What would it be like to not worry about what others think of you? Or to no longer compare yourself to others, whether it’s about the clothes they wear, the car they drive, their job, career success, or their marital status?
What would it be like not to worry if you are making the “wrong” choice? What if you could live without self-doubt? What if you no longer had that persistent feeling of not liking yourself?
What if you could let go of nagging self-criticism — those voices in your head that clamor about how worthless or disorganized or stupid you are?
These hypothetical possibilities “come true” when you move from low self esteem to healthy self esteem.Healthy self esteem means you treat yourself as well as you treat your friends: when you make a mistake, you have compassion for yourself, rather than beating yourself up or calling yourself names.
Healthy self esteem means that when you express yourself – whether the words you say, the project you create, or the clothes you wear — you enjoy expressing what is true for you, and there is no inner comparison with imagined others, or an imagined ideal of perfection.
Healthy self esteem means you care for yourself. You cut yourself a break if you are tired, or if you’ve had a bad day. If you’re tired, you might take a nap. When you are hungry you feed yourself healthy food. If a situation or an environment is toxic to you, you find something else that can work better.
When you have healthy self esteem, you’re able to focus on the task at hand without being distracted by comparing yourself to others or thinking that what you are doing is all wrong.
Welcome to healthy self esteem! It’s a beautiful world!