Love Your Self For No Reason

Psychologist Midrand

Self-Esteem

Women’s Day 2017!

Wednesday the 9th of August is International Women’s day.

I had some thoughts.

In the movie Gigi, which I saw about 100 years ago, Maurice Chevalier sang thank heaven for little girls.

I sing, thank heaven for the women that little girls become!

What is really fascinating to me is that so many men have written so many songs about how much they love women and how devastated they are when the woman rejects or leaves them and yet women are so judged by these very same men.

There is so much misogyny (woman hating) in the world – We see this most in the men who are most chauvinistic. Beneath this chauvinism lies a deep sense of inadequacy and vulnerability and to compensate for this, men need to control and dominate women. [Read more…] about Women’s Day 2017!

Murderous Thoughts

I am peeling the skin off of an organic carrot.

It’s a very small carrot and it’s hard to peel all of it because it is so short, holding it with one hand and trying to peel it with the other. I cut off the ends and start to peel and realize that cutting off the ends, before I’ve peeled it, has made it even shorter!!!

Spontaneously I call myself “stupid.”

It happens way too fast for me to even begin to think about stopping it.

The conditioning runs so deep.

The idea, the concept of “stupid” lurks in the darkness, waiting to obliterate the love inside of me.

Can I begin to let go of this toxic lie, that the concept of “stupid” exists as a fact.

Can I let go, more deeply than I ever have, from the depths of my being, until all that is left is the singing joy of my genius?

How to Recognise if You Have a Self-Esteem Issue.

One of the most fascinating things about Self-Esteem is that there is a group of people – usually very successful – who do have a Self-Esteem problem, but don’t recognise it.

Then there are the people who know very definitely that they struggle in this arena.

Regarding the former group who are very successful, I see these people in my office all the time.

They are fulfilled and successful in their work and they are making money and they have immense skills in this area but the skills and the success and the confidence that they have at many levels masks the lack of Self-Esteem underlying the success.

They come out of the meeting or a conflict situation or a negotiation that has been difficult and they’ve handled it well but there is a tightness and an anxiety and a noticing of aspects where they weren’t particularly skilful. The anxiety and the tension and the perfectionism reflects a lack of Self-Esteem. What further reflects this are the ruminations about what just happened.

You know those dialogues in your head, “I should have said this, I missed that, damn I could have said that better…”

This reflects a debilitating perfectionism, always having to be better. What you have just done is not good enough. [Read more…] about How to Recognise if You Have a Self-Esteem Issue.