tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7239140084937897595.post5530114039647957158..comments2023-10-19T10:26:30.108-04:00Comments on Yin and Yang: On Self-EsteemUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7239140084937897595.post-89772395085779918102007-11-16T13:13:00.000-05:002007-11-16T13:13:00.000-05:00Hi Kate,It can seem awfully difficult to give ones...Hi Kate,<BR/><BR/>It can seem awfully difficult to give oneself the "right to be happy" in general. At least for me, that blanket permission often feels overwhelming, even wrong...which of course is what needs to be overcome and so the vicious cycle continues. <BR/><BR/>But I try to circumvent it in smaller ways, increasing my self-esteem by applying lessons like the one you cited at the start: "In tests, low self-esteem individuals tend to underestimate or overestimate their abilities; high self-esteem individuals tend to assess their abilities realistically." If this is so, then the trick is to find something you do, something I do that I can evaluate realistically, that is to say, correctly and do so, out loud and preferably in someone else's presence.<BR/><BR/>Take jewelry-making, my present passion. I am passably good at it, and for someone who just started less than a year ago very good indeed. That is a realistic assessment. How do I know? Well, partly because I can see the results and like them (but I don't know that I am a good judge, do I?) but mostly because people keep stopping and looking and buying from me. That's a true test, that others like what I make enough to pay the prices I charge...They are judging me with their purses and so I can thereby evaluate my skills with some objectivity. Then I can pass it on to you in the form of higher self-esteem: I'm a pretty damned good necklace maker! :)<BR/><BR/>I can say something similar about writing poetry and writing in general, and through the same sort of mechanism. Both areas in which I have pockets of decent self-esteem, even though if you asked me, Are you a good person? I would never be able to answer with a blanket, Yes.<BR/><BR/>One can have areas of good self-esteem even within an overall sense of bleak self-hatred (believe me, I should know) but I think those areas of health can be cultivated, used to serve where low self-esteem has served before. Not sure how, but I don't see why, if low self-esteem can spread like a disease, high self-esteem can't also...I'm working on it and will let you know what happens.<BR/><BR/>Loved your post, as usual. You ALWAYS make me think, and thinking isn't always my first inclination! BD<BR/><BR/>Yours,<BR/><BR/>Pam WAnonymousnoreply@blogger.com