Practicing & Rebuilding Self-Esteem & Self-Love?

[kieranperez]

It’s become apparent to me that my biggest step I need to take right now internally is rebuilding my entire foundation of self-esteem and self-love. 

Right now I’ve pretty much given up on visioning for my life, wondering what I truly want, etc. because I’m so depressed and have such a low sense of self-worth and self-acceptance that I’m always getting lost in fantasizing about being like other people. 

For instance, I’ll be thinking about being some great sage or something like Sadhguru because of how inspiring his impact is or I’ll fantasize about being some other person and I’ll keep coming back down and I’m like ‘what? That’s not what this is about.’ 

I did some journaling and reflection the other night and it really dawned on me just how impressionable I’ve always been throughout my whole life even till now because I was never comfortable ever being okay with my own self. When i played basketball as a kid (going back to 3 years old) I would play games where I mimicked the gum chewing expressions of Michael Jordan and all his mannerisms. When I got into running I tried to copy the form of everybody I ever looked up to. When I got into an intellectual discussion with someone I mimicked my dad. When I mediate, I’m so busy trying to sit totally motionles because I’m trying to put on this front of some serious spiritual aspirant whose hardcore about enlightenment. When I stated following actualized.org I wanted to be like Leo. 

My aspirations have never really been truly authentic. Coupled with a few other things I’ve posted about in the past on here, I’m also deeply depressed. 

With that said, self-esteem, confidence, faith, and self-love are definitely the things I really need to start with to at least get myself on the right track. I’m personally really distraught because I have no real vision at all anymore because I really don’t know at all what I want. What I want to master, how I truly want to impact the world, what I want to do with my life, etc. 

I have the six-pillars of self esteem and I am familiar with the sentence completion exercises but there’s so many that I really dont know where to start and how to utilize them into a good system and daily habit. Have you guys found that sentence completions have even helped?

How can I really practice self-love? Often times I try to practice self-acceptance as shown in @Leo Gura video on self acceptance but more often than not, I can’t really bring up that emotion. The closest thing I get is that faint sense of pleasure at best. Is self-love like just sitting down and applying love to yourself as a practice something that takes time to permeate into everyday life?

Also, tips or advice on how to balance this at the same time as developing discipline, stronger character, and stronger work ethic?

Edited April 4, 2019 by kieranperez

[mandyjw]

I found that it was easier to learn to love others sometimes before I could learn to love myself. That puts you in a bad position, because you're off balanced and vulnerable to them, you need them. Sometimes things are so counter-intuitive like Leo says. And when you finally do the counter-intuitive thing and you get a break through, you'll find yourself channeling Leo and saying "Of course, of course, of course!" just like he does.

Maybe we want to emulate others because we know that we are really just empty. And instead of accepting that and realizing that emptiness is also counter-intuitively fulfillment, we think that we can just become someone else. The problem is that we pick and choose who we want to be like and don't want to be like. And when we do that, we can never really love our own self because we hold ourselves to the standards we are judging everyone else by, and because we are really just empty blank slates, we always fall short. 

 

[nistake]

I also suffer from self-esteem and self-confidence issues. 

I started reading six pillars of self-esteem, but for some reason, it didn't work for me. I don't really like the sentence completion exercises. After that, I started contemplating why I have these issues and I tried to find the root cause. What I realized was that I had these issues because of lack of father image (parenting issues, long story), mild social anxiety, and when I was a kid, I was always worried about what other people think of me. To the degree that I spent most of my childhood and teenage years in my room playing video games, because that was my safe zone and nobody could judge me in there.

Nowadays, I've been experimenting with a few things. I realized that I needed to go out of my comfort zone. What I do is that I always look for a small challange that requires me to go out of the comfort zone. Even a random small thing will do. Chatting up a coworker that I've never talked to before, taking up a hobby that I wanted to do a long time, smiling on random people on the street, etc. These may not seem as some sort of powerful self-esteem/self-confidence techniques, but I think babystepping is a good idea when one is trying to fix something as huge as self-esteem.

Just a random personal example: I just started to take up skating as a hobby. When I was a teenager, I had always admired the skater guys because they looked so cool doing neat tricks and just rolling down the street. However, I never started it because I had nobody to skate with and I didn't want to do it alone because the usual "what are peope gonna think about me skating alone?" story. A few days ago, I remebered this from my past and said to myself: "Fuck it, I'm gonna buy a skateboard and I'll start skating alone even if I'm 29 years old and have nobody to roll with". When I got the board, I went out and just started skating on the street and in empty parking lots. I quite enjoyed it (even tho I suck at it atm) and when I got home afterwards, I felt good because I realized that I needed to live my own reality and to do the things I really want (even if it's just a small hobby).

I'm not sure how this'll work on the long run and my post may not even be helpful to you but I hope you'll find a way to fix your issues.

Edited April 4, 2019 by nistake

[herghly]

You can use the sentence stem program at the end of the book. Should only take 5-10 minutes a day. I've found for the amount of effort and time i get good results.

 

Brings more awareness 

[Forestluv]

@kieranperez Personally, it's much easier for me to express love to someone I love than to myself. I really had to re-think this. I think I was conditioned to believe that doing things for myself was selfish (bad) and doing things for others was selfless (good). I suppose there is some truth to that, yet I became way off-balance. I was trying to take care of others and neglected myself.

So I ask myself "How can I be good to myself in a loving way?". I came up with some ideas and asked if that action would be loving to someone else. For example, I have a lot of body tension and the idea of "self massage" came up. I asked myself "If someone I loved had a lot of body tension, would giving them a massage be a loving act?". My answer was "yes", so I figured it was a form of self love. Another example: I noticed I was stressed out and eating poorly and I wasn't preparing healthy meals for myself. The idea of "cook myself a healthy meal" popped up. I asked myself "If someone I loved was stressed out and unable to prepare healthy meals, would cooking them a healthy meal be a loving act?". Again, the answer was "yes", so I started preparing myself healthy meals. I actually got into it. Looking into recipes, food shopping and learning to cook. I prepared myself a yummy meal. One night, I took it to the next level. . . I created a nice peaceful environment with music and candles. I added in a bath and self massage. 

I don't know if this officially qualifies as "self love", yet it really felt like I was being loved by myself.

[Salvijus]

"You believe in yourself? You're crazy!" 

This appies to self-love, self-respect, self-confidence etc. 

On 2019-04-04 at 8:10 AM, kieranperez said:

lost in fantasizing about being like other people. 

For instance, I’ll be thinking about being some great sage or something like Sadhguru because of how inspiring his impact is or

This is good. 

Sadhguru tauched on this briefly in the video I linked.

Edited April 5, 2019 by Salvijus

[ValiantSalvatore]

@kieranperez As far as techniques go that one could try. I did a cognitive behavioural therapy for a while, where one disputes one's beliefs. From a book from Leo's list, it is similar to the one from the LP course. 

For me it worked over a longer period of time doing that. Also, tong-leng for only 5min for a year or so, after each meditation session worked wonders. I also did not like myself a lot, I was quite self-destructive and resentful. Envy stoped and in genereal a more positive cognition emerged after tong-len/g. Same as positive body emotions. 

With loving kindness meditation, I do the version from shinzen young. I notice my behaviour and subtle feelings inside my body can change, yet especially cognition/internal chatter. I am not a person who idolizes since this technique includes it, so I have some struggles with that. Potentially, the "flaw" you perceive is your biggest asset in praticing a form of loving kindness that revolves around the concept of positive idealization. Anyway people react more positive and I am feeling a lot more neutral instead of frustrated and resentful. Also, vulnerabillity is more accesible, yet I do not express it as easily as others. 

I also ask myself a lot what can I do to improve the situation, be helpful towards the other person or be of service. Mainly because of Eckhart Tolles power of now audiobook. 

As you say that you struggle with evoking positive feelings. I'd say this is normal at the beginning, there are times where I can call positive feelings forward and other times, it is just some feeling of pleasentness floating inside. I find smiling aritifically difficult which helps with this technique.

Also, my go to mantra is I love and accept myself, because I find it difficult to be loving or warm towards others, when the emotion is absent and I dislike my self.

So, loving kindness, travel, fitness and mindfulness has made me a lot more self-accepting and confident. Also, music which makes me feel confident a lot, especially when young I feel it is extremely inpiring and confidence boosting.. Other things I did is warm to cold showers and nofap. + journaling about past pains to the degree where I am not writing words anymore + shadow work is just to univseral imo, it should not totally ignored. Also, volunteering. 

Hope this helps! 

Edited April 5, 2019 by ValiantSalvatore

[Equanimitize]

Keep chipping away Man

Don't beat yourself up because you are emulating mentors, this is healthy. Eventually, you will grow unto yourself and others will emulate you. It is all part of the process, everyone emulates everyone how else would we connect and how else would we have structure in order to live out our Dharma? No one shows up with their own unique operating system from day one. 

Just take it easy, often times we compare ourselves to some illusory ideal version of how we should be-thinking that they have it all together (shadow hugging). This I would say is part of the problem with the internet, it is very easy to think people are superstars in life by reading what they are typing on a forum or even by what they are saying in videos-when in reality their shit does in fact smell like shit.

You're young and you are ahead of the game. Keep working, you will breakthrough.  

[Bluebird]

Quote

With that said, self-esteem, confidence, faith, and self-love are definitely the things I really need to start with to at least get myself on the right track. I’m personally really distraught because I have no real vision at all anymore because I really don’t know at all what I want. What I want to master, how I truly want to impact the world, what I want to do with my life, etc. 

I love you man ❤️

Your first step in self-love is underway. Can you FEEL how much pressure you put on yourself to impact the world, do things right, have vision, feel a certain way, be the best (mimicking MJ), etc.

Part 1

Self-love is firstly an act of emotional release. Sit down and realise how cruel you are to yourself, you won't even let yourself feel the sadness/depression. You won't let yourself just be you, you're subconsciously spitting in your own face.

Sit there until you feel this, if you start to cry that's great, if not, that's great. The worse you feel here initially the better. Don't think, or let lost in thoughts here, just feel and maybe use thoughts to trigger the feeling if you start to lose it.

Put on some emotional music that you like to help get you going:

Part 2

Pull up a photo of yourself (maybe one you don't like, where you feel a little ugly). Then look at it and FEEL until you really grasp that deep down you do love yourself. Don't force it, it'll happen or it won't.

 

This is just based on my personal experience with developing self-love over the past few months.

Much love to you man ❤️

 

[kieranperez]

12 minutes ago, Bluebird said:

Pull up a photo of yourself (maybe one you don't like, where you feel a little ugly). Then look at it and FEEL until you really grasp that deep down you do love yourself. Don't force it, it'll happen or it won't.

I honestly do something similar to that. The times when my self acceptance gets going is when I naturally end up visualizing me as a little kid and I’m how I am now and I give love that little kid like crazy, and then (this is where it gets hard for me) is when I take the perspective of the little kid and I look at me now and then I give my current self love. The amount of shame I have to be willing to accept and love is a challenge for sure. When you’re so used to being ashamed you are of yourself for how you have nothing to show to yourself because you wanted to be something, you had this vow “I vowed I would NEVER become the very thing I have become. I wasn’t supposed to be this,” (I’m actually kinda tearing and choking up writing this to be honest) that’s the hardest thing in the world sometimes.

I tell you man, just getting 10% through that shell rips me open in the best way. It’s hard because as counter intuitive as it is, I don’t want to let my guard down. It’s one thing to know conceptually why I keep my guard up, it’s a totally other matter when you realize how obsessively dedicated you are to keep that shield up, even to your own detriment. 

[zambize]

What's one thing you admire about yourself?

[kieranperez]

@zambize my first answer that came to mind is that I’m still here.

Not the sense that I haven’t killed myself, but in the sense that I still have hope. There’s still some sort of fire there is something to do. 

I admire the fact that I haven’t sold out my highest intention since I was a kid. Not that my highest intention is to become fully awake or something like that. But there’s something higher for me and I know that’s there and I know that thing, whatever that is, is what matters most. 

I see a lot of people around me who have it better than me in their life circumstances than I do, are much more successful than me (pretty much all my friends in high school) and are already killing it but have no clue really where they’re going nor know what to really do. 

I think what inspired me so much about enlightenment and what not since the beginning and the whole notion of “becoming a sage” is that I saw ‘this is exactly the thing I was looking for my entire life’. 

[zambize]

3 minutes ago, kieranperez said:

@zambize my first answer that came to mind is that I’m still here.

Not the sense that I haven’t killed myself, but in the sense that I still have hope. There’s still some sort of fire there is something to do. 

I admire the fact that I haven’t sold out my highest intention since I was a kid. Not that my highest intention is to become fully awake or something like that. But there’s something higher for me and I know that’s there and I know that thing, whatever that is, is what matters most. 

I see a lot of people around me who have it better than me in their life circumstances than I do, are much more successful than me (pretty much all my friends in high school) and are already killing it but have no clue really where they’re going nor know what to really do. 

I think what inspired me so much about enlightenment and what not since the beginning and the whole notion of “becoming a sage” is that I saw ‘this is exactly the thing I was looking for my entire life’. 

That's awesome, I think part of me developing self-love was being willing to admit what I love about myself.  Like I don't know if I thought if I hid that stuff and kind of repressed those thoughts it would be less egoic?!?  I just wanted to make sure you are willing to say nice things about yourself, because there is a lot to say.  You give some of the most detailed answers, you're honest, you're practical, and more so than a lot of people on this site, you seem to actually try to help other people.  I think you gotta lot of stuff to love yourself for.  Errr I also remembered a tip!  Having more quiet times throughout the day will help you process a lot of emotions without having to do much work at all.  Just taking your headphones off on a walk somewhere, turning the car radio down, etc can help you work through a lot of negative emotions.  Also not having a lot of tabs open on your computer, basically you want to avoid multitasking too hard especially if you are an introvert.  This helped me sooooooooo much.  Just listening to quieter music and adding a bit of silence throughout the day (not even meditating just silence) has drastically improved my quality of life.  Also speaking from experience, you should do a more emotionally based meditation to work on numbness imo 

[kieranperez]

7 minutes ago, zambize said:

That's awesome, I think part of me developing self-love was being willing to admit what I love about myself.  Like I don't know if I thought if I hid that stuff and kind of repressed those thoughts it would be less egoic?!?  I just wanted to make sure you are willing to say nice things about yourself, because there is a lot to say.  You give some of the most detailed answers, you're honest, you're practical, and more so than a lot of people on this site, you seem to actually try to help other people.  I think you gotta lot of stuff to love yourself for. 

Man... that actually made me feel pretty good. Thank you man ❤️

7 minutes ago, zambize said:

Also speaking from experience, you should do a more emotionally based meditation to work on numbness imo 

The moment I read this I said inside “YES!” Recommendations?

[zambize]

4 minutes ago, kieranperez said:

Man... that actually made me feel pretty good. Thank you man ❤️

The moment I read this I said inside “YES!” Recommendations?

Yeah I'll just tell you what I do, I look for the most emotionally intense thing I am aware of, often this might be anxiety in my stomach for me.  It's kind of hard to explain the gentleness you have to have to kind of dissolve these emotions and work through them.  OHhh I got it, like that sense of relief you feel when something almost really bad happened but didn't and you kind of breathe out a sigh of relief and relax yourself after being really tense.  Yeah well try to like channel that or kind of do that into whatever the strongest emotion you're feeling is.  It could be self-hate/guilt etc, all you gotta do is keep kind of following the emotion around while channeling that kind of acceptance.  It's almost like you're hollowing out and reclaiming your nervous system one negative emotion at a time, so know that a lot of the stuff you will face is going to be really negative emotions, but all you gotta do is keeping letting go through it and it will disappears and you will feel like you reclaimed a bit of yourself.  Also I've noticed it helps to take pretty deep breaths from the stomach especially for this technique, but that might be because personally I feel most of my emotions in my estomago 

[kieranperez]

@zambize I’m still a little confused by that.

[zambize]

Just now, kieranperez said:

@zambize I’m still a little confused by that.

Ahhh fuck I'm on drugs so this is slightly harder.

Tell me this, if you just like close your eyes and try and let go of everything, any pain or sensations, like make your body completely limp and everything.  Anything you can possibly let go of, let go of, then tell me if you notice anything that's kind of hard to let go of, might seem like some tension, might feel like a boundary.  Can you feel yourself repressing anything or holding any particularly strong emotions back? Points of preassure?  What is your direct experience when you try to let everything go so much you feel like you are just going to shut off and die from letting go?