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!