Even after all of that, LoSErs don’t feel as they “should.” Instead they feel as though they don’t know what they want. They’re angry, envious of others, or acting out behaviors they wish they didn’t have, like drinking, smoking, or overeating. Relationships are fraught with the same old conflicts, the same argument over and over.
LoSErs look around and find themselves “behind” everyone else. They commonly compare themselves to others as a measurement of their success and sometimes even their place in the world, but because one can never truly assess another’s success, LoSErs repeat the usual message to themselves, which is: “I’m not as good as….”
This creates (and reveals) a deep conflict within: I did as I was told, but didn’t receive the reward I was promised.
In other words, “I believed you when you taught me that if I managed everyone else’s feelings, reactions, and perceptions of me, I would be accepted and earn a place in the world.”
When a LoSEr is faced with this conflict, because he has low self-esteem his first reaction is “I must have screwed up somewhere.” The LoSEr who feels empty-handed automatically blames himself, reinforcing the poor self-worth — which is further cemented by feelings of shame. Drinking this cocktail of misery reminds the LoSEr that he is alone, that the lovely reality out there is not for him.
My client Joe struggled with this conflict. He came to me for hypnosis because he has a vague feeling of being unsatisfied and unfulfilled, but he’s ashamed to admit it. It took him years to admit it to himself.
As he looks back on his life, Joe tells me “I did everything that was expected of me; I always thought I would be happy but I still feel like I’ve done something wrong because I’m not happy. I look at everyone else with their families, jobs, and homes and I think: ‘They look happy, why aren’t I?’” Joe is quick to remind me that he has a good job, healthy-enough marriage, and good kids, so something must be wrong with him if he doesn’t feel excited about his life.
“It must be me. What’s wrong with me that I can’t fully appreciate this great life I have and just feel content? The worst part is I’m embarrassed to admit this to anyone because I sound so selfish. It seems like I’m alone outside the bubble of the real world, where people are genuinely happy. I want to be in that world, too!” Joe struggled to articulate how he felt: expressing his frustration but then quickly invalidating it by telling me how blessed he knows he is.
When I asked Joe what he felt passionate about, he couldn’t pinpoint anything. I asked him to recall instead the last time he felt deeply satisfied. He told me this story:
“Ten years ago I was on the Town Board. Before a meeting, one of the guys in the Highway Department told us about a very small grant he’d managed to get — this was outside his normal scope of work. A couple of the other Board members jokingly said, ‘If you can get another million, we’d be impressed!’ The Highway guy laughed along with them, but it bothered me that no one really said ‘Thanks.’ At the very end of the meeting later that night, when it was clear nobody else was going to mention it, I thanked this guy publicly for going ‘above and beyond.’
“Every once in a while I see this guy — he still works for the Highway Department — and to this day he thanks me for thanking him on TV. Nobody else ever did, and he’s never forgotten it. It was years ago, but I have the sense he would do anything for me. I wouldn’t take advantage of that, but this minor interaction made a huge impact on a person. All I did was acknowledge him, and the feeling of satisfaction I got from it still impacts me and warms my heart.
“That made me feel deeply satisfied. I would feel passionate about interactions that gave me that feeling more often.”
I asked Joe (a practicing Catholic) to consider this event a kind of calling from God. We touched on the spiritual mechanics in the Prayer of St. Francis (“…It is in giving that we receive”) and how benefits of giving bounce back to us because in the sixth sense we are all connected.
It’s not surprising that the Highway worker and Joe both were so moved. Acknowledgment is the greatest gift you can give a person with any degree of low self-esteem (LoSE). It sets them on their way to RISE-ing (recovering inherent self-esteem) because suddenly they’re no longer “outside the bubble of reality” that others seem entitled to enjoy. Acknowledgement, saying thanks, is a way that the perfect spirit in one person recognizes the perfect spirit in another. In that moment the LoSEr feels the sixth sense connection; we feel the mechanics of “in giving I receive,” we feel here, present, real, valid, and deserving. It’s like we’ve been given permission to exist, finally. No wonder that amazing feeling lasts for years and years!
I have another client named Theresa, who came to me to connect with her loved ones in the Afterlife. Like many, Theresa feels just shy of true contentment. Like Joe, she recognizes that she has so much to be grateful for and is reluctant to complain; she just wants to feel that she is not wasting her Self by not finding and exercising the passion she imagines everyone else experiences. Theresa believes she’s not in the “reality” that everyone around her seems to enjoy.
The first spirit to come through was a woman who sang in Theresa’s church choir. After identifying her through all the evidence she gave, the spirit began to sing, telling us she was adding her voice to all the lovely sounds in the world that praise the Lord. She told us in praising the Lord, she’s serving the Lord. In serving the Lord, she’s bringing the Godly spark within her out into the world — serving her Self and enjoying the experience of being fully present, alive, and fulfilled.
Her spirit then asked Theresa, “Do you praise God? If you do, you’re serving God. The reward is itself, because the expression of praise makes it more beautiful; praise is a self-recreating, self-beautifying, self-fulfilling process.”
As we discussed these clear action steps to that elusive contentment, Theresa reflected on her own devout Methodist practice, and in particular a women’s group she’d hosted in her community. She said, “When I’m bringing our group together at the church, everything seems easy. It’s easier to write and speak; I don’t feel so self-conscious or like I’m a total imposter. Any other time I have to direct a group at my job, I feel sick to my stomach. Who am I to direct all these “higher-ups” in a discussion? But that never happens with this group.”
Theresa, thanks to insight from her spirit friend, understood that her women’s group was focusing on God, and were gathered to support each other in living lives that praised God. Because of that, Theresa said, “I can see that because of the topic or act of praising God, I get myself out of the process. I bypass my natural self-consciousness and somehow the beauty of God’s word comes through more easily. My ego gets out of the way.”
In other words, Theresa’s LoSEr voice is drowned out by the RISEr voice within — the voice of God Himself that speaks to and through each one of us.
With her goal to be praising the Creator, the process and product of her women’s group becomes more praiseworthy, and the yearning to continue there becomes greater and more fulfilling as it’s expressed.
Her spirit left us with one more insight before our session was over: The voice of praise brings so much beauty to the world, that it changes the people it reaches and informs the work that lies ahead of us. Think of it as your ministry: using your voice to show what God is like. You must speak God’s beauty for the spirit people, so that the living people know themselves to be perfect, safe, and beloved.”
These clients brought their own views on God to our sessions, but that doesn’t mean you must conform to a traditional belief system to recover your own inherent self-esteem (RISE), understand how you feel a profound connection to others and your Creator, and become convinced that you are indeed living a deeply personal expression of life — never alone, never outside the bubble of “reality.” You deserve to comprehend eternally that you are as real, as vital, as miraculous as those the b within compares you to. It’s normal to feel that, although you have the trappings and relationships that should bring you lasting contentment, something is missing.
That’s where these stories come in. Call it connection, passion, or praise; couch it in cerebral, New Age, or religious language — the resulting soul satisfaction is the same.
Countless theories have been explored and articles written showing that for anyone to be psychologically and physically healthy their core needs have to be fulfilled. Being clear about what you need and making efforts to meet those needs constructively means you'll naturally have better self esteem as a by-product of living well.
For LoSErs who followed the “script” (unfailingly given by other LoSErs), the reason they don’t feel psychologically and/or physically healthy is because they haven’t identified their core needs, let alone set about fulfilling them. That is the source of the discontent, the feeling of being different from everyone else in the world, despite having a good job, a nice home, and other markers of “success.”
A “core need” differs from the surface needs of money to pay bills, a robust salary to support ones family, a comfortable home to live in. A core need — something LoSErs may never have been familiar with — is:
- being recognized, seen, heard, and having ones presence validated (sometimes by others)
- feeling safe to speak out in self-advocacy without retaliation
- giving oneself full permission to seek out a lifestyle and vocation that is rewarding
- a sense of being equally deserving of society’s or God’s graces
- believing oneself to be as worthy as everyone else to take up space in the world
- knowing one can live for ones own reasons, not compelled to live out another person’s dream
- understanding that bad decisions or actions doesn’t make one a bad person
What do you do if your LoSEr mindset prevents you from embracing, affirming, and owning these core needs? You’re following the cultural or familial script that says “Do as I direct (it’s your duty/role/within your limits) and you’ll be happy” — yet although you may have earned the material, worldly rewards, your core needs have not been met and of course you’re not content!
To begin RISE-ing, consider exploring a passion, even in a daydream. Let your imagination play with ideas as you envision yourself directing that passion. Pay attention to your feelings as you do so, and take your time. You’ll notice a common thread between them as the evidence of an archetype recurs in each daydream. In your imagination, are you frequently a teacher? Rescuing someone? Standing up for underserved people? Stewarding the environment or animals? Healing? Creating? Praying? The more you let your imagination roll out potential expressions of your “best” self, the clearer your path to soul-satisfying expression and contentment will be.
If you have a belief in God or Creator, consider how you can praise Him or Her. If you’re having trouble loving yourself, introduce or become reacquainted with the idea of God. If you think about God and love God and all that God creates, in time you must accept that God is in you and is you (all religions agree on this), and you can’t help but come to love yourself. One can’t praise, love, and appreciate a Creator and not praise, love, and appreciate oneself.
Either way, you’ll discover your core needs and in the daydream of passion or the praising of God, the roadmap to fulfilling those needs will be made clear. You’ll recover the natural voice or Self within you that will inform the next steps to profound contentment. Like Joe, you’ll discover the lasting and never-diminishing fire of acknowledgement and connection; once you experience that feeling, you’ll know what to do next to continue experiencing it.
If, like Theresa your work involves praising God (however you conceptualize that), it will be effortless and rewarding, and will inform you how and what to do to sustain that soul satisfaction.
NOW is a great time to rethink your concept of “reality” and where you stand in relation to it. Turn your attention away from others and material rewards just for now, and turn it inwards. You’ll discover your perfectly valid core needs, the voice of passion or God within you, and the steps you can take to begin living a truly rewarding life.
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