SELF-ESTEEM: A SELF-DEVELOPED SKIL

In psychology, the term self-esteem is used to describe a person’s overall sense of self-worth or personal value. In other words, how much you appreciate and respect yourself. Well we all know that self-esteem can be an important part of success. Too little self-esteem can leave people feeling defeated or depressed. It can also lead people to make bad choices, fall into destructive relationships or fail to live up their full potentials. I believe self-esteem starts in the mind. When born we are born with a promise and its potential which is a secret, invisible and it is surely inside us. This is the case with every person living or dead on the face of this earth and these potential stays “what I can be is up to me and what my life can be is up to me”. The saddest part is that many of us never find our potential and remaining many of us never live our potential.

Imagine you were born with a Blank Canvas and totally equipped with required colors, brushes and it was totally up to you what you wanted to do with your life canvas. You can use any color, any brush stroke. it was totally up to you where you could paint the painting of your life using the potential that you came with and you can paint any image on that canvas. Creating a masterpiece and calling it the Painting of Life.

Now what happens is, as we are born with the canvas - a promise, potential and with this unlimited imagination and instantaneously what starts to happen is people also come and they start painting on your canvas. These people are well-meaning, they mean well some are great and are positive, uplift and support you. But other people keep you small and condition you, they tease and pull you down. All of these other people are painting on your canvas making our masterpiece. This continues for a number of years and then suddenly you start to realize the painting doesn’t quite look the same anymore. It’s something different than you had thought but this continues for further number of years and then eventually you start accepting that this painting is the one that should be your life. Basically, accepting other people’s ideas, conditioning and perspectives about you as your reality. Now people have added their conditionings, ideas and perspective on your mind space as colours and brush strokes which we now want to change.

The blank canvas we are born with is a mind space which explains the statement self-esteem starts in the mind. The thoughts are the colors used to make the masterpiece of life. They can be positive feelings, up lifting or will be negative feelings and these thoughts create our values, beliefs and ultimately our Self-Esteem. So, everything that you think in the mind about what has happened in your life until now is what is creating your self-esteem. It is this self-esteem that will make or break you in life.

Leonardo da Vinci’s drawing of The Vitruvian Man is one of the most popular world icons was created by around the year 1487. It is accompanied by notes based on the work of famed architect, Vitruvius Polio. The drawing is on display occasionally at Gallerie dell’Accademia, Venice, Italy. Every year when on display around six million people visit this place to see the drawing as it is very iconic and beautiful. Being a piece of heritage and volume of visitors The Vitruvius Polio is guarded around a lot of security but astonishingly you never see this security. The moment there is any step taken closer by any means the guards can race them and they protect the canvas.

From today onwards our mind, panelist or mind space is like that Vitruvius Pollio drawing and we guard it. We will allow people inside who are positive, up lifters, encouragers and the ones giving us confidence rejecting others who are negative, pull us down and the ones who tell us we are no good. This doesn’t mean you start removing people from your lives, some people are positive and some are negative but it means you do not allow the negativity into your mind space.

Imagine for a moment now looking at your painting of life. There are things positive as well as negative painted on it. Looking at it as it is, decide are you happy with the masterpiece, are you happy with your life or a bit frustrated. If frustrated the it's time to make some changes and make some choices. This is how we move forward and make a decision only out of these two choices. First, we can accept the negativity and discouragements or Second, we can start to take action. We can take action knowing that we can are making a difference in our lives.

There is a popular Indian saying

“the bite of the snake does not kill you but it is the poison that is left behind once the snake is gone which is fatal”.

We all have events in our lives where something bad had happened many years ago and we continue to think about it longer even after the event has happened. So, the the bite of the snake represents the event and we thinking about it long after it has happened is the poison.

Solution: What’s already painted on you canvas stays on it. You may try to scrape off the paint. The scrapping will make it look uglier. So, the solution is as simple as you start repainting on you canvas. This means you are choosing not to develop negative thoughts and would repaint it with new colors of positive thoughts, ideas and experiences. From this moment, onwards you can change the way you think and act.

Let me introduce you to a simple yet effective therapy and it is called THE SMILE THERAPY. It is a self-therapy and doesn’t need expertise like other therapies do.

Practical: So, think about something that makes you angry. Feel that anger in your body and remember where you felt it the most. Now relax, get a small smile think of the same something and could you connect to the anger? The smile that you introduced to the memory that get you anger changed the definition or trigger to your emotion.

There are two types of smiles. The smile that everyone regularly uses is called a laugh because of something funny. On the other hand, Mac smile a is create smile. In other words, its fun when you smile. By creating your smile, you can change your mind from negative to positive. As a result, it will improve your health, aesthetics and interpersonal relationships. The objective is to improve your overall human capability by improving your appearance with smile training and your inner strength with mental training.

This works on two principles:

(1)FACIAL DOUBLE FEEDBACK EFFECT

When the brain detects that you are having fun or liking something, it will naturally raise your mouth’s corner turning it into a smile. This is because a pleasure hormone called endocrines gets released in the brain.

(2)MIRROR EFFECT

Imagine a mirror between you and the other person. When you smile, they will smile right back; when they smile, you smile right back at them. Conversely, the transfer of your grim face onto the other person is called the reverse mirror effect.

Let me introduce you to another simple yet an effective technique and it’s called STOP. This technique is very effective and works for everyone. STOP technique just means when you have a negative thought you STOP your mind and mouth to introduce a pause. Then you introduce in a positive thought. Here you think of the positive instead of the negative. A positive thought is something that makes you happy the moment you think about it. Researchers have concluded that humans have about 50,000 thoughts every day. Miraculously all of those thoughts are the same you had yesterday and the day before and the day before that. Researchers have even proven that majorly those thoughts are negative. If we have low self-esteem then we have more negative thoughts of everybody else and we think about the past more than anybody else.

The first thing every morning most of us do is we check our mobile phones. So, today onwards the first thing we do every morning is we stop checking our mobile phones and replace it with checking our mind space for the thought we have woken with. Consider you waking up with a negative thought – I am still tiered / I didn’t sleep enough / I drank too much / my exam today is going to be a blunder. We are going to say STOP to that negative though introduce a pause with a positive thought. This is when you are paining positivity over the negativity on your mind-space/canvas. You think of the positive thought for about 20/30/40 seconds and then you start your day.

Concluding with two easy solutions to nullify the negative emotions triggering bad thoughts majorly affecting your SELF-ESTEEM by virtue of The Smile Therapy and STOP technique you keep repeating this during the day. You have happy thoughts you have happy emotions and you take happier actions and lead a happier life. So, do not care what your past has been like nor what has occurred to you in your life until this moment. What really matters is how you move forward from this moment onwards. Remember you are the child born with the promise and the potential is still inside each and every one of you. It is the time you shine and bring out your potential choose your thoughts and repaint it on your canvas making it a masterpiece.