We all begin life strong.
In this unhealthy environment though, just about all of us have lost most of that power.
Full support and encouragement is normal for new life. People though, have to get by on our own, without getting that approval.
Can we become strong and confident again?
Yes we can, and it’s the most direct route to feeling better.
Recovery is a two-step process!
THE FIRST STEP!
All life is self-driven!
If we can feel our own needs, we know how critical it is for us to get support and approval for everything that we really are.
That’s life or death, and we used to know that!
We need approval to be our real and natural selves! That’s not a bad thing, ever! It’s our kindest and most cooperative condition!
Support from others, that are already without self-esteem is of absolutely no use to us! They won’t support our strength. They will support only obedience!
Support for obedience is no support at all! That’s useless to a self-driven life!
When our self-esteem is low, it’s because we’ve been living with other people who don’t understand how life works.
Their lack of understanding caused us to hurt!
They expected behavior that was impossible for us to comply with, and still remain healthy!
To please others, in various degrees we had to abandon the connections to our feelings, instincts, needs, and inner strength.
That left us feeling hurt, upset, and adrift.
Unfortunately, in this condition, our opinion of others will have become distorted!
That’s just what happens when we lose connection with our inner life. Lacking our inner guidence and power, we assume others don’t have that guidence either.
We forget that life powers itself, and doesn’t need management.
We see other people as helpless, needing instruction.
We will therefore be expecting behavior from others that we have no right to expect.
This condition isolates us. Just try being everything that you are, right out loud! Try sharing your deepest hurts!
Those still connected and strong will avoid those of us who can’t do that.
To them, we are impossible to connect with, and without honor, morals, or any understand of trust, support, loyalty, or fun!
Consequently, we lose the support of the only people capable of supporting the real us!
Anybody still feeling strong, with the guidence of their instincts and needs, knows they are self-driven and responsible that way.
They can’t understand why we aren’t.
If we are to recover our self-esteem, we will need support for our real selves from strong people.
This brings us to the issue!
We will have to change our viewpoint of others!
Otherwise, we won’t be accepted by the only people who can help us with their support for the real us!
If we’re not willing to do that, we must settle for low self-esteem!
Our self-esteem is critically dependent on the approval of others!
It always will be!
Approval from others can take our feelings from absolutely wonderful to wishing to take our own life.
Only strong people are able to give us support of our real inner life!
Not getting that puts us into despair!
We will be destructive! When it has happened to every youth, it has brought our world from love to conflict.
HOW LIFE WORKS
Our attitude and behavior toward others will need to match that of someone still possessing inner power and confidence.
Our opinion of others must be reset to its original condition.
LIFE
Life is designed to find its own way, surviving through its own determination and will.
It is incapable of being obedient!
Life should never have to be obedient!
Strength always wins. Health wins. It is never malicious, if healthy.
From the moment of conception, life knows what it is doing! It’s self-driven.
PEOPLE
From the moment of conception, infants know what they need. They can feel it. They live their identity and enjoy the power of their instincts and inner strength.
In this condition they are not only as healthy as they can possibly be, but also loving, compassionate, trusting, completely open with their feelings, and ready to do absolutely anything for others, even at the cost of their own lives.
Their need is to be respected and valued for all that they are.
If we can support all of that, we get the most wonderful, loving, honorable, and loyal human that can exist.
We need to relearn how to see others in that way!
The self-esteem of others is going to get crushed by us if we can’t!
OUR OPINION OF OTHERS
We are fellow travelers in life, not overseers!
We become authoritative only after becoming hurt and isolated.
Our job is to recover, not to destroy everything around us!
STRONG AND CONFIDENT!
If, and when we can see others in this light, we have removed the immediate barrier to our own recovery!
Our next job is to relearn how to reveal everything that we are!
THE SECOND STEP!
It will probably come as no surprise to us that we conceal most of who we really are!
This is our only remaining barrier to the recovery of our importance, power, joy, and connection to our instincts and feelings!
SUPPORT!
We cannot succeed at this without the support of others who can accept us as we really are!
I doubt any sentient life can.
Without it though, we can’t recover!
Approval for what we really are is critical!
We must find those capable of doing that for us!
Whether we find those people in therapy or socially does not matter!
We need access to those people!
Then, we can move on to gradually revealing everything that we really are!
We do that one step at a time, revealing our secrets. Each step will be filled with bad feelings and memories.
We didn’t give up connection with our inner life easily. We went down hard, crying at first, and hurting all the way.
The way back will include this hurt.
Fortunately though, under these conditions, the need to hide anything at all has completely vanished! It’s only the hurt that makes it difficult.
The results are real life! This is feeling good!
We can return ourselves to the way we felt in our infancy!
We can return ourselves to the way all other life feels!
Thanks for listening.
This post is part of https://clarity-of-innocence.com It may yet get a few revisions to make things clearer.
Good luck on your own journey.
Take care,
Norm Cormier
I welcome considering other thoughts.