I am a firm believer that self-help books are anything but helpful. They encourage this idea that there is something fundamentally wrong with us and that we need to fix it ourselves. That's like saying to any non-computer person "You're computer that you just bought brand new and removed from the box is a complete mess because of you and it's your responsibility to figure out what's wrong with it and fix it." Guess what! I have NOOOO clue how to fix my computer and if I just took it out of the box brand new...I didn't do anything to mess it up! So someone with some training and expertise is going to fix it for me. (That's what I do for those painful emotions you may be dealing with, I fix it...not you!)
Self-esteem is an abstract concept that does not exist. Nope...you have been searching and reaching for something out there that's just not there. Think of someone that you would have normally considered having "high" self-esteem. When you compliment them on something they did well they;re likely to say "Oh I'm glad you enjoyed that. Thank you...." or something to that effect. They're not going to say "Yes I know how amazing I am." Let's be frank here...that last statement is one filled with "self-love" but is considered narcissistic and arrogant. No one is looking to be that way, and I'm certainly not looking to get my clients in that frame of mind. Instead it's about getting their emotional mind to a point where it sees what's both possible AND beneficial and having them act upon that possibility. And after having acted upon that beneficial possibility being able to look back and say "Yes in that moment I did the best I could have done," and doing so with out any regrets or doubt.
Meaning...Meaning is added to things that have been weird, different, unusual, unexpected, sudden, and unpleasant. The meaning is always 100% worse than the thing that happened and distorted. From that the human mind, for some people not all, then tries to add meaning to EVERYTHING! The majority of our mind works like a wolf. Wolves do not add meaning to their life, they get up and hunt if their hungry, sleep if their tired, procreate if the time is right, and go to the bathroom when they need to. When they hunt successfully do they think "Wow I'm so amazing!"? No. When they are unable to procreate do they think "Holy cow somethings wrong with me?" No. Meanings are useless, in fact most of the time they are more harmful than helpful.
And I'm not the only therapist out there that feels this way about these topics. Check out Mark Chidley's post entitled "Forgetting self esteem."
Tara S. Dickherber, LPC
Senior Certified Practitioner in Rapid Resolution Therapy®
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