Ready, Steady, Go

“What I hear you telling me is that you’re disgusted with Tom because he isn’t doing what you want him to do,” I said to my client Susan, who had been attending weekly coaching sessions with me. Her goal, as she explained during our first appointment, was to leave her “temporary” job (acquired a decade ago) so she could start her own cupcake business. Susan worked for a baker early in her career, but after starting a family she went back to work as a hall monitor at her children’s school. She meant to stay there just until they were through middle school, but more than ten years later Susan was still checking hall passes.

Every weekly session began with Susan complaining about her husband Tom, whose lack of ambition was driving her crazy. She felt he could do much better than middle management at a local government office. According to her assessment, Tom shouldn’t be content to stay firmly in a subordinate position when, if he simply showed his bosses what a positive impact he’d made, he could get a much-deserved promotion and raise. Susan had taken to searching online for jobs for Tom, emailing him links and quizzing him each night he came home as to whether or not he’d followed up on her suggestions.

“You’re going to a lot of trouble to help Tom better his situation, and because he isn’t pursuing those opportunities you’re fed up,” I said.

“Well, yes,” Susan answered. “It’s not going to be easy for me to just quit my job. I don’t make a ton of money at the school; hardly anything, really. But it still helps us pay the bills. And I don’t know how I’m going to be able to fully start my business if Tom isn’t making more money or at least getting on the boss’s radar. He just doesn’t seem to care about me.”

“That’s a bit of stretch, isn’t it? Because he hasn’t approached his boss you conclude he doesn’t care about you?”

“He knows how much I want to be back in the career that I was trained for; I think he should try harder to overcome his nervousness and approach his boss or look for a better job. He’s had the opportunity to work in his field. I’ve been telling kids to slow down for ten years — I sacrificed my career, and now I’d like to get it back. He should be able to sacrifice his comfort zone for me now, too. And unless he does, I can’t even get started. What would be the point?” 

Every session began and ended with a similar conversation, though we seemed to set a strong foundation in the time in between, using self-hypnosis, intuition, mind-mapping and other techniques to prime Susan’s brain for goal setting and achievement.

On one particular day I could see clearly that any traction Susan gained at our sessions was lost during the week as she agonized over just how Tom’s lack of ambition was handicapping hers. In reality, I could see that Susan was subconsciously using it to avoid beginning the scary work of getting her own dreams underway. So I cut to the chase and asked her outright:

“Susan, does it seem to you that Tom has to fulfill his part in your dream before you can get started?”

“Yes! The truth is, I can’t begin my dream until Tom does better,” Susan answered. “I just don’t see how I can begin until I know for certain he can cover all our bills.”

As Susan saw it, the obstacle to her success — to her starting point — was utterly outside of her control, depending entirely on someone else taking action. No wonder she was sending her husband links for new jobs, advice on how to ask for a raise, instructive steps to negotiate with authority, even articles on how to start a second career.

The problem was, her husband Tom wasn’t as motivated as Susan was to change his life. He was happy being second-fiddle at his job; it meant he could leave work at the office at the end of every day. At age 58, Tom wasn’t much interested in looking for a new job or starting an entirely new career.

I suggested to Susan that we work first on her self-esteem, as only one with Low Self-Esteem (a LoSEr) would believe that her own evolution completely relied on another person. You might consider this, too, if you find yourself paralyzed in the expression of your dream by the words, “If only s/he would…, then I could….”

I offered Susan a plan of action to take all that energy she was putting into bettering Tom’s situation, and bring it right back to her own project.

She resisted strongly at first because she “just couldn’t see how the numbers work out” if Tom didn’t start earning more. As far as she was concerned, the obstacle to her success was simply a matter of numbers in income/expense columns. Asked to imagine herself as a successful business owner, Susan replied once again that she “just couldn’t see it.” She couldn’t even picture success in her dream business, because her rational mind couldn’t arrive there logically first. As a result, she was becoming increasingly pessimistic about pursuing her dream. As long as Tom didn’t change his work habits, Susan believed her only outcome was failure.

“Helping yourself get a dream underway is something you can do regardless of whether other people comply,” I said. “Your mind is as creative and powerful as anyone’s. Let’s see if we can start to imagine success whether he changes careers or not.”

“I don’t even know how to do that! I can’t picture it!” Susan insisted.

“Think of all the energy and time you’re putting into helping Tom do better. If you put all that energy into your dream, something is actually going to happen. The conscious mind’s job is to gather evidence to support what you already believe to be important, so let’s work on bringing attention and focus to creating the belief that you have everything it takes to launch your cupcake business. You’ll be priming yourself to follow your hunches confidently, to recognize opportunities, to think more creatively about all aspects of your business, and you’ll develop new personal and business relationships more easily. The very least that will happen is that you feel better and more optimistic in general.”

“Well, I don’t know how to do that!” Susan repeated. “I just can’t picture it. Whenever I try that stuff like Law of Attraction, I just interrupt myself because I know it won’t work. We won’t be able to afford it.”

LoSErs like Susan genuinely want to change their circumstances. I had no doubt my client had the ability and desire to carry out the launch of a new business. But LoSErs have an idea deep down inside that they better have all their “i’s” dotted and their “t’s” crossed before beginning anything, and quite often that means trying to control everyone elses' “i’s” and “t’s.” A RISEr (one who has Recovered her Inherent Self-Esteem) knows that she can factor in margins of error and anticipate future obstacles and begin a project anyway. RISErs know that their dreams and goals are their own responsibility, and regardless of another’s actions, they can create success by first imagining, then taking action on their goals.

“I’ll tell you exactly how to do it,” I countered to Susan. “Whenever you feel like helping or advising Tom, take that attention back to yourself. Whenever you feel the urge to go online and look for job opportunities for him, or articles on how he could stand up to his boss, search for different links instead. Search for links on how to start a business, read blogs by other bakers, or articles by other women who have gone back to work after raising their kids. Or simply use that ten minutes to brainstorm names for your business.”

“Well, what is that going to get me? Just reading about other people isn’t going to get my business started either.”

“What it gets you is a new horizon. What it gets you is inspiration, a sense of possibility. It alters  the way you think about success as it relates to you and your idea. Your imagination becomes a little more elastic. It becomes possible to believe that you will succeed whether Tom makes more money or not. You don’t have to know exactly how your dream will be realized before it even gets off the ground.”

We discussed the Law of Attraction, or as Susan preferred to consider it, the Power of the Mind, to draw to us what we focus on. Studies have shown that what we focus on develops in our lives or perpetuates our current condition. When we continually turn our attention to an idea, a problem, or a desire, the repetition of it makes it familiar and acceptable to the subconscious mind, where it is ultimately absorbed and housed. Once that idea or desire is embedded in the subconscious mind, the conscious mind begins to gather evidence to prove to ourselves that it’s true.

However this Law, this Power of the Mind, is impersonal. It doesn’t care whether one is focusing on a problem (“I’m so fat, I can’t lose weight”) or a desire (I”m a successful baker, I can see my cupcakes featured in cooking magazines”). It will deliver what is planted there by repeated focus and attention. RISErs understand how powerful their minds are, and know that their minds work exactly the way everyone else’s does. They often read biographies of successful people or read inspiring success stories and picture themselves achieving, too. LoSErs, perhaps because it’s hard to believe that good things can come their way, have a hard time picturing success without knowing clearly how that success will show up.

“These are the physical laws of an impersonal Universe. The Law of Attraction doesn’t care about you. The Universe is a medium, like soil — no matter what you plant there, that’s what you’re going to get.”

Susan still couldn’t see herself launching and running her business successfully. She continued to state, “Unless Tom makes more money, I just can’t see it. Before I start I need to know it’s going to work.” LoSErs frequently forego opportunities because they can’t see from their own perspective the linear process from start to finish. Because they can’t see it, they can’t guarantee it, and for a LoSEr, taking a bet that isn’t a sure bet is not a risk worth taking. Unfortunately, many LoSErs have had their daydreams ridiculed out of them as children. They’ve been criticized for daydreaming, especially if it came at the expense of academic success. Few LoSErs have been praised for dreaming of a better experience, often told to buckle down and do the real work the world requires. In addition, LoSErs usually rely on a linear process as the safest way from one point to another. If a LoSEr can show all the steps he’s going to take from start to finish, should anything go wrong he can show himself (that old voice in his head) and others (real or imagined critical authority figures) that something external happened to the plan and the plan is faulty, not himself.

RISErs have the innate confidence to trust that a plan may unfold differently than originally conceived, even if they do have all the steps of a linear process in place. While they do their best to anticipate stumbling blocks, they have faith that they can handle unforeseen challenges as they arise. They believe in themselves, not just in the plan.

When I suggested trust in the Laws of the Universe as a starting point, Susan understood but couldn’t fully associate and accept the idea into her mindset.

“If you planted a sunflower seed, you’d have the implicit trust that a sunflower and not poison ivy would come up, right?” I asked her.

When she concurred, I continued, “The soil doesn’t care whether you plant sunflowers or poison ivy, because it’s just the medium for that seed to sprout and grow. The Universe doesn’t care whether you focus on all that could go wrong in life or on increasing blessings and prosperity, because it is just the medium for those thoughts to sprout and grow. This is the ‘self-fulfilling prophecy.’ I don’t mean to sound harsh, but the Universe does not care about you. It operates the same way, every time, regardless of what you ‘really mean.’ Plant sunflower seeds, get sunflowers. Plant the dream, get the dream. Trust that the seeds you’re planting will bear the fruit that belongs to that species. Your regular thoughts will bear fruit that naturally belongs to that species of your attention.”

Susan seemed even more depressed at the thought that Universe didn’t care about her, which is another device common to those who suffer from LoSE: literal fixation on one phrase. This is no surprise; remember that the conscious mind gathers evidence to support whatever beliefs reside in the subconscious mind. If inside Susan feels unworthy, hearing her coach say “The Universe doesn’t care about you” rings loudly as a literal truth, further evidence that she is correct to expect failure. We see this commonly in people who deflect praise but chew over perceived criticism ad nauseum.

“Susan, whom do you trust?” I asked.

“I trust my dog,” she replied.

“Use the dog’s love, then. When you’re down, when you’re pissed at your husband for not fulfilling your dreams, get into the state of mind associated with your dog and how he makes you feel. When you feel it, at that moment say aloud your dream for yourself: ‘I’m running my own successful cupcake business.”

“But how will that happen? That would mean Tom has to have a better job!” Susan wailed.

“No, it doesn’t. You don’t have to know what has to happen. Don’t get bogged down there. Let’s skip thinking about your goal for the time being. Let’s focus on the feeling of it.”

At this time I showed Susan a strategy in goal-setting that begins with determining the maturity of the goal. Imagine points on a continuum from Dream to Goal, called Ready, Steady, and Go:

In the beginning, we’re Ready for change. We begin to dream about something better or different. In Susan’s case, she got tired of telling kids to slow down and began to dream again of doing something she enjoyed and excelled at. At this point, her cupcake business is a dream.

For many LoSErs, lack of self-esteem and self-confidence kills dreams right in the cradle. Susan was quietly snuffing out her dream by making it’s existence conditional on something she couldn’t control: her husband’s ambition. A RISEr allows herself to continue to daydream, without rushing, panicking, or minimizing. The dream balloons and grows, it might change shape, it might begin as a small business idea, grow in fantasy to a global reach, and then recede back to neighborhood size. A RISEr puts no limits on the dream at this stage, allowing it to find it’s natural, most comfortable expression in the imagination. RISErs don’t start examining all the obstacles at this stage and will usually only share a dream with someone who is sure to support them. A LoSEr might share these ideas with someone (often with one of the most critical people in her community or family) and tends to be easily discouraged when the dream is questioned.

When the dream is allowed to take many “practice” forms in the imagination, we begin to return again and again to the right fit for its manifestation. At this time we become aware of genuine potential obstacles. LoSErs often imagine obstacles at this point (or even before), and shut down further development. A RISEr will continue to feel inspired by the dream and create a plan to obviate those challenges or take action to meet them. At this time, the dream begins to gel into a solid possibility, thereby self-defining steps to its own achievement. It’s a critical time for both the RISEr and LoSER, as the quiet voice of inspiration shapes some of those steps. It’s important to remain open to the still-evolving shape of the dream into a goal. If we’re Steady here, staying nimble and open to fine adjustments (and not ready to throw the baby out with the bath in case one thing goes wrong), the path to the Plan is clear.

(This is the point where Susan was stuck, the point where one has to have faith and trust in oneself, if not the Universe. One has to believe “I’m planting sunflower seeds because I want a sunflower in April.” Susan was worried about how the seed would germinate and start reaching for the surface of the soil, towards the sun. She needed instead to keep anticipating the sunflower with faith.)

Finally, we’re ready to Go. We can see what we need to do to make the goal a reality. The Plan has a shape. In a business idea, this might be the mission statement. In saving for a downpayment, it might be a budget. Goals at the Go stage are self-evident and the steps quite clear: you need to save a certain amount of money by a certain date, for example. It’s fairly obvious what you need to do to break that goal down into specific action steps: not buying lunch for two weeks, taking the money you spent on happy hour cocktails and putting it aside, etc.

For Susan to get her business idea off the ground, she had to spend a bit more time at the Steady stage. To shape a dream into a goal she had to take this mid-range step, which is poised between hope and certainty; between fantasy and logic. It’s critical that her attention stay here for as long as necessary, and not hang on the fine thread of her husband’s behavior. If a dream is going to leave the Steady stage and enter the Go zone, it can’t be hung up on something as whimsical and uncontrollable as another person’s ambition. I counseled Susan to keep bringing her focus back to her dream, because only then would the inspired action steps be revealed to her.

With a bit more coaching Susan was able to turn her resources to propelling her own dream forward, and stop the useless effort of trying to propel her husband forward. Before long, she’d gotten into the habit of giving the idea of her cupcake business free rein in her imagination. She found the confidence to speak about her idea, join networking groups, and even begin playing with names and designing logos. Last I heard she’d signed a contract to deliver her cupcakes to corporate events and was making quite a name for herself.

How about you? Are you stuck somewhere on the dream-to-goal continuum because of LoSE? Is it hard for you to imagine living your goal, or are you holding up the start-date of your dream until someone else gets something done?

If so, try this:

If you can’t change your thoughts (the LoSEr voice that insists you can’t begin planning until you are guaranteed success), change your feelings. If you can’t envision success because it feels too remote or you’re too used to dismantling dreams before they get a toehold, begin by changing your feeling from the discouraged state to a trusted pleasant feeling. The next time you begin discouraging yourself in response to your dream, begin at once to think about someone or something you love and trust. Stay with that recollection until you begin to feel you’re experiencing it in real time. When you sense that love and trust in your heart, say to yourself: “I am inspired to continuing dreaming, to accepting all the optimistic possibilities, confident that I can shape this dream into reality!” You may need to do this several times; keep at it. Repeated make-believe makes beliefs, and once belief in your dream is firmly established in your inner mind, the road to making it reality becomes crystal clear.

If you are spending a lot of time and energy getting someone else’s life in order, consider using that energy in the most productive way that you can — on yourself! If you’re sending job ideas, links to helpful articles, or are initiating repeated discussions to get someone else moving, think of how all that effort would move you forward. This too takes practice, especially if we’re living with that other person or feel they’re not doing their best. Even if that’s true, all motivation begins within, and all of your cheerleading won’t make a change in someone else’s life unless he is ready to change all on his own. Be your own biggest cheerleader. Imagine that it’s you who succeeds! Wake up with these thoughts, fall asleep to them, and remind yourself throughout the day that you're Ready, Steady, and set to Go!

Why Should I?

Who was it who said, “Life should always be completely comfortable and feel totally safe”?

Oh, that’s right: No one.

Unfortunately we get this message from New Age gurus who advise us to go within (or Higher Up) to bypass the pain; from well-meaning friends who advise us to just think positive thoughts instead; and from popular culture which resolves discomfort in the length of a song or a TV sitcom. Sometimes we joke about millennials getting trophies just for showing up, because “Everyone’s a winner on our team!” As though losing or experiencing unpleasant feelings is to be avoided at all cost, or, if unavoidable, immediately corrected.

Many with Low Self-Esteem (LoSE) are unfamiliar with degrees of emotional discomfort, are hypersensitive to it, or dissociate from it entirely. They are sensitive to criticism, quick to anger, even eager to point out fault in someone else, and blame others for making them feel bad or guilty. They recognize a “bad” feeling when it comes and quickly work to extinguish it by denying, avoiding, or minimizing it. LoSErs often felt a lot of pain as youngsters and so have become particularly adept at spotting it a mile away and artfully deflecting it before it has a chance to stir up any further trouble. Like a former LoSEr sweetheart of mine who, getting a credit card bill in the mail which he knew he couldn’t pay, would just toss it away unopened.

But there are nuances in discomfort that help us live with authentic self-acceptance if we will only admit them to our inner audience. And nothing helps us Recover Inherent Self-Esteem (RISE) faster than embracing that authentic self — the good, the bad, and the ugly. Solid self-appreciation is only possible when we unabashedly examine (and find acceptable) all the parts of our selves.

A client I’ve been working with irregularly for almost a year suffers from LoSE. It’s been an interesting journey with Sharon, who admits low self-esteem is “one of” her problems but is reluctant to address it directly. Why? Because it’s uncomfortable. As a result, I see Sharon for a few weeks, we begin to make some progress, she edges closer to the uncomfortable truth of her self-perception, and cancels all further appointments. (Sharon is not clinically depressed). Fast forward a few months, to when she’s cobbled together a bit of self-confidence, and she returns for more sessions.

Sharon’s battle cry is, “Why should I?” which she applies to any challenge that threatens to rock her fragile homeostasis. “Why should I work through this resentment? My husband is the one who cheated, not me! It’s hard enough to be facing life as a single mother, and if I dwell on all these negative feelings I’ll never be able to move forward.” Sharon had recently called for hypnosis to help her lose the twenty pounds she’d gained in the previous five months, almost one year after discovering her husband’s infidelity.

When I suggested we address self-esteem as part of her hypnosis, Sharon reluctantly agreed to try again. One of the problems I’ve seen with LoSErs like Sharon is that they believe they shouldn’t feel discomfort; that it’s a sign of imbalance that should be eradicated immediately. And who can blame them? LoSErs are already battling the emotional discomfort of low self-esteem, so heaping additional irritation on can threaten an already vulnerable state of mind. As a result, they can’t sit still with the emotional feelings of anger, loneliness, grief, or resentment. Instead they distract, dissociate, self-medicate, or sooth their pain with other ultimately destructive techniques. Sometimes, hanging on to a negative feeling is the only evidence a LoSEr has of an old injustice, and letting it go would mean it never happened (this is especially apparent after so-called “gas-lighting”). In Sharon’s case, she avoided her feelings of resentment by eating. “Why shouldn’t I eat what I want? I have to share custody with my ex and his [expletive].”

Indeed: why should we feel uncomfortable?

Why not reward kids with a trophy for showing up? After all, watching friends get rewarded while you don’t can’t be good for self-esteem, right?

Why not have a drink (or several) after a long, unfulfilling week at work. If there’s no reward in the paycheck or hierarchy, being stuck in a dead-end job can’t be good for self-esteem either, right?

Why not have a smoke, a second helping of cake, another hour in front of the TV; why not go shopping or take one of your spouse’s pharmaceuticals? In these thankless times, we have to take care of ourselves, right?

Right, and wrong, too. Because rewarding oneself, isn’t always necessarily the same as taking care of oneself. Avoiding (or medicating) emotional discomfort is for LoSErs; the real reward comes in understanding what discomfort has to offer.*

Consider the interpersonal relationship. Many LoSErs weren’t given permission to be angry as children so they minimize their own feelings of anger and try to manage another person’s upset feelings, too. Women in particular are encouraged to avoid calling attention to their own discomfort and are strongly discouraged from causing another person unease. A few weeks ago I had to attend a business event where I came face to face with a man who, for reasons I’ll never understand, decided to make our local Library a target for his own political agenda. He didn’t stop at smearing the Library’s good name; he made it a point to accuse me personally of shady business dealings, as I’m currently president of the all-volunteer Library Board of Trustees. He used social media and letters to local papers to suggest that I was pocketing donations, hiding vast sums of money from the public, and lying to the taxpayers. All totally fabricated to cast himself in the role of local hero, the next great candidate for the Town Board.

At this particular event, local politicians and business leaders were giving interviews to the press, and the man in question came up to me through the crowd with his arms open and a big grin on his face. As he leaned in to give me a peck on the cheek, I put my hand on his shoulder to stop him and firmly pushed him back. I looked him in the eye and said, “No.” I didn’t make a scene and only a handful of professionals around us noticed. But as a person with a very healthy self-esteem now (and a well-known business owner and former elected official myself), I’ll be damned if I’m going to “make nice” with someone who had gone out of his way to create hardship.

There were other people there who were similarly bullied by this jerk as he tries to make a name for himself. I saw one poor woman who he’d also previously targeted grimacing as he pulled her close so he could pose for a picture. Like many women, I’m sure she put up with rude behavior so as not to make someone else uncomfortable. LoSErs would rather suffer discomfort themselves in order not to inflict it on others. If I’d encountered this man ten years ago and he made a show of our friendship for the cameras, I too would likely have gone along.

Nowadays I believe emotional discomfort is an extremely efficient teacher, helping the LoSEr to RISE, paradoxical as that may appear. If we can do the hard thing, the thing most uncomfortable for LoSErs, we can skip ahead on the otherwise long, bumpy road to recovery. If we can learn to sit patiently with discomfort without seeking to erase it ASAP, we’ll find the actual shortcut to feeling better, rather than the false, manufactured one we attempt with avoidance.

Consider grief. Buried, it can lead to resentment and even physical illness if suppressed long enough. Yet the prospect of diving into it is so exquisitely painful, it seems almost better to put it off. In grief I’ve found a personal example of the powerful magic of denial: four months ago my 36-year-old cousin died from ovarian cancer. While my own shock and sadness was debilitating, seeing my beloved aunt and uncle grieving was even worse. We’d all been celebrating at her wedding less than nine months ago. Even as a RISEr myself, Kassia’s funeral was extremely difficult. The sadness was palpable, unavoidable. Instead of resisting (and believe me when I tell you my former LoSEr inclinations were calling like a siren song), I joined the mourners and allowed myself to forget everything but the shared pain we were feeling. And it hurt like hell.

There’s no heroism or security in the avoidance of emotional pain. Sitting with grief or other bad feelings is lonely work. We know that even Jesus suffered grief and doubt. When he learns his dear friend Lazarus has died:

Now when Mary came to where Jesus was and saw him, she fell at his feet, saying to him, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.” When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who had come with her also weeping, he was deeply moved in his spirit and greatly troubled. And he said, “Where have you laid him?” They said to him, “Lord, come and see.” Jesus wept. So the Jews said, “See how he loved him!”

John 11:32-37

And as he prays in the Garden of Gesthemene before Judas hands him over to the Roman soldiers:

“He prayed more fervently, and he was in such agony of spirit that his sweat fell to the ground like great drops of blood.”

Luke 22:44

Psychiatrist and rabbi Dr. Abraham Twerski offers a commentary on emotional distress using lobsters as a perfect metaphor. As the soft body of the lobster grows, the shell around it becomes increasingly confining and the lobster feels uncomfortable. So it hides from predators, casts off its old shell and grows a new one. When THAT shell gets too small the lobster repeats the process. Dr. Twerski says, “The stimulus for the lobster to be able to grow is that it feels uncomfortable. If lobsters had doctors, they would never grow because as soon as a lobster felt uncomfortable it would go to the doctor, get a valium or a Percoset and feel fine! It would never cast off its shell. We have to realize that times of stress are signals for growth. If we use adversity properly, we can grow through adversity.” I love this illustration because it perfectly captures how discomfort disguises growth. In addressing or admitting our discomfort, we actually move more quickly through it than by dulling it with other self-soothing avoidance techniques.

Back to Sharon. When she came to me most recently for hypnosis for weight loss, I was able to convince her to give her self-esteem recovery another try. If she were to avoid addressing her emotional pain and deal only with her weight gain, she might be successful in achieving her goals in the short term. But the pain of her marriage ending would still be within, and eventually another self-destructive behavior would take the place of over-eating.

Because she was consciously so resistant to getting inside her anger and resentment, I began by asking Sharon to imagine (in hypnosis) those negative feelings as an object or shape outside of her mind; one that she could observe from a comfortable distance. She gave it a shape (a knot of tangled, stiff, twisted wire) and a name (“Too Big”).

Over the course of three sessions, Sharon was able to bring “Too Big” into her own mind and start the process, by intention first, of untangling the ugly ball of her anger. As she owned the unpleasant feelings, she gave herself permission to have anger and still find herself acceptable. To have the feelings of (as she described it) humiliation, social embarrassment, and being scorned, and embrace the anger she’d always been taught to downplay. Despite her fears that owning her terrible feelings would cause her to erupt in fury “like a psychotic harpy,” Sharon found that accepting her anger and betrayal as absolutely valid and worthy of acknowledgement, she felt emotionally healthier and better equipped to move forward. She wasn’t an angry woman; she was a woman who had anger. Once a person acknowledges that she has feelings but isn’t defined by them, she begins to identify the power inherent in being, rather than having or doing.

That’s a big difference, and a fundamental one between the LoSEr and the RISEr.

Maybe you, too, have been skirting around an elephant in the room. Maybe you have a giant, thus-far-ignored issue that might feel threatening to address head-on. Have courage! Simply looking at that issue squarely has the immediate effect of diminishing it. Remember my former sweetheart who wouldn’t open the credit card bill he couldn’t pay? By not addressing what he was so anxious about, he carried around the weight of not-knowing. Once he sat down, took a deep breath, and started opening those bills he felt immediately empowered. Sure, it was still a huge debt, but by courageously addressing the previously-denied fear, he was able to make a plan to correct his situation. He learned he wasn’t a LoSEr who would always be in debt, but a RISEr who had debt and, if he could handle this, he could handle anything that came his way.

You may not be surprised to learn that Sharon’s weight came off effortlessly once she allowed herself to cry, to feel betrayed, and to share with her close friends how humiliated she felt. Had Sharon not taken these brave steps, I can almost guarantee she’d keep losing and gaining back that extra weight for a long, long time. After all, it’s so much easier to deal with the problem of that last 20 lbs. Being on a diet is an acceptable and emotionally safe topic in which to express frustration and to get sympathy. Once the weight comes off, the mind can tackle the real issues, but if the mind is unprepared or unwilling to tackle them… well, here comes that extra weight again.

You might consider low self-esteem at work if you, too, are repeatedly trying to lose that last 20 lbs, or if you’re repeatedly dating the same unavailable type, or repeatedly drinking, smoking, or shopping too much, even after you promise yourself you’re going to stop. If the thought of keeping off that weight or finding lasting love or being alcohol-, nicotine-, or debt-free causes you any small spark of anxiety, you may have found the clue to LoSE.

Try this:

First, allow yourself to consider that there is a deeper emotional pain within. Perhaps one you’ve been compensating for for uite a while.

Next, determine to face it. Just that. Say to yourself (in the mirror or out loud), “I’m going to look at what feels so bad within me.” This can be a scary, destabilizing thing to admit. It might take more than one admission. Part of your mind may start contributing derisive comments about self-reflection. Many LoSErs learned to ridicule bad feelings by being scorned for having them as children; an authority figure’s voice becomes internalized as our own. Try to talk right over  those old voices, and insist, “I’m going to look right at you.”

Then, find a quiet place and time. Do as Sharon did, and give the bad feeling a shape and/or a name. Have it floating outside of yourself at the beginning. Don’t worry too much if you can’t identify labels for what makes up that bad feeling, such as loneliness or unfairness. Simply observe it as something separate from you. Look at it from all sides. Take your time with this exercise; you may even want to do this several times before moving on to the next step.

Now, when you feel like you can have an audience with “bad” feeling without denial or evasiveness, envision it moving gently back in to your body or mind. Sit very quietly and notice what that newly-reassociated feeling is telling you. Is it loneliness? Say so, aloud, in terms of having, not being. “I have a great sea of loneliness inside me,” for example; or, “I have a terrible sensation of not having received my fair share of good fortune.”

Finally, find a place to express the bad feeling you have. To a sympathetic friend, to a late-night call-in show, even to a journal. Be sure not to memorialize it overmuch. Be sure not to accept the kind of minimizing or dismissing well-meaning friends naturally might rush to offer. Remember, discomfort makes other people uncomfortable, too, and those who care for you may immediately try to fix it. Sharon created a book of “confessions” as a safe place to express the nuances of her discomfort.

That’s it! Get into the practice of knowing the unpleasant feelings you have, and you will know yourself and your motivations better. You’ll feel more empowered to change those feelings that cause you pain, rather than burying them. Should something happen to cause you distress in the future, you’ll know yourself well enough to understand your negative feelings and grow through the experience. And you’ll do it all while trusting your deepest self to keep you safe.

You’ll see surprising results in other areas of your life too, including physical health, communication, relationships, and goal-setting, to name a few. You’ll actively and progressively RISE!
___________________

*I’m in no way suggesting those on taking prescription medication for emotional or mental health reasons should stop. In these stories I’m referring to the garden-variety emotional discomfort that has no clinical diagnosis.

Trust & Emotional Honesty

Like many LoSErs, I learned how to lie early in life. There are many reasons why honesty is so challenging for those who suffer from Low Self-Esteem (LoSE), but I believe the most prominent stems from a total lack of self-trust.

From the time that I was old enough to be self-aware until I began to Recover my Inherent Self-Esteem (RISE) about twenty years ago, I was woefully dishonest. I felt that I had to be for my own emotional safety. As a kid, I was required to explain the reason behind every unhappy mood and my explanations were often challenged, mocked, and dismantled. Sometimes they were compared unfavorably to people with “real problems.” I learned very early on that I’d better hide my sadness, anger, loneliness, and fear, lest it be dissected at the dinner table. If I was angry, that anger was corrected for me with comments like:

“You shouldn’t feel that way.”
“What did you do to cause it?”
“You have no right to be mad about that.”
“That’s what happens. Get over it.”
and, the most confusing of all,
“You don’t really feel that way.”

Navigating my own emotions was hard enough. Like all youngsters, there were times when I experienced an emotion for the first time, ever: the self-consciousness that comes from being left out of a group, the shame of being passed over by a boy I liked for someone prettier, the notion that something was wrong with me because my breasts weren’t developing as fast as my best friend’s, the weird feeling I got from the dad whose kids I babysat for, and other, complex self-assessments. Having to break these down in a rational way for a parent who didn’t understand age-appropriate boundaries was deeply embarrassing. Especially when it happened in front of my brother and sisters.

In addition to the challenge of putting emotions into rational explanation, I was often told that I shouldn’t be feeling such things; that I wasn’t feeling the way that I was; or that the cause for such a feeling didn’t exist at all. This feedback, also known as “gas-lighting,” is simply crazy-making. I lived in a state of utter emotional bewilderment. As a result, I can’t pinpoint a key moment in my LoSEr childhood when I decided to stop telling the truth; I only learned that I had disconnected from my own emotional authenticity in hindsight, decades later.

Like most LoSErs, I began to lie to myself, first, by not trusting my own assessment of self or others. I couldn’t read interactions (or internal reflection) accurately because I was clueless about the appropriate ways to express emotions. When I felt a negative emotion in my childhood it was dismantled in front of others as invalid, and like all children I internalized the voice of my parents. Their critical assessment of my moods naturally became my own critical assessment. As a teenager I began to say to myself:

“I shouldn’t feel this way.”
“Well, what did I do wrong to cause this feeling?”
“I shouldn’t be mad about this.”
“Shit happens, get over it.”
and, the most confusing of all,
“I’m not mad. Really, I’m fine.”

“I’m fine.” How many times has a LoSEr said this when it was 180° from the truth? Tell this lie long enough and dismissing our “not-fine” feelings becomes second nature. When LoSErs struggle to be emotionally honest as adults, it’s often because they’re completely unaware of how to deal with pain or anger in healthy, productive ways. We don’t lie because we’re being deceptive, we lie because that’s the only way we know.

Another piece of the LoSEr puzzle is trust. When trusting others with emotional uncertainty leads to disappointment or even shame, emotional self-deception lasts well into adulthood. I know now that my Parent was a LoSEr, too, but when that parent also distrusted me, and let me know this by questioning my every emotional expression, I learned to distrust myself. My parent also assumed I was always lying even when I wasn’t, and this scrutiny (“I know what you did!”) had me automatically assuming I was in trouble. I had a hair-trigger reaction that evoked self-scrutiny on a micro level of what I’d done “wrong,” and even when I couldn’t discover anything, I believed I was just too stupid to figure out how I’d been wrong. I failed to trust myself, I learned to lie about my feelings, and so it was only a matter of time before I became untrustworthy and dishonest.

If you’ve never been a LoSEr, the development I’m describing might seem downright abusive. But it’s not uncommon for parents with low self-esteem to raise kids with low self-esteem. No surprises there. If you’re not equipped to trust yourself and the beautiful emotional gauging system you inherited simply by being alive, how in the world can you teach it to someone else? The childhood I described was in many ways idyllic; I had much more than many kids in my generation. Beyond the basics of having both parents in my home as I grew up, I also had the privilege of no family members with addictions, all the food, shelter and clothing I needed, and the benefit of regular health care, all of which put me far ahead of many of my peers. Yet because I had such rock-bottom self-esteem, I also had the nagging sense that I didn’t deserve any of it. And as far as love and attention went, well, I’d better earn that by being a good girl, getting good grades, appreciating all I had, and never, ever complaining.

Emotional honesty is hard. So if you’re struggling with this now, let me say that I recognize your struggle and the courage it takes to persevere. If you’ve had years of recrimination for telling the truth about how you feel, I know that you are profoundly gun shy about starting now.

I have a client who has been living with deep resentment towards both her job and her sweetheart. Alison had never considered that she was a LoSEr until she came to me for a psychic reading, wanting to know about the future of her relationship and if her boss was eventually going to quit. After talking for a few minutes it was clear that Alison was profoundly uncomfortable around people she considered “authority figures,” and our session took a turn instead towards coaching. Alison expanded with details:

She felt her boss took advantage of her at work. He was always asking her to pick up the slack for others, and she found it impossible to say no. (Many LoSErs shy away from confrontation and end up feeling resentful because they don’t know how to gracefully turn down extra responsibility). On top of that, she’d had a lukewarm annual review, which embarrassed her to no end. Now her prayer was that her boss would quit so that she could feel good about going in to work every day. (LoSErs often feel disempowered to change uncomfortable situations and wait passively for life to change for them).

The man Alison lived with had a big personality and his moods frequently set the tone for their time together. A very high-energy, active person, over the years he’d signed them up for all sorts of classes, social events, and holidays that Alison wasn’t all that interested in. Alison told me she was hoping he’d slow down so they could do some of the things she’d like to do, or simply stay home for the occasional weekend. She’d never replied to him with anything more than feebly mumbled disagreement, and instead had been simmering with resentment for years.

When I asked Alison to describe how she felt about her job and her boyfriend, I could practically see her dissociate right in front of me. Here’s how our early conversations played out:

“Tell me what sort of atmosphere comprises your workplace. Is it very clique-y? Open and friendly?”

“I don’t know, it’s okay.”

“How do you generally feel throughout the day when you’re there.”

“Fine.”

“What’s the dominant emotion you feel when you’re at work?”

“I don’t know. I just sort of tune out.”

It took several long minutes and asking the question a dozen different ways to get Alison to find just the right adjectives to describe how she felt. My biggest clue was her admission of “tuning out.” If you feel numb, tuned out, or headache-y when a negative emotion starts to surface, you’re probably dissociating, too — a common default for the LoSEr. Remember, for the LoSEr it’s safer not to feel uncomfortable feelings, so going numb around them is a common coping tool.

Alison and I met for several sessions, our goal being to locate that authentic emotional self deep inside, and to practice giving that self a confident voice. Alison had to learn to trust that her discomfort was valid, and to say both to her boss and her boyfriend, “I’m not comfortable with that.”

I didn’t ask her to, but Alison surreptitiously recorded a conversation with her boyfriend that she played for me at one of our sessions. It went something like this:

Scott: “I told Pat and Ellen we’d meet them for dinner tonight, is that okay with you?”
Alison (hesitating): “Sure.”
Scott: “They said we could pick the place. Where do you feel like going? We haven’t been to that Thai place in a while and I know you like that. Want to go there?”
Alison (still hesitating): “Yeah, okay.”
…silence for about thirty seconds…
Alison: “Hey, Scott?”
Scott: “Yeah?”
Alison: “What would you say if I didn’t want to really go out tonight? I mean, we could if you really want to, but I’m-kind-of-tired-and-I-had-a-long-week-and-I-want-to-go-to-yoga-in-the- morning-and-maybe-there’s-a-movie-on-we-could-watch-instead-or-even-if-we-just-go-out-for- drinks-and-then-come-back-home-and-watch -TV-because-I’m-really-tired-and…”

…and on and on with her rapid-fire justifications in one long, run-on sentence. She spoke so quickly she didn't take a breath until she’d repeated herself a couple of times.

Alison was quite proud of herself for expressing a view contrary to her boyfriend’s, and it’s normal for someone just reconnecting with emotional honesty to feel the need to rationalize. Remember my tale, above? It’s not uncommon for youngsters just starting to LoSE to learn that they better have darn good reasons for feeling uncomfortable and be able to justify every last one of them; so of course as adults they naturally do the same thing.

Alison was right, this was a moment to be proud of. The end result of her conversation was a bit of shock from her boyfriend, (“Oh, I didn’t know you felt that way. Sure, we can stay in tonight.”) and a liberating sensation that anticipating her communication had been much worse than actually communicating. That week I asked Alison to continue that terrific practice wherever she felt comfortable, but this time doing her best to stop the stream of justification that followed. I asked her to say how she was feeling, and then… wait.

Now of course in any important relationship one might be asked for an explanation. For example, one could never be expected to say to one’s boss, simply, “I don’t feel like it.” The importance of this exercise was mainly to recognize how the LoSEr self habitually minimizes its needs. Self-awareness is the beginning of any recovery.

Here’s the course of self-study Alison undertook with great success. If you find yourself dissociating around negative emotions or feel you don’t have the confidence to articulate those negative emotions, try the steps below. Go easy on yourself; building trust takes time. You may have to unlearn years of punishment for self-expression, and that can only come with repeatedly and regularly having the opposite experience.

1. Carry a notepad or keep one handy. When you feel a negative emotion of any sort at all, just name it. Write it down. If possible, say it out loud: “I feel resentful.” Though it sounds contradictory, have a little fun with your vocabulary. Our language is rich with words that can describe the nuances of any mood. Look at some of the descriptors below and say a few out loud. Try to find the one perfect word to define your emotion (go to an online thesaurus, even!), then own it:


   
   annoyed, enraged, indignant, affronted, piqued, riled, bitter, melancholy, pessimistic, wistful, cheerless, disconsolate, doleful, heavy-hearted, lonesome, desolate

2. Notice if you feel that emotion seated somewhere in your body. You might feel your stomach dropping, a throbbing in your head, or notice that your shoulders are up around your ears. Now just admit to yourself that you feel it there. If you don’t have a physical sensation with this feeling, just move to the next step.

   
3. Say aloud to yourself, “It’s okay to feel ________ (emotion) and to feel it _______ (in my body). This emotion and this feeling tell me that I’m alive, right now.”

   
4. Don’t try to dismiss it, just be aware of it. Self-awareness of negative emotions is the first step in building trust.

   
5. After acknowledging your emotion, turn your attention to something else. Dwelling overmuch on that negative feeling can deepen it’s impact and cause you to spiral in to anxious feelings about it. You’ll find over time that once that emotional inner self trusts in its expression, you won’t feel the need to turn your attention away; it will naturally move on, satisfied that it has been expressed.

   
6. After doing this with yourself a few times, try it either with people you trust or with someone you don’t know well. When I was learning to do this myself, I did not practice on the parent that didn’t handle my emotions well! 

   
7. You’ll probably find yourself justifying your statements. That’s perfectly normal. As you begin to get comfortable with the awareness and expression of a not-fine feeling, practice pausing before justifying. For example, if you were feeling bowled over in an argument with your sweetheart, you might try something like this: “I’m feeling a little intimidated by these raised voices and I find myself shrinking away inside.” Then just wait in silence for a moment. You’ll feel a surge of strength and clarity, which will allow you to articulate even more succinctly and, ultimately, arrive at a resolution where your needs are at the very least heard, if not met. 

   
8. Please be compassionate with yourself in this! It can be exceedingly frightening to say how you feel if you were regularly shamed for it as a kid. Take as much time as you need. Remember that most people, as Alison found out, feel great anxiety in the build-up or anticipation of stating a negative emotion. They almost always find afterwards that it was no big deal.

At Some Point You Have To Choose

A sense of powerlessness, inability to see a brighter future, and feeling stuck in a rut are part of the package of low self-esteem (LoSE). Pessimism and hopelessness -- when not a part of diagnosed clinical depression -- are a daily perception for the LoSEr. He or she feels genuinely incapable of making change, or believes that attempts to change will be ineffectual. The state of perceived powerlessness engenders similar feelings, which compound the original feelings, and around and around it goes. Deeper and deeper into what is actually a kind of self-hypnosis where all the suggestions are negative.

Many years ago I was working with a client whom I wanted so badly to help. She struggled mightily with an eating disorder, and having coped with one of those myself, I felt her pain as if it were my own. Margie was a lovely person and I saw her at a greatly reduced rate for half a year. Each week she’d come in and report how low she was feeling, how sad, how hopeless. My heart broke for her so I worked towards her recovery as if my life depended on it, too. I reached out to colleagues, researched hypnosis and NLP techniques; we tried tapping, dowsing, past life regression... everything and anything to help Margie get a handle on her life.

When I circled back to one of the first colleagues I’d reached out to, he said, “Wow, you’re working very hard on her life.” In the moment of stunned silence that followed I realized, yes, I was working very hard to help Margie; much harder the Margie was working herself. It became clear that she was content to come into my office to dwell on her troubles and not necessarily to eliminate them, so in subsequent appointments I began to hold her more accountable. I turned the topic away from what was still wrong in order to discuss what was working for her. After a session or two Margie concluded that she wasn’t getting the help she needed from me and stopped calling for appointments.

More recently I began working with a young woman I’ll call Pam. Stuck in a dead-end job, falling behind on bills, and unable to find a fulfilling romantic relationship, Pam came to me for  a series of Life-In-Perspective sessions. In these appointments we include intuitive as well as mental techniques to identify obstacles and create a workaround, empowering the client to set goals and work confidently towards them. Recovering Inherent Self-Esteem (RISE-ing) is the goal of these sessions: when we can truly assess our lives outside of old emotions, memories, and mental habits, we can see that obstacles maybe aren’t so immovable, goals maybe not so unattainable.

At our very first session I let Pam complain for about ten minutes about how stuck and bored she was. She said, “If it weren’t for bad luck I’d have no luck at all.” Our first step in these sessions is to get the client out of that mind space, which doesn’t happen by simply pointing out all the good things she has going for her. It’s offensive to hear, “Count your blessings, things could be so much worse. Is it really that bad?” in such a mindset, because yes, the client is (perceives herself to be) that badly off. Pam had to come to new, more optimistic conclusions herself.

Nobody RISEs to the top in one giant leap. Recovering inherent self-esteem has to start with looking clearly at where you are and taking the first step up. Pam didn’t believe she had low self-esteem at the core of her pessimism; she sincerely thought she was the victim of bad luck. She’d conceded long ago that maybe the world didn’t promise joy and fulfillment for everyone.

Part of the insidious nature of low self-esteem is that it perpetuates itself. Low thoughts attract low experiences; low energy is rewarded with more of the same. To the LoSEr, it can seem that the poor circumstances began first, out of which rose an obvious pessimism. While that may be true, the perpetuation of poor circumstances are the byproducts of low self-esteem: feeling out of control over ones life, waiting for the other shoe to drop, procrastinating on change because the outlook seems hopeless anyway, so why bother?

During that first session I began to guide Pam gently away from the inner LoSEr. With a bit of distance and perspective, she could begin to see that her present circumstances were separate from who she is. They are an effect, and her mind the cause. As I expected, Pam resisted. I thought, but didn’t say, a familiar aphorism in the New Age phrasebook: Argue for your limitations and you get to keep them.
We began with hypnosis. Depression (not of a clinical nature) and pessimism, just like anxiety or panic attacks, are hypnotic states of mind in which the person suffering is highly suggestible. Hypnosis is a state of focused concentration on a single idea, so when Pam gives her whole mindset over to contemplating how blue she feels, she’s unwittingly entering an altered state. When she then continues to focus on this feeling or talk about how cursed she is, those suggestions are having a greater impact on her psyche... and perpetuating the blues.

At each of the next few appointments I sent Pam home with a few techniques to begin recovering her inherent self-esteem. Yet each week she returned professing no improvement in her mindset or her life.

“Do you think I’m capable of offering you help?” I finally asked Pam at the beginning of our fifth session. “Because if you don’t think I’m helping you make progress, I’m not comfortable continuing our sessions and charging you a fee.”

“Are you abandoning me? You know I have abandonment and rejection issues!” Pam cried.

“Certainly not. But I’m doing a lot of work here to help you around these perceived limitations, and I have the sense that you’re not helping yourself quite as much. Which is fine; but if all you want is someone to lend an ear or commiserate with you, I won’t continue to take payment for services.”

Pam looked a little shocked, which was my intention. Life-In-Perspective sessions are not for the client who needs to be handled with kid gloves. Tough love (of a mild sort) helps one shake off the old ideals and interrupt the mental pattern of pessimism.

“You have to make a decision, Pam. At some point in our sessions, or in your life, you have to choose to change your thoughts. You are the only one who can. No one else can do it for you.”

“Yes, but…”

“Try, ‘Yes, and…” I interrupted.

Pam was so deep in her LoSEr mindset she couldn’t even conceive that her mind had the power to change, so when she’d departed after our previous sessions with practice exercises, she’d simply tucked them in a drawer at home.

It can be a comfort for clients suffering from LoSE to know that these patterns aren’t their fault. Our thoughts, like many things in the physical world, take the path of least resistance. LoSEr thinking carves a deep groove in the mind, so thoughts naturally flow the way they always have. That’s why negative thinking can be thought of as a habit, and all habits — no matter how ingrained — can be changed. I reminded Pam that her thought patterns, though habitual and not her fault, were not irreversibly beyond her control. But she would need to use that same powerful mind to choose different thoughts if she wanted to create a new, deep groove of optimism and enthusiasm.

Imagine the LoSEr’s pessimistic view as though it were a pair of blue-tinted sunglasses. If you’d been wearing blue-tinted sunglasses for so long that you’d forgotten you were wearing them, your natural assumption would be that the world was blue. Along come your more optimistic associates (wearing rose-colored shades), who heartily try to inform you that the world is rosy. “Take those off! Look!” they might say. “The world is a soft, warm place. People are lovely, dreams do come true!”

But you from your blue-tinted perception would argue, truthfully, “No, it isn’t warm. It’s blue, people are cold. It’s downright chilly out there!” This can be challenging for those who love a LoSEr, because they don’t understand that the LoSEr can’t get outside of his viewpoint to see that he can get outside of his viewpoint.

What the LoSEr forgets is that he can choose to take that viewpoint off. It isn’t a foregone conclusion that the world must always be blue because it has been up until this point. But removing those blue-tinted lenses must be done by the LoSEr himself, and if he doesn’t believe that’s possible, or that his viewpoint is changeable, he’s going to argue for his pessimistic outlook with unflagging conviction. “For you it might be rosy, but for me it’s different.”

Recognizing that thought patterns are just that – patterns – is the first step. For some that’s a Eureka! moment, for others it’s a slower process. First, the LoSEr has to accept that patterns can change, even though he can’t see how that’s possible at the moment (still convinced that his blue-tinted shades are permanent). From deep in the LoSEr mindset, that first step can be the most challenging. Once he agrees it’s possible, he can begin to consider he has the power to change his thoughts.

Little by little and with conscious effort, Pam was able to get outside her negative viewpoint. She began to see that she could choose her thoughts, reactions, and expectations. Over the next few weeks Pam flourished as she actively used the mental tools she learned. Once she understood she could change her mind, her mind began to change more rapidly.

If you too have trouble seeing the world as rosy, try the exercise below. Little by little, instance by instance, you’ll be digging a new mental channel through which your thoughts will naturally flow. The more you use this channel the deeper it gets, until your new thoughts are taking this  path as the way of least resistance. This is how new thought habits are created. Remember that you have a choice, and you will likely have to choose, and choose again, over and over. It may seem very challenging at first, but keep at it. You’ll soon see the results and begin experiencing a natural optimism and a sense of personal control of your destiny. In short, you’ll RISE!

When you feel powerless, stuck, pessimistic, or you catch yourself “Yes, but”-ing:

1. Measure your fear (anxiety, pessimism, helplessness) on a scale of 0 - 10, where 0 = Overall confidence that even if change comes along you can handle it; and 10 = Can't possibly move forward. Remember to measure your level as truly as you can (subjectively) for yourself.

2. Remind yourself that what you're feeling is NORMAL. Nothing is broken, weird, wrong, flawed, or cursed. Your mind is working exactly the way minds are supposed to work. Sure, the outcome isn't so desirable (fear), but the process your mind used to get you and keep you there (in fear) is an example of it working perfectly according to the laws of the mind.

3. Choose a time period in which you'll give this fear your full attention. You respect your feelings and your NORMAL mind so much that you'll pay attention to what it's doing and telling you. Do so without judgment or rushing the feeling; try to just indulge it with curiosity and with compassion, without trying to change it.

4. When that time is up, DECIDE that you will give an equal amount of time (if possible) to thoughts other than those fears; preferably something joyful, happy, uplifting. Those thoughts don't have to have anything to do with an antidote for the fears -- anything will do as long as it is the opposite of fear. Remember that you're making a decision to do this. Your NORMAL mind may naturally try to swing your thoughts back to fear, so whenever you catch this happening just gently remind yourself that for this period of time you're CHOOSING to focus on/think about happy or positive thoughts. Thoughts of potential or optimism, or recalling some other happy occurrence such as a child's sweet smile or a pet’s goofy behavior.

5. Check in to see what your fear level (0-10) feels like after Step 4. Then just go back to your regular activities.

If fear and anxiety are present through much of the day, it may be challenging to try to do this every waking minute. Just try to do it once a day. Remember this is about creating a mental discipline -- just like working out, you'll have to practice and build mental muscle. Nobody goes from the couch to bench-pressing 200 lbs, in one workout, so have reasonable expectations for yourself.

Enjoy!

Because I Feel Like It

The title of this month’s blog post might sound like the defiant cry of a toddler, but let’s look a little closer at the power behind those words. If you suffer from Low Self-Esteem (LoSE), you may be far out of touch with that power; if so, it’s time to reclaim it. Doing something because you “feel like it” is one of the hallmarks of a RISEr (one who has Recovered his/her Inherent Self-Esteem).

My client Angie is about to get married again. She has two grown children from her previous marriage, which ended over a decade ago. When she met Lou last year, both of them knew they were right for each other; they’re looking forward to moving into a new home together after their wedding.

Angie came to see me for coaching because of pressure she’s feeling from her mother and sister, Sarah. Both of them feel strongly that Angie should keep her house; she wants to sell it. Though she had been sure of her decision to sell, the relentless commentary from her mother and sister created doubt, and now Angie feels unsure of her own mind. She feels stuck.

When we met I asked Angie to give me a thumbnail sketch of her mother and sister, who as it turns out are kryptonite for this otherwise self-possessed woman. Sarah, who is eight years older than Angie, was responsible for much of her younger sister’s care. Dad was out of the picture before Angie could remember and Mother was busy working, leaving Sarah in charge. By the time Mother got home from work she only had the energy to put dinner on the table and fall into bed.

“She didn’t have time for me,” Angie said. “I get it. It must have been impossibly hard for her to raise us on her own. She worked these low-level jobs without any security, she didn’t have a husband around which was a terrible reflection on her back in those days. So she didn’t have time for anything except support and positive reinforcement from Sarah and I. We knew instinctively that we shouldn’t bring her bad moods or any troubles. She just didn’t have the energy or patience to deal with it.” (Kids like Angie and Sarah believe they are responsible for managing a parent’s feelings, e.g. being upset makes Mother angry, when in fact Mother is responsible for her own anger).

“Tell me what happened when you had a bad day as a kid,” I asked.

“I kept it to myself. By the time I was old enough to talk about my feelings, Sarah was a teenager and too self-involved. She had her own craziness going on with boys and clothes. When I tried to talk to my mother about bad moods or a fight I had with Sarah, she would just sigh heavily and say, ‘Oh, not now, Angie!’ If I got a bad grade or got in trouble at school, she never wanted to hear my side of the story. She only wanted to hear happy things or good news; she wanted us to be happy I think so she wouldn’t feel guilty for being too exhausted to deal with our problems. So I just kept all my bad feelings to myself. I’ve always been like that, even into my adulthood. I got married because I got pregnant, and I knew it wasn’t going to work out but I had no idea how to get that idea to the surface.”

Angie is describing a typical LoSEr scenario. When a child’s feelings are minimized, dismissed, or blamed for increased household stress, she learns to minimize or dismiss them herself. Imagine as a young girl or boy you’re trying to work out a complicated feeling: Let’s say you hear an adult demean another adult. Your own inner guidance system would cause you to feel distress, to feel anger at the bully and compassion for the “victim.” You would wonder about the reason for what you heard and the reason for how you were feeling. Ideally you would have an adult who could help you talk about what disturbed you and put it in some sort of context so you could recognize the feeling if it ever emerged again. If you had such an adult to help you process those feelings, the next time you saw someone being bullied you would have the ability to identify what you were seeing and hearing, and trust in your own response to it. The feelings arising in you would be validated and you would know them to be real. It would help to inform your own sense of justice, including accepting what is fair and right for you, personally.

Now imagine you were that same boy or girl and you start to tell the story to Mother when she finally gets home from work. What do you think would happen if the response was, “Not now child!” Or, “Who cares? We have our own problems at home.” Or worse, “Stay out of it, it’s none of your business.” The next time you encounter a similar situation, instead of recognizing and permitting sadness or righteous anger, you might shrug your shoulders and think, “This isn’t important. I can’t bother caring about this.”

Bad enough when the subject is someone else, but what if the subject were your own feelings about yourself? You’d slowly but surely disconnect from your troubling emotions; you’d understand that your feelings had nothing of value to add to the conversation, so you’d naturally dismiss or minimize them.

It was no one’s fault, yet Angie learned as a little girl that her feelings weren’t important and shouldn’t factor into -- and possibly even detracted from -- decision-making.

Angie maintained a good relationship with Sarah and her mother, and had begun to RISE in the years since her divorce. When she met Lou, she knew she was ready to give her heart away once again. But her mother and sister still struggled with LoSE; they projected their own fears onto her. If she sold her house, the one she bought all on her own after her divorce and decorated in her own style; the home where she raised her two sons; if she gave this up “for Lou,” what would happen if it didn’t work out?

When feelings aren’t validated in the past, they’re hard to rely on in the present, so even though Angie knew what she wanted and was willing to take a chance on love again, the unrelenting pressure from her mother and Sarah (who only wanted what was “best for” her) triggered the old LoSEr habit of minimizing her own feelings.

During the course of our first session, Angie gave me dozens of reasons why keeping her house was a good idea, yet she frequently interrupted herself in a voice almost like an aside: “But I don’t really want to keep it.” This went on for several minutes: all the logical reasons to keep it, followed by a whispered, halfhearted-sounding declaration of her real desire to sell it.

Finally I stopped her and said, “‘I feel like it’ is a good enough reason. You don’t have to justify that to me or to anyone. Even if after laying out all the logical reasons for keeping it, you still feel like selling it... that’s enough!”

Most people tend to be guided in the right course of action for themselves if they listen to their inner mind, where feelings and intuition reside. LoSErs haven’t had the chance to base any trust or value in the inner mind, so coaxing out input that has always been dismissed before can feel quite challenging. LoSErs tend to rely heavily on the data-gathering function of the outer or conscious mind, giving that input much more weight.

But anything can be argued for or against. Any number of reasons for (Pro) can be matched by any number of reasons against (Con). If you were ever part of a debate club in school, you’ll remember learning about rhetoric and how to argue for a position you might not personally agree with. Statistics -- pure data exclusive of emotion or intuition -- can be interpreted differently by different people.

It’s the conscious mind’s job to take a position and argue for or against it. And if we only use the conscious mind because we don’t have confidence that our own feelings add value to the conversation, then we can go around in circles. We flip-flop between the Pro and Con columns as defined by the rational, conscious mind. The conscious mind is like a laser: it points at one thing, then another, then back to the first. But the subconscious mind is completely different; the laser-like focus diffuses into a web of connected ideas, memories, feelings, emotions, and inspirations.

Do you believe your feelings are reason enough? If you’re struggling with LoSE, you may not. Maybe you rely more heavily on logic or you’re routinely talked into doing something you really don’t want to do. Maybe you have a growing resentment about a person or situation. If so, these are hallmarks of discounting your feelings, which by adulthood may be such a natural habit that you don’t even notice you’re doing it.

Why not begin introducing feelings into your conversation by simply talking out loud to an imaginary listener, as I had Angie do during our first session, or by enlisting a non-judgmental friend. I made notes as I listened to Angie, but if you’re doing this alone you might want to record it on your smart phone or a digital recorder so you can listen objectively later.

First, pick a side -- Pro or Con -- and argue it; for example, I asked Angie to tell me all the reasons why selling her house was a good idea (Pro), which was her original preference. I wrote down each reason she gave me to sell it, and I also made a note every time she naturally and unconsciously let her feelings against the idea leak through (Con). It looked like this:

“I should sell my house because...”

Number of Logical Reasons (Pro)	Number of Feelings Comments (Con)
Lou and I can combine our homes’ sales value and purchase a nice condo I don’t need the boys’ bedrooms anymore I don’t want to do all that yard work I don’t want to keep paying taxes on it I don’t want to be a landlord if I were to rent it If I leave it empty it’s just a waste	I know my mother thinks I should keep it and she’s usually right about things like this

We took a break and then I asked her to argue the other side, why keeping her house was a good (albeit not her) idea. Again, I took down her reasons to keep it and also noted whenever she unconsciously undermined her own argument.

“I should keep my house because...”

Number of Logical Reasons (Pro)	Number of Feelings Comments (Con)
If things with Lou don’t work out I have a place to go back to I have good memories there It’s only going to improve in value One of the boys might want to live there It might be good to have rental income I could always sell it later	But I want to fully commit my life to Lou Though I’m also building new memories with Lou The market is sort of flat though, so it might not My friend has a tenant and she says being a landlord is such a hassle But if I sell it later I won’t have the money now to fully pay off a new place with Lou

As you can see, Angie could argue equally for and against the decision to sell her house, but her natural expressions against keeping her house emerged in her speech. She was amazed when I showed her these columns because she truly had no idea she was actually expressing her subconscious desire to sell, even while arguing to keep. That’s a byproduct of years of minimizing feelings.

Try it yourself if you’re struggling with a decision, with resentment, or with finding yourself in a position yet again of doing something you don’t want to be doing. Be sure to let yourself ramble as you argue for and against. This is not an exercise to do logically, such as writing down the Pros and Cons. Let your free-form subconscious mind guide your arguments without censoring or editing as you go, as though you were free-associating. If you do record it, you might also notice how the energy of your voice expands as you argue for the side you truly want, and contracts as you argue against it.

With coaching and self-hypnosis, Angie found the courage to say, “I want to sell my house because I feel like it!” Even in the face of her mother’s and sister’s disapproval, she is RISE-ing. Her house is now on the market and she and Lou are shopping for a place to begin their lives together.

The Language of Fear

LoSE (Low Self-Esteem) paralyzes by eroding our sense of personal control, exhausting our ambitions and deflating our goals. Vague fears become legitimate reasons to avoid action. The LoSEr often projects those fears onto others to solve or manage, totally surrendering control over business or personal goal achievement. When partners both have low self-esteem, LoSE paralysis is reinforced because each one projects fears onto (and inhibits) the other.

As I discuss in Fix Your Screwed-Up Life, when I opened my first hypnosis office many years ago, I’d purposely rented a tiny room with a low monthly payment. There was no way I couldn’t successfully profit; I’d run all the numbers and knew with just a few clients a month I’d be able to pay my bills, advertise, save a little, and build my practice. I was confident, but in hindsight I still hadn’t fully Recovered my Inherent Self-Esteem (RISEn). I told a LoSER family member about my new office and got an earful of her fears about how big a risk I’d taken. She projected her scarcity mindset and anxieties about money onto me, and as I wasn’t solid in my own self-esteem I immediately began to doubt my decisions; I was just barely squeaking by with enough clients to pay the rent and no more. Several months later I was sitting in my kitchen thinking that everything that could have gone wrong, had, when suddenly I realized that I’d been paralyzed by that family member’s low self-esteem. I’d allowed her fears to be projected onto me where they became my own obstacles, subconsciously undermining my efforts.

Once I made that connection I was able to redefine those fears as simple business hurdles and before that year was out, I’d outgrown that tiny office space and opened a multi-partner healing arts center (at ten times the monthly rent).

I once worked with a LoSEr client named Megan who was experiencing a similar paralysis not only in her romantic partnership with Theresa, but in the event planning business she and Theresa were launching together. Megan came to me for some intuitive coaching; she knew she lacked confidence and couldn’t see how to take control of her self-esteem so both her relationship and business would thrive. Tension was building between the two women, making communication increasingly difficult.

Megan said she and her partner had had some good, clear goals in mind when they first discussed going into business together, but now they couldn’t seem to take the first steps. Nothing was getting off the ground, and the frustration was impacting their personal relationship.

Megan said, “I don’t think Theresa really wants to start this business with me.”

“Why do you think that?” I asked.

“Because she hasn’t done anything yet. We each made up a list of what we think needs to happen to get started. Theresa showed me what she intends to do and I don’t think it’s enough of a plan. I’m afraid she’s not getting out there enough. We’ve been arguing about this for months and not getting anywhere.”

I asked Megan to recall how a typical conversation went when discussing business with Theresa.

“It always ends in disagreement. She stalks off and won’t talk to me.”

“Tell me how the disagreement evolves,” I prompted.

“If we’re talking about it over dinner, it’s usually fun. We have a glass of wine and just start brainstorming and the ideas are great; everything seems possible. But when we sit down for a ‘business meeting’ (Megan gestured “air quotes”) it’s not fun at all. We have different strengths, and we both know it. I’m the detail person; I’m more comfortable balancing the books, keeping track of costs, that kind of thing. Theresa is so much more social, she’s going to be the client contact, the outreach person... the face of our business. She has a ton of contacts because she used to do network marketing and real estate. I keep telling her to start reaching out to those friends.”

“How does she respond?” I asked.

“She says she is doing it. It takes time, she doesn’t just want to start pushing it or forcing appointments because she says our back-end isn’t ready.”

“It sounds like a coordination issue.”

“No, it’s more than that. She can be making contacts and getting the word out while I register the business and research the wholesale suppliers.”

“I don’t see the problem then,” I said.

“I am exploring everything on my end. I have a full-time job, but I’m still getting my part accomplished,” Megan began. “I don’t know. My worst fear is that she’s just not...”

“...doing it the way you want her to,” I finished for Megan, who responded first by glaring at me angrily, then by smiling sheepishly.

I suggested to Megan that she had to have a little faith in her sweetheart. Trust that when she says she’s going to do her part, she will. Megan began to protest that historically Theresa hadn’t always done her part even after promising she would.

“Let’s try something this week,” I said. “When Theresa says she’s going to do some outreach or networking for your business, you simply say, ‘Great. While you’re doing that over there, I’m going to keep playing my role over here.’ Don’t check up on her, don’t grill her for her results. Keep your mind on your own To Do list, and at your regular business meeting just present your accomplishments.”

Though I’d never met her, I figured that by this time poor Theresa was probably so hen-pecked, she barely had the self-confidence to complete her own To Do list. LoSErs tend to throw up their defenses or grind to a halt because deep down they feel they’re going to fail anyway, so why bother putting any real effort in. Compound that with Megan’s expectations that Theresa wasn’t succeeding on her own merits, and voila: the perfect recipe for a non-starter.

But if one partner can break the pattern and say, “Good, you go about your plan and I’ll go about mine,” she removes the projected expectation of failure. If Megan communicates faith in her partner to her partner, she will inspire action much more effectively than nagging and keep her focus on the only thing she can control anyway: her own actions.

LoSErs feel out of control, so they frequently surrender control. One of the easiest, most measurable ways to get control back (and therefore begin to RISE), is to recognize what is under ones control and turn attention to that. Once Megan understood that keeping her focus and accountability on her own actions would not only be the best way to support Theresa but would build her own self-confidence and benefit the business, she promised to put my suggestion to use.

Still, I could see that Megan was hesitant. “What’s going on?” I asked.

“Well, what about my fears?” she asked. “I can do all the things on my list and not bug Theresa about hers, but how is that going to solve my worries? They’re not just going to go away.”

“I think you’ll find that they do,” I answered. “Your fears are your problem, not Theresa’s. She’s got her own, I’m sure. If you project your fears onto her, you’re going to get more of the same inertia. So this week why don’t you go about your checklist and trust that Theresa will be able to accomplish what’s on hers.”

LoSErs’ fears often turn out to be justified because those with low self-esteem frequently distrust their own inner guidance system. They’re often caught unawares because they’re used to ignoring their own inner sense about their strengths and weaknesses. For a LoSEr, earlier efforts that weren’t rewarded are strong evidence that future efforts are unlikely to bear fruit. Feeling as though they don’t control their own destinies, LoSErs do their best to control their fears -- and one way to do that is to not embark on anything that could cause those fears to become real.

LoSErs may also feel as though they aren’t powerful or worthy enough to define their own abundance in business and romantic relationships, so they seek out partners who they rely on to take control. Those partners also conveniently become the receptacle for the LoSEr’s personal fears, bearing responsibility to avoid or correct them.

“Let’s talk about your fears. Tell me one of them,” I asked Megan, when she didn’t seem mollified by my suggestion.

“I’m afraid we’ll be broke. But when I tell her about my fears she gets really defensive. She says, ‘Fine, forget it, let’s not start this business.’”

It’s one thing to talk about things that can go wrong; that’s an important part of business development. Having contingency plans or preparing for delays is integral to honest assessment versus wishful thinking (a handy LoSEr strategy). Yet LoSErs often have difficulty separating what can be prepared for from generalized anxiety about moving forward or succeeding at all. Megan, as many LoSErs do, grouped all potential strategies under the label of “fear.” Theresa, likely struggling with her own trepidations, felt pressured to ease Megan’s fears, because Megan was asking Theresa to resolve them.

RISErs lay their fears on the table too, don’t get me wrong. Recovering inherent self-esteem doesn’t mean living entirely without fears or anxieties. But RISErs can look at potential negatives in a clear light, without panic, and without the desire to have a partner resolve them all before beginning anything new.

I suggested to Megan that by presenting her fears to Theresa, she was putting her partner in an unfair situation. LoSErs feel more secure when someone else solves the problems (and can be blamed if they can’t). Theresa, who struggled with LoSE on her own, felt attacked by Megan’s repeated complaining, ongoing focus on what could go wrong, and passive aggressive suggestion that Theresa either wasn’t working hard enough or didn’t want to be in business at all. By continually pointing out her worries, Megan was subtly suggesting to Theresa that she didn’t trust her to hold up her end of their agreement. The subtext in chronic complaint is “I’m afraid of this because you’re not capable enough to make sure these things don’t happen.”

When a LoSEr repeatedly expresses fear to a person who can’t fix it (and they never can), that person -- a LoSEr in particular -- hears “You’re inadequate, you’re not meeting my needs. I still have this fear.”

RISErs present their fears differently. LoSErs like Megan say, “Theresa, I’m afraid you’re not working hard enough to get clients and we’re going to go broke.” If Megan were a RISEr, she’d be able to discuss her fears within the context of potential solutions.

For example, a RISEn Megan might say, “Just in case our client base isn’t up to our projections, do you think we should have four or six months of savings before we both quit our jobs and jump into business full time?”

Or: “I’m sure they’ll be unanticipated expenses; this is our first business after all. What do you think would be better -- four or six months of living expenses in our savings?”

RISErs anticipate obstacles and plan for contingencies, all while knowing unexpected derailments may still arise. RISErs feel in control of their destinies, not because they have every single fear resolved before beginning anything, but because they don’t rely on others to solve their problems. They have confidence in their abilities to think, strategize, analyze, and solve problems. They also have a working relationship with their own intuition, which lends immeasurable value to their decision-making skills.

Megan and I worked together for several weeks, over the course of which Megan began to RISE steadily. Her romantic relationship benefited and Theresa’s self-esteem naturally recovered too, as she began to feel that Megan trusted her, relied on her, and was confident that she, Theresa, was capable of fulfilling her role in their business. With a relatively simple “tweak” in assessing and communicating fears, Megan was able to experience greater control and security, and therefore confidence.

How do you assess your fears? If you find yourself unable to move forward, either internally or in communication with a business or romantic partner, why not try the same process I suggested to Megan.

First, listen to the words you use when it comes to assessing obstacles. Do you talk to yourself or your partner about your fears, especially in an open-ended way? Do you say things like, “I’m afraid that’s not going to work because....” or “I’m afraid (insert worse case scenario here) will happen”?

Try redefining that fear as a hurdle, and then consider potential ways to get over it. Even if your solutions aren’t immediately practical or realistic, your positive solution-seeking approach will invite alternate ideas either from your own subconscious mind or the others you’re in dialogue with. When you invite opinions on a solution, you’ll be amazed at how helpful others can be. People are naturally attracted to helping others find answers. Not only that, but your own creative subconscious mind will instinctively fill in the blanks, too. The imagination loves to evolve and expand, so even if your immediate solutions aren’t workable, it will offer other creative suggestions: “Not that, but this.”

Here are a few examples:

Instead of saying: “I’m afraid you’re never going to commit to our relationship.”
Say: “Commitment to me means marriage; do you feel the same way or is living together enough for you?”

Instead of saying: “I’m afraid I’ll never be able to save money to retire.”
Say: “Experts say I’ll need an income of $40,000 a year to retire. I can start to budget now and set savings goals or I can consider a different kind of career.”

Instead of saying: “I’m afraid I’m never going to get well.”
Say: “Has anyone here ever tried alternative therapies for a condition like mine? I’m thinking about exploring acupuncture or dietary changes.”

The common denominator in these minor changes is that the speaker takes control of the direction the “fear” was heading by defining for herself what the goal is, soliciting input, and planning action. Knowing one is in control naturally boosts confidence; confidence in turn elevates feelings of control.

Stating fears any other way presumes there is no solution or that someone else needs to step in and deliver answers. Don’t surrender your natural power; remind yourself that you and you alone own those fears and you alone can resolve them. While this can be a scary statement to the LoSER, the RISEr knows it to be true and embraces the power that comes with this knowledge.

Decisions, Decisions...

My client Carl came to me because he recognized that he struggled with issues arising from low self-esteem (LoSE). He’d been working with various modalities to recover his inherent self-esteem (RISE), yet he’d been unable to alter one particular byproduct of LoSE: Indecision.

Decisiveness is a common challenge for LoSErs. When you’ve come to believe that your value is in direct proportion to your accomplishments, you want to be darn sure your efforts are actually going to result in accomplishment. Trying to anticipate all the obstacles to accomplishing a goal is fatiguing work on a good day… for the LoSEr it is a matter of calculating and recalculating the formula for success, even while one is at the beginning stages of working towards the goal.

Come to think of it, a GPS is a great example of how we get from one place in our lives to another. A RISEr sets the destination point into the system and follows the prompts while driving. Even if she has to pull off for gas or a rest room break, she is confident that she can get right back on track. A LoSEr second-guesses the internal GPS prompts, not trusting the device enough to follow without knowing exactly how the journey will progress. I rode with one of these folks on the way to a class we were both taking about 90 minutes away. My pal Allison was driving; she’d entered the address into her GPS yet all along the way she kept saying things like, “Get off at this exit? That can’t be right,” and, “It says to turn left here but I think that’s going to turn us around so I’m going to keep going straight.” It took us more than two hours to make this drive, thanks to Allison’s lack of faith in her global positioning system.

In the process of decision-making we have to enter our destination point into the equation, just as we would with a GPS while driving. A RISEr recognizes that there may be some detours along the way – by choice or by accident – yet confidently goes forward anyway. A LoSEr doesn’t consider the journey to accomplishment a success until the destination is at hand, and if that destination isn’t clearly defined at the outset, detours signify failure to progress rather than stops-along-the-way. Confidently going forward in spite of the detours or gridlock requires faith in ones ability to navigate to that destination, and trust in ones own intuition to understand whether a detour is actually a dead end.

My client Carl knew that his indecision was a result of low self-esteem because he was working with a therapist on some of his other LoSEr symptoms such as workaholism and perfectionist behavior. Carl wanted to learn to trust his gut, because he knew that relying on his analytical mind to make decisions routed him right back to LoSEr thinking.

The most pressing issue for Carl was deciding whether to extend his lease at his business office or move to a different location. He’d gone over it so many times that he no longer knew what felt right. As he put it, “I’m going crazy! I settle on one location in my mind, then I start doubting myself, choose the other, start doubting that decision, then I’m back to square one. I have no idea what I want!” In addition to this internal pressure, the deadline to decide was fast approaching. By the way, Carl had been running a successful business for years, but his LoSE past had him believing that it wasn’t skill but dumb luck that had gotten him that far. He’d grown up with the belief that he wasn't smart and wouldn't amount to much, so he didn’t trust his ability to make the right decision.

Carl and I talked about how the conscious mind gathers evidence to support the beliefs residing in the subconscious mind. Low self-esteem beliefs are supported by what the analytical mind perceives in one’s experience. For example, if I as a LoSEr believe that no one wants to hear what I have to say because I’m not smart, my conscious mind is going to highlight every time I’m interrupted by someone who expands on my comment, and file it in my subconscious mind as another example of why I should just keep my mouth shut at the monthly brainstorming session at work. My conscious mind says, “See? Your idea was lousy and incomplete; someone else had to correct it for you.” Conversely, if I’m a RISEr and someone interrupts me at the monthly brainstorm meeting, my conscious mind will likely highlight that interruption as validation of my idea, and file it in my subconscious mind as another example of why I’m a good at creative thinking.

Carl had done all the preparatory work for his business decision. He had a business goal in mind and had carefully thought out an expansion plan. He’d compared rents, locations, the cost of moving, what it would take to generate business in a new neighborhood, and the cost of changing his printed material to reflect his new address. The pros and cons of moving just about balanced those of staying in his current location, so he couldn’t predict accurately enough for his LoSEr mind which was the better choice. LoSErs like to know with absolute certainty how a decision is going to play out before making it.

When a person is able to say with personal conviction, “This is my decision,” the choice moves from the analytical conscious mind into the subconscious mind to become a fait accompli, and therefore a belief. The conscious mind then begins to gather evidence to support why that choice was the right one. Once Carl could decide which location to choose, he would be provided with a degree of closure on the topic. That would effectively become a new belief. Once that new belief is installed in the subconscious mind, he’d begin to start “suddenly noticing” all the reasons why this was the right location. Not only does the rational mind begin to gather validation for a decision, it begins to reject evidence to the contrary.

If you’ve ever decided to buy a car and after research selected a certain make and model, isn’t it funny how you begin to see that car everywhere? There hasn’t been a sudden growth in the sales of that same car, it’s simply that your conscious mind begins to gather evidence – cause you to notice – why this is the right car for you.

While this is a fairly predictable mental process, it’s important to let your own gut instincts in on the game too. Carl was right to seek guidance on tuning into the information his own sixth sense was offering about his business location decision, because his rational mind had measured both options and found them generally equal in benefits. The first thing to clear up was whether Carl actually knew what basic “Yes” and “No” felt like, intuitively. If you’ve been vacillating for so long that you can’t begin to rationally distinguish which is the best choice and everything on paper seems to be equal, it’s vital to have your Yes and No sixth-sense signals in place.

When your own ESP validates and supports what your conscious mind wants to do, then you can have closure on that decision and put it behind you – or within you, in your subconscious mind. That allows your conscious mind to do what it does best: gather evidence to support what you now have decided and believe to be true. That closed-loop is how confidence is built in decision-making and in many aspects of self-esteem.

I remember a time in my LoSEr past when I was stymied by a decision. I was unable to decide between undergoing a graduate course of study in Museum Administration or joining a young curator from Russia who wanted to open a gallery of contemporary Russian artists. The first offered greater career prospects and a higher salary, but the second offered more prestige and travel. The LoSEr in me was convinced that I would never be worth anything unless I had a degree, but the LoSEr in me also suspected I’d be a pretty cool person if I traveled regularly to Russia. I went back and forth, and back and forth, and back and forth… until one of my good friends took me aside and asked me to please either make a decision or, at the very least, stop talking about it. At her wits’ end (probably with boredom), my friend suggested I flip a coin: Heads for Graduate School, Tails for Assistant Curator. I did so, and when the coin came up Heads, I felt disappointed. If I were a RISEr I would have known that that was my intuitive signal for “No,” illuminating that what I really wanted was to join my Russian friend in his gallery. Instead, I just kept flipping and flipping and flipping… until my friend gently pried the coin from my hands. In the end, my LoSE prevented me from making a decision at all, and so I did neither. Because I never actually made a decision, I had no closure on this subject, and to this day I reflect on how my life might have been different had I had the self-esteem to take a chance on myself and the gallery.

I told this story to Carl and suggested we begin with those ESP signals. I had him close his eyes, sit comfortably, and call to mind an unpleasant memory, particularly one where he felt he’d gotten a raw deal. The act of recollection automatically puts one in the subconscious state, as does any act of imagination (those two mindsets reside in the subconscious). I suggested Carl dive deep into that memory, and when he had, to notice where that memory seemed to sit in his body. Carl described tension in the back of his neck. I asked him to allow his imagination to expand the unpleasant feeling in his memory and his neck, then had him say to himself, “This is my feeling of ‘No.’”

After opening his eyes and taking a deep breath, I once again asked Carl to close his eyes. This time I had him recall a time when he’d made a good decision; when he felt vindicated or validated. I asked him to focus on the feeling more than the event – so it wasn’t necessary to recall a time when he had achieved a goal (LoSErs keep close track of those, as they’re frequently the measuring stick of personal self-worth). As he deepened into this past event, I had Carl notice where the good feeling settled. He described feelings of effervescence in his solar plexus, like butterflies or mild excitement. I then suggested Carl to state to himself, “This is my feeling of ‘Yes,’” while concentrating on both the memory and the feeling simultaneously.

I ended our session by suggesting that Carl go home, review his business options and his conscious mind’s Pros & Cons list to make sure he’d covered all the reasons for and against each location. Then he was to take a deep breath, firmly announce a decision to stay in his current office, and notice any response in either the back of his neck or his solar plexus. Then he was to do the same with the other location.

A week later Carl called to let me know he’d made a decision to move to the new location. His confidence in his own ability to choose the right option had soared, and freed him from his LoSEr notion that he wasn’t smart enough to make such an important business decision.

If you find that indecision plagues your business or personal life, consider that the source may stem from low self-esteem. Try the exercises as defined above to determine your own Yes and No extrasensory signals; it's extremely valuable to consult your gut instincts when your analytical mind can't settle on one option over another. I suggest you start with decisions that aren't life-changing until you recover some of your inherent self-esteem. Feeling validated about your choices, no matter how small, builds confidence, and confidence is the antidote to LoSE.