I don’t have a job running them, I will use my freedom to produce comfort within me. I do it for me because I like me and I like to experience relaxation and comfort. Secondarily, it is a positive role model for my client—they may get some clues for themselves by observing how I run my thermostat.

Perhaps the following client story will be a useful illustration. I saw a lady who was feeling miserable. She said that it was because of her mother-in-law. She related how miserable her mother-in-law “made” her feel, how she called her at all hours, drank too much, interfered too much, etc. After listening for awhile, I said something to the effect that if her mother-in-law would only “act right,” then she could feel much better. The client agreed that was the case.

That being the case, I asked her to send her mother-in­ law in to talk to me so I could explain to her how she should act (adjust her daughter-in-law’s thermostat) so that her daughter-in­ law could be happy. My client snorted and said, “She would never come to see you. Anyway, she’s too old to change.” My response was, “Then I guess you are out of luck. If your mother-in-law controls your feelings and she won’t or can’t change, then you are destined to feel bad. We don’t have much to talk about.” She blinked a couple of times and said, “I guess it’s up to me.” I agreed with her and began to focus on how she could “be more gentle and loving within her self in spite of her mother-in-law.” I think she liked the “in spite” of part of my comment.

As I think about how I would have reacted to what I am writing (making up) now with the kind of thought processes (illusions) I did 25 years ago, I would be creating a variety of reactions, just as you might. For example, you might have become indignant with me for making light of your troubles. You might have thought, “He doesn’t know how cold it is in here. He is not in touch with reality (whatever that is), it’s 17 degrees below zero.”

Translated, this means your circumstances are extremely difficult and you would like some sympathy. You think I just don’t understand what it is like to have these kinds of problems and live in these kinds of conditions. That is true, I don’t know anybody else’s circumstances (external weather conditions), or even their internal climate. It doesn’t matter too much because the mechanics are the same—change your thermostat to heat or cool and adjust the setting in one direction or the other . Don’t sit on your haunches and whine while waiting for the weather out there to change. I recall a saying that is appropriate here: “Argue for your limitations, and sure enough, they’ll be yours.”

Some of this may sound unsympathetic to you, and you could get very indignant about my “cavalier attitude.” You are perfectly justified. I don’t feel very sympathetic. What’s more, you don’t need sympathy, you need to change your thermostat!

The game of sympathy is patronizing and could serve as a distraction for you. That is, you could distract your self from what would have the greatest utility for you: changing your own thermostatic setting. You could create a relatively comfortable internal climate leading to a condition of high self-esteem. This is in marked contrast with what the majority of people in this country experience, namely an uncomfortable interior environment, a condition of low self-esteem. They are waiting for the world around them to change so they can feel good. Either that or they are waiting until they “improve” or become successful,” whatever that means.

How did all this begin? As I mentioned earlier, when we were young, we were probably parented by people (amateurs) with poor self-esteem who were apprehensive about how they would be judged as parents. Thus, they corrected, preached, interrogated, and punished their children a great deal in an effort to make them into “good kids.” They also told us that we were “too little” or “not big enough.” This matched our own experience since we couldn’t lift them, but they could lift us. Since they are so powerful, they must be right.

So, we spent our childhood waiting to grow up so we could do what we wanted to do when we wanted to do it. Then, and only then, could we be happy. We were learning the pattern of waiting to feel good in the future when we found our “mythical mate” and achieved success. As we lived moment after moment, days became years and now we are what is referred to as “grown ups.” Now we are doing exactly what we want to do in our thinking. When you disagree with that statement, aren’t you doing exactly what you want to do?

Take a look at it, do you want to continue what you are doing with your own mind? Are you enjoying your life as much as you would like? What you are doing in your thinking is what you want to do, based on the assumption that there is nobody in there but you. You may have been operating on the assumption that you are not the artist in your life, that you are not the person in charge of your thermostat. This assumption was initially developed in childhood when it was true but that assumption is not the case anymore and may not serve you well now.

I invite you to “play around with” a different assumption, a different set of illusions. Specifically, there is nobody else but you in there and that you are already in control of your internal climate, even though you are not in control of the “weather outside.” Then it follows that you are the authority of your life, the person in charge of your thermostat. If you play the game of life from this position, I think that you might start using pastels for your paintings and create a more comfortable interior climate. I don’t think you need to hold your breath and wait for changes in the external weather. In other words, you can use your sovereignty immediately to feel better without waiting for your spouse, your parents, your children, your boss, your lover, your relatives, your whatever, to change.

You can also make a change in your self-esteem setting, arbitrarily and capriciously. In fact (whatever a fact is), that will be the only way you will initiate change. If you postpone feeling good until you improve and become perfect, you will wait forever. As I mentioned earlier, you will at first feel awkward “doing” you differently, but who can stop you? Who can stop you from making up elation at changing? Once again, laughter is the best medicine. So if you haven’t liked the picture you have painted in the past, laugh at your self. Sure, it is fine to have a moment of regret; but don’t spend too long on it. Regret doesn’t feel good at the present moment and it is not the avenue to feeling better in the future .

If you are “normal” in this culture, you have waited throughout your childhood to become a grown up so you could do (and feel) what you wanted to when you wanted to do it. You were going to feel good…in the future. If you made up a series of paintings similar to mine while I was growing up, you may have become a “groan up” without being aware of making that choice. You made your choice moment by moment, outside of awareness.

I invite you to become “abnormal,” to operate from the illusion that you are not only okay, but that you are “doing” you perfectly. You see, there is nobody quite like you, with your fingerprints, your life history, and your thoughts. Nobody else looks through your eyeballs in the same direction as you; others are all looking in while you alone are looking out. You and I are unique and worthwhile. How about treating our own selves as if we had value?

How would that feel? I think we would feel comfortable and relaxed very quickly after we made that thermostatic adjustment. We don’t have to wait until the weather changes. Most people believe (have the illusion) that they have to wait to feel good, which is exactly why most people are doing a great deal of waiting, but not much feeling good.

You may wonder if this wouldn’t create chaos if people did exactly what they wanted. They already are…and it already is! From the perspective of my assumptions, people are already doing exactly what they want and pretending that they don’t want to do what they are doing. Although we are already unchained, we use our freedom to pretend that we are imprisoned. Thus, we freely gripe about our situation instead of making internal adjustments. Of course, this does not negate the possibility of changing our situation, if that is an option. While we are changing our situation, we can feel okay during that time as well.

I think that the reason people are treating each other so badly is because they are first and foremost treating themselves so badly (low self-esteem). The lower a person’s self-esteem, the greater his interest in other-esteem and the greater his need to attempt to control others. I don’t think that anybody who is managing himself in a gentle and loving manner internally (high self-esteem) would be interested in fighting, raping, or abusing others. The epidemic in our society today seems to me to be low self-esteem. In my view, that is the issue that needs our primary attention. Yes, we can hurt each other physically and financially, but we are still sovereign within our envelope of skin, as far as our feelings go.

Many will disagree at this point and began pointing to the heat and cold of the external weather, which, of course, is true. Nevertheless, we are still sovereign within. Victor Frankl in his book, Man’s Search For Meaning, tells an inspirational story about how he endured and even triumphed in a terrible external situation. Although he was in a concentration camp for three years, which to me is the worst kind of external condition imaginable, he used his mental freedom to write his book in his imagination. One quote is, “People often forget that it is just such a difficult external situation which allows a person the opportunity to develop beyond themselves spiritually.” Isn’t that something, writing about “opportunity” under those circumstances? He must have been “free” in his mind even when he was not free insofar as his body.

Another quote I like is, “Those of us who lived in concentration camps can remember the men who walked through the huts, comforting others, giving away their last piece of bread. They may have been few in number, but they offer sufficient proof that everything can be taken from a person except one thing, and that is the last of the human freedoms, to choose one’s attitude in any given situation, no matter what.” The concentration camp was a prison to his body, not to his mind! He had no mental chains!
To me, that statement symbolizes the freedom I am writing about. By focusing on that, I am obviously neglecting to focus on our inability to change the external environment, which seems to be a necessary and central belief for low self-esteem, since the environment is “in charge of us,” and must change first. Here again I would like to point to that relatively “invisible” belief that we are being “environmentally operated” since that was our experience during the booting up period of early childhood. We also probably believed in Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy. We have updated those beliefs, why not update our own self-image in our own mind to include being currently free to think and feel any way we want about our selves.

So if I am free inside to manage my mind (and thus, my feelings) anyway I want, what could I do? I could start out with the assumption that I am a unique and worthwhile person, that I am okay. I could base this on (if I need a base) the assumption that “God doesn’t make junk.”

As soon as I use the word God, a number of readers could have some negative reactions because I am getting into an area that you hold sacred. Well, this is an important area to me also, and I simply invite you to listen in to what I am thinking or making up. It is important for you to realize that you are making up your reactions. It couldn’t be me or else you would always agree with everything that I write, because that’s the way I would prefer.

To begin, I want to say I am not a theologian. Although I was raised in a relatively religious background, I did not study for the ministry. I am not officially qualified for getting into theological discussions and knowing my “facts.” (On facts, I want to add a quote that I read somewhere, “Facts, however, do not speak for themselves, they depend for their wit and wisdom on the voice of the ventriloquist who holds them.”)

As a unique and precious being, I am as much of a theologian with my God as anyone else is with theirs. I like two ideas that I took with me from my previous exposure to religion. First, “God Is Love.” Second, “Make A Joyful Noise Unto The Lord.” If God is love and God is my source, then I am a manifestation of the divinity, and so are you. If I am a manifestation of the divinity, it would seem appropriate for me to treat my self divinely, as if I had value. It would also be appropriate for you to treat your self divinely, as if you had value. If we do that, I think we will treat each other better as a result.

With regard to the second quote, how else can you or I make a joyful noise unless we start out from joy? You can’t make a joyful noise if you’re busy feeling shitty. So let’s do God’s bidding and get on with it. Lighten up…a step in the direction of enlightenment.

Do you need further justification for treating your self as if you had value? In case you do, here it is. If my good friend left his car with me to use while he was going out of town for a week, I would take good care of his car. I would not try to squeeze into tiny parking spaces where there was an increased probability of the doors being nicked. I would not mash on the gas and squeal the tires nor would I slither to a stop with full brakes every time I stopped. I would probably vacuum it and wash it before I went to airport to pick him up. I would even top off the gas so he would have a full tank awaiting him upon his return. For a friend, I would treat the vehicle or loaner well.

Well, God, whoever He or She is, loaned me this vehicle (my body, mind, and spirit) for my use for awhile. I am presently its driver or caretaker. l will be turning it in some time in the future, exactly when I don’t know. However, I do know that I will be turning it in at some point. Therefore, if I want to honor my God, I will treat me (His “loaner”) gently and lovingly. I won’t be excessive in eating or drinking nor will I smoke. I won’t neglect appropriate exercise nor will I lament my inability to control the external environment (that is God’s job). I will treat my self as I would a friend, I will respect my uniqueness, and I will attune my self so that I realize that I am already “at one” with the Spirit called God. I will also make the same assumptions about you and treat you accordingly.

That is my theology. My God is a very secure God. He, She, or It is probably not holding His/Her/Its breath to see if I eat meat on Friday or where I worship. I don’t think God is going to do upset about what I do or don’t do. Instead, I like to think that God is somewhat like a parent who has sent the kids out to play. Because God gave us the freedom of choice, I think God assumes that we will end up happy and that we will not take the game of life too seriously.

I have shared my illusions about self-esteem. I made up what I, wrote: you have made up your reactions. I hope, for your sake, you made up some positive and valuable reactions for your self. If you did, I know it will be good for you, and those around you. If not, that is okay, too. I know that I have enjoyed sharing what I made up with you.
Let Go And Let God!
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Thoughts about thinking……

If you always think what you have always thought, then you’ll always feel what you’ve always felt.

If you always feel what you’ve always felt, then you’ll always do what you’ve always done.

And if you always do what you’ve always done, then you’ll always get what you’ve always gotten!

P.S. If you don’t like what you’re getting, then go back to the beginning and change your mind (thinking)!

 

This blog was originally self-published in a booklet form in 1986