Self-Esteem: You Are Not Who You Think You Are
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"He sees a bright and creative little boy, who is very kind and caring. A loving little boy. A little boy who is funny and likes to laugh, and likes to make other people laugh."
"Is there anything wrong with this little boy? Anything inadequate or insufficient?"
"Oh no! He is a wonderful little boy."
"David, this is who you really are. You are not your performance. Your performance will come and go and at some point you might retire and not perform at all. Yet that does not mean that you are, therefore, worthless. Your worth is in who you are, not in what you do. Your worth in intrinsic."
David realized that, because of his highly critical and rejecting parents, he had always been trying to prove himself and always came up short in their eyes. As a result of seeing himself as unworthy and inadequate, he did not treat himself well. He treated himself the way his parents had treated him - with criticism and neglect. He was always trying to take care of everyone else, but rarely thought about taking care of himself. He was constantly abandoning himself emotionally, just as he had been emotionally abandoned by his parents.
"David, if you chose to see yourself as your grandfather saw you rather than how your parents saw you, how would you feel about yourself and how would you treat yourself?"
"I've just been thinking about that. I just realized that I treat my dog better than I treat myself! I would never judge my dog the way I judge myself."
"So what would you do differently if you saw yourself the way your grandfather sees you?"
"I would stop judging myself as insufficient and inadequate. I'm a really good person. I am not at all insufficient or inadequate as a person. And I choose my friends based on who they are as people - not on their performance. So I obviously value the very qualities that I possess!"
"What else would you do if you really valued who you are?"
"I would listen to my own feelings and take care of my own needs instead of taking care of everyone else's feelings and needs. I would no longer see it as selfish to take care of myself instead of taking care of everyone else. I would be at least as attentive to myself as I am to my dog!"
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