Love yourself

Love yourself

February 2014

By Pulkit Sharma

A healthy self-esteem is an important precursor to physical and mental health. Pulkit Sharma shows you how to achieve and maintain it A young man running a successful business who comes to me for psychotherapy shared his crushing impasse at securing self-esteem. He said that right from childhood he had aspired and worked hard to be at the top. Despite being an excellent scorer at school and college, and now a perfectionist go getter at work, he continues to feel small. The chunk of trophies that he had accumulated over the years did little to repair his self-esteem. He told me that his self-worth shifted from moment to moment. Any small accomplishment would make him feel on top of the world, and any minor setback would put him in a deep trough.

Despite having achieved a lot, even minor obstacles today affect his self-esteem. His attempt to be perfect in almost all activities, also leads him to feel extremely stressed out and depressed. He feels anxious, depressed and undesirable due to his sense of low self-esteem. A large part of what we do, wish to do, and refrain from doing, is determined by our self-esteem. Each one of us wants to feel good internally about who we are. Also, there is an intense need to be admired and valued by the world. In my work as a psychologist, I have seen that the maintenance and enrichment of positive self-regard is at the centre of human existence. Whether it is a student striving to top the board exams, a young executive aspiring to buy a luxury car, a singer practising music to reach perfection, a middle-aged person going in for plastic surgery to revive youth, or a scientist seeking to prove that there is life on Mars – everyone at the core wants to feel good about themselves. However, for many people, no matter what they do or achieve, self-esteem is always under threat. Either they continue to feel unhappy with who they are, or the joy of liking oneself is short-lived. Having a healthy self-esteem is an important precursor to physical and mental health. In fact, the most common cause of psychological disorders such as depression, anxiety, relationship maladjustment, self-harm, suicide and phobias is low self-esteem. When people feel that they are unworthy, their confidence crashes down. As a result, they are unable to give their best in any sphere of life. They feel scared of life and its uncertainties.

Therefore, building a healthy and robust self-esteem is extremely important. While everyone would need to make their own recipe for self-esteem based on their personality and life circumstances, here are some steps that would help: 1. Break free from negative generalisations All of us are born happy and positive. During the early months of our life, we feel extremely good and confident about ourselves. As we grow up, we are exposed to criticism from our parents, family, friends, teachers, partners, bosses and children. When we are told repeatedly that we are wrong, bad or unworthy, we internalise this criticism, start believing it, and generalise it to our entire self. This damages our self-esteem and confidence. We cannot have a healthy self-esteem until we discover and break free from these negative generalisations. Falling short in one area, does not indicate that our total self is flawed. To break free from negative generalisations, make a list of your strengths and positives, and whenever an internal or external voice criticises you, counter it by reminding yourself, “I may have difficulty with one thing, but my total self is good. I am worthy and strong at the core.” Also, before taking in any criticism, question whether it stands true for you or not. Often, we may be criticised, not because we are bad, but because the other person has an issue with our behaviour. For instance, a corrupt businessman is bound to see flaws in a morally upright and creative child, because the child does not accept his philosophy of life. 2. Bid farewell to shame and guilt A woman client of mine from Gurgaon had a string of promiscuous relationships, but eventually found someone she loved and wanted to commit to. However, she felt that she was dirty, and did not deserve to be with him due to her uninhibited past. She felt depressed and tried her best to avoid him. In a couple of psychoanalytic sessions, we traced the reasons for her promiscuity, and found that it was her way of forgetting emotional pain. She started seeing herself in a non-judgmental and empathic manner. Finally, after a lot of encouragement in counselling, she told him the truth. He shared that her past did not matter to him, and he cherished and cared for their present and future. She felt relieved, started liking her own self, and her attachment for him grew. They entered a committed relationship, and are a happy couple now. The two emotions of shame and guilt crush our personal worth until we tackle them. All of us have had our share of sins, bad decisions, failures, indulgences and lies. As a result we feel that we are bad, and if people come to know about it they will abandon us. We carry this secret burden, and hide it from everyone, including at times our own self. It is important to get rid of this burden. This can be done easily in two steps. Firstly, be open and honest with your own self. Look at these negative experiences non- judgmentally and forgive yourself. Acknowledge the fact that you were suffering from shame and guilt because you have a desire to change. The desire to change indicates that you are good. Try and understand the reasons why you had these negative experiences so that you can regulate yourself better in the future. Once you have exposed yourself to the guilt, shame and related negative experiences move on to the second step. Share it with someone whom you can trust. Most of the time, we continue to hold onto guilt and shame as we feel that no one will love us if they knew the truth. It is a great healing experience to learn that there are people who will continue to love us even after they know the truth. Recently, during a workshop, a group of psychology students from Delhi University asked me what constitutes the healing power of psychotherapy. I replied that the foundation of all psychological treatments is freedom to share – people heal because they are able to share everything in an empathetic presence. 3. Build a rational basis for self-esteem A major problem with people suffering from low self-regard is that their methods of feeling good about themselves are irrational, unrealistic and self-defeating. The present culture based on materialism, flamboyance and greed gives people a false basis for self-esteem. People wrongly assume that if they amass enough of what they desire or what the world values, they will feel happy about who they are and will be valued more by others. Modern Western psychology and motivational approach fuel into this illusion by telling people that they can aim for and achieve anything. Thus, people spend their entire lifetime in accumulating more and more of what they or the world desires. More degrees, more money, more properties, more positions and titles, more admirers, more media attention; the list is boundless. The excitement and happiness after each achievement is short-lived. It is important to understand that external possessions and whatever is valued by society at large are ephemeral. There is no end to material possessions and nothing permanent about what the world values. Basing one’s goals and self-esteem on these two criteria will lead to pain and emptiness. Rather than madly running after what we want or what the world values, we need to rethink. We need to ask ourselves about why we need possessions and validation from the world to convince ourselves of our own worth? Each one of us is born with a truly unique self different from others. It is the storehouse of our exclusive potentials. We are born to be unique and different, but due to prevalent societal influence as we grow up we force ourselves to be similar to everyone else. We blindly internalise what everyone else is doing, and in the process suppress this true self. We start living a false existence, and feel small and unworthy. As long as we stay alienated from our core, we will continue to feel horrible about ourselves. We need to find our true self that is internal and unique, and live our life in a manner that enables our true self to blossom. In order to feel good about ourselves we need to get rid of this false existence, discover our true self, and tread alone on the path of self-discovery. This forms a rational basis for self-esteem.

The best recipe for self-esteem can never be found externally. It can be made available only after a period of deep introspection within ourselves. Once we find our own recipe, we need to follow it fearlessly, and this is the secret of a magical transformation.