If you want to be happy for an hour, take a nap. If you want to be happy for a day, go fishing. If you want to be happy for a month, get married. If you want to be happy for a year, inherit a fortune. But, if you want to be happy for a lifetime, do something good for someone else.
- Anonymous
What Causes Self-Esteem to Disappear in the First Place?
Things can happen to you in life that make you doubt yourself, sometimes terrible things, like contracting herpes or being abused in some way (or both). Sometimes it's just how someone you care about says something to you or how they look at you that can make you begin to doubt yourself. That doubt might lead to inaction due to fear of negative consequences or making mistakes. Inactivity eventually leads to even more uncertainty, low self-esteem, and a lack of confidence.
Without self-esteem, it's impossible to follow your intuition and do the right things that will lead to health and happiness. Self-esteem empowers will. Without self-esteem, will, passion, and determination drain away.
Besides trauma, another cause of low self-esteem is perfectionism. Setting unachievable standards causes a slow death of self-esteem. Maybe, you're not aware of how unrealistic your ideals or goals really are because you were raised in a family where only perfection was acceptable. Or, maybe you don't give yourself credit for your accomplishments even though you may have surpassed what might be considered average ability for the same reason. Constant expectation and striving to be perfect leads to stress, overwhelm, and inability to find self-acceptance. Hence, low self-esteem.
You may fear making changes. Some of us are better at it than others. We lose self-esteem when we fear change. There's nothing worse for self-esteem than denying available choices to avoid change.
Refusing to take direction for your own life and vacillating between difficult choices without ever making a decision at all can make you feel as if you can't make any right decisions, no matter how small. When this mindset leads to stagnation, you may end up feeling as though life is passing you by when actually, it is the other way around. A lot of times, this happens when we are tuning into our voice of intuition.
In essence, self-esteem is lost when you doubt your ability to handle what life throws at you when your standards are set so high that no one, not even you, can reach them, when you resist change because you are afraid, and when you stagnate. You lose self-esteem when you stop trusting yourself.
Over the next 14 days…
…make the decision to focus on carrying out the following activities to rebuild self-esteem. Try not to strive for perfection. Seeking perfection is another way of losing self-esteem. No one is perfect. Just focus on making small changes. At the end of 14 days, you'll feel like a brand new person.
Get Enough Sleep
We have a natural, built-in body rhythm of getting our best sleep between 11 PM and 2 AM. Begin going to bed a half-hour earlier each week until you can get up at the same time every day and still have gotten 8-10 hours of sleep. Get up at the same time every day. Sooner or later, you'll find yourself going to bed at the same time each night. Also, see Getting a Good Night's Sleep.
Get Dressed When You Get Up
Do you want to feel like a loser? Day after day, hang out in your pajamas and watch the sun go down without ever getting dressed. Mark the start of your day by getting up, eating, brushing your teeth, or taking a shower. Stay away from screens. Finish your breakfast first. Prioritize your to-do list and do them. If you want to fly to Paris but only have $5 to your name, put that on your list too. You'll be delighted every time you see it on your notepad (this goes along with stretching your mind with your imagination (mentioned later). Then, and only then, after you are fed with genetically appropriate foods and dressed, go about your day.
Eat Well, or At Least Better
Have a protein or a healthy fat at each meal (cheese, meat, eggs). Rather than calories, focus on eating genetically appropriate nutrition full of colorful foods to relieve anxiety, panic, and overwhelm.
Cut Back On or Avoid Sugar, Processed Foods & Stimulants
If you are drinking a large amount of caffeine, switch to Oolong tea (a combination of black and green tea). Once you are used to it, switch to green or herbal tea.
Avoid white foods, such as white flour, bread, rice, potatoes, and sugar. Use Stevia, a natural sugar substitute you can cook with, found at health food stores, or a bit of raw honey for sweetening. So you know, Stevia can cause diarrhea in sensitive individuals.
Avoid all prepared and junk foods. They cause acidosis, which causes inflammation, which triggers herpes breakouts. Cook a meal instead of eating that frozen pizza. Going cold turkey isn't necessary or suggested, but it is essential to begin to cut down on (and then avoid) these things, which cause inflammation and trigger herpes breakouts (and autoimmune disorders).
Move That Body of Yours
There might be times when regular exercise programs are out of the question but find some activities you like, such as walking on the beach or light stretches, to get some movement into your life. Begin doing something. If you have overlapping conditions, you should speak with your care provider and take it slow. Whatever exercise you choose, do it only until you feel the first signs of tiredness. If you can only walk for 5 minutes, that's okay. That is where you begin. Don't push yourself. Just keep going at the speed or effort that causes you no pain. Add another couple of minutes of walking or extra reps of stretches each week. Build up slowly.
Get Rid of Junk and Clutter
How could you create healthier spaces for yourself? Take a look around. Get rid of junk, clutter, and dirt in your house, yard, office, or car. Clutter and garbage affect your energy negatively. It can make you feel stuck.
It can be hard to give things away. We form attachments or tell ourselves we may need our stuff someday. But, if you last used something over a year ago and don't know when you might again, it's time to let it go. If you still have the same clothes you wore when you were an itty bitty teenager and are now a size 12, let them go. If you have cards and letters from childhood, organize them in albums or decorative boxes.
Is there something you could sell? It may help you to look at it like this. Objects have a life too. There's nothing wrong with giving them a better one where they will be useful and loved again.
Keep the word "simplify" in your mind as you eliminate junk and clutter. You'll feel so much more energized when you accomplish this task.
Engage in Activities, Outings & Invitations
Remember, emotional feelings always follow taking action. Get to the store for dish soap, good food, and the sake of getting outside and engaging with nature. You'll feel better for doing so. Go to a park, and tune into nature. At the very least, engage in sense-based activities.
If you are invited somewhere, and some part of your even remotely wants to go, go! Nothing defeats your self-esteem worse than becoming isolated and telling yourself you have nothing to share with others. You will feel so much better after you do so, even if it is just that you allowed yourself to go. Your perspective and your mood will lift, and you will be happier with yourself.
Find things to do around your house or yard, starting with removing clutter and dirt. Face it. You may even be a perfectionist, but when you are depressed, your home will undoubtedly suffer neglect in some capacity. Clutter and garbage affect your energy negatively. Organizing and cleaning your house helps to clean up your mind and aura.
Be Around Positive People
Not everyone has a network of positive people to be around. Some of us don't have even one person to lean on. If this is you, rent a comedy show or movie comedy that will make you roll with laughter. Watch television shows that promise laughter as well.
If you have positive people that uplift you, call them. Invite them over, even if you don't feel like it or don't feel you have anything to share. You do. You just don't know it. You'll be glad you did. Better yet, invite yourself out to their place for a bit of instant perspective. Friendship is a gift. Use it.
With the state of the world being as it is, it may not be possible to visit others. Get online and join groups or forums and meet like-minded individuals.
Ground Yourself (In this case, I don't mean spiritually, although that's a great idea too!)
Restrict yourself from watching any drama or news for two weeks and see if you can't feel your energy levels shifting positively. The world won't end when you stop watching drama and news. If it does, it won't matter anyway. Instead, get outside and engage with nature, which you are a part of, even though you may not realize it.
Listen To Self-Empowering, Energizing Music
Even if you are not a music lover, finding music you love to listen to can help boost your self-esteem in the same way as finding your like-minded people. I'm not talking about your favorite head-banging music or music that makes you want to beat someone up or makes you want to cry when you hear the words. No. Listen to music that soothes, dissolves into the background, and feels really soothing, like a spiritual back rub. You might check out your cable television music channel, if you have paid TV, or on YouTube. Play it while you cook, do dishes, read, type, drive, or pet the cat. Cats and children love soft music, by the way. When I need to tap into my spiritual self, I often listen to music, such as the sound-track from The Last Kingdom. It might not be your thing but it takes me to a distant land and far off dreams. Find your thing. Listen regularly.
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