Curse of Self Esteem

Read the entire manuscript

2010-11-12T08:05:00.001-08:00

Chapter Five: The Secret Power of Words

2009-11-19T12:39:00.000-08:00

“The Secret Power of Words”
To go to the Introduction Click Here

Words are important in shaping self-concept, especially “I” and “Am,” which are often followed by “no good at …”

I am no good at public speaking.

I am no good at using a computer.

I am no good at math.

I am no good at socializing.

This language is counter-productive since Private Logic is more firmly connected to today’s self-talk than yesterday’s influences.

In his landmark book, The Tyranny of Words, (1938) Stuart Chase contends that words have no meaning — individuals project meaning onto them. He substantiates his argument with the word communism. Your reaction to the word depends on your point of view and the meaning you project onto it.

Words can’t hurt you, but it is important to carefully choose your words. In my seminars, I suggest: “My parents weren’t poor; they just didn’t have a lot of money.” Poor is a label. Lack of money is often a temporary condition.

Labelling children as bad or good is mostly a thing of the past, but labels still persist. Calling people addicts implies that they are helpless victims. Every year thousands of people rid their lives of excessive drug use, shattering the theory that they “can’t help it.” Admitting they have a problem is the beginning of a long, tough road back, but labelling them as addicts may replace one dependency with another. A single word or phrase can influence the way a person reacts since:

Meaning is in people, not words.

A manager expressed dissatisfaction with an employee’s commitment telling me: “At 5:01 she’s in the parking lot. She’s not committed!” I asked. “Has she ever told you she was uncommitted?” “Of course not,” he replied, “but sometimes there is important work to do — and she just leaves.” Further investigation uncovered she is a single parent with a daughter to be picked up by 5:30 pm Given notice by noon, the mother was willing and able to stay and complete her work.

How do you feel about her level of commitment? Did your feelings change as you discovered the truth? Once her manager realized her situation, his view of her attitude changed. Check your thoughts. Do you attach meaning to other people’s behavior calling it their attitude? (Most of us do.)

The human mind is our final frontier — we can choose to boldly go where few minds have gone before! A friend and I play a word game especially when she gets frustrated with her fiancé. “He’s a jerk,” she says. “He is not a jerk,” I remind her: “He’s just acting like one.”

Here are a few more examples of mind-reading . . .

• I don’t like his/her attitude.

• He/she doesn’t care about anybody else.

• All they want is our money.

• People don’t want to work hard.

•She/he is arrogant.

• No one cares about quality.

• Companies don’t care about workers.

• Workers are lazy, greedy, and uncommitted.

Fight Back Action Tip #3

When you fall into the mind reading trap, remind yourself that you really don’t know another person’s motives—only their behavior. You could guess their motives, but before you do, remind yourself how often others make wrong guesses about your intentions and motives.
Mather’s Message:

“Everyone has one—no one is one.”
Labelling people as their behavior borders on being arrogant and ego-centered. People can change their behavior but cannot change the essence of who they are. Commit to letting go of a tendency to interpret what other’s think or mean and see what happens.

Consider how your thoughts deepen your emotional reactions:

• Just thinking about (that) makes me angry.

• I think he\she is such a pain in the neck.

• The mere thought of him/her makes me shiver.

• I’m getting a headache just thinking about it.

• When I think of that song, I feel warm all over.

• The thought of flying makes me nervous.

Close your eyes and concentrate on a person or specific event. How do you feel? It is possible to make yourself feel good or bad without any external input! Your body reacts, and strong feelings surface as your mind uses neurochemical impulses to stimulate the appropriate glands. These feelings are remembered physical experiences that happen in you, not to you. Reaction time is instantaneous, but understanding and accepting the view that your reactions are internal is a giant step towards self-discipline and emotional control. Consciously choosing your emotional reactions to life’s experiences involves training the Inner-Horse. Only you can change its deeply held beliefs, so let’s go to work on it!

Nothing illustrates the power of words better than Angie’s story. Her father is a police officer. She was so proud of her dad that she could hardly wait to show him off to her class. One day he visited her school and gave a terrific presentation. She beamed with pride, but after class, several students scoffed at the “Pig.” Angie raced home in tears. Her mother greeted her at the door and dried Angie’s tears, telling her: “If you make the pig the most beautiful creature in the world, when they call your dad a pig—it’s a compliment!” From that time on, Angie and her family used the pig as a symbol of beauty. Today, she proudly wears a Pig Pin. At her father’s promotion he wore a Porky Pig tie under his uniform. To this day he displays Miss Piggy prominently in his office, and Angie’s friends send her all kinds of interesting pig souvenirs.

“Sticks and stones may break my bones—

But words can never hurt me!” (Unless I choose to be hurt!)

Fight Back Action Tip #4

When words sting, remind yourself that words have no meaning. Meaning is in you, not words.

Some may say that recognizing you are in a mental battle and defending yourself with fight-back strategies, gives you an unfair advantage! Take it!

-------------------------------

Headache pain is a serious issue costing North American businesses more than 17 billion dollars in lost annual production. The Michigan Head Pain and Neurological Institute conducted a study revealing half of headache sufferers miss at least two days of work a month. Doctors tell us that headaches happen in us—not to us, but how many times have you heard “I feel myself getting a headache.”?

Consider this: If you own a headache you can disown it. (Remember, we are discussing pain resulting from overemotional reactions here, not physical conditions.) Joel Saper, the head of the Institute, says job stress is a contributing cause. (Does this sound familiar?) Headache sufferer’s pain is real and they are not, in my view, weak or stupid. I am hopeful that the application of the principles in this book gives them access to way of relieving excessive or unnecessary pain stimulated by self-esteem’s dirty tricks.

While it is easy to blame outside events for our stress, this mindset restricts our ability to manage overemotional reactions. When I express this point of view, some people get themselves upset (their Inner-Horse?) accusing me of insensitivity. On the contrary, I am very sympathetic to headache sufferers and strongly suggest they follow their medical professional’s advice and their own instincts. Physical pain requires medical attention, but doctors tell me even headaches caused by chemical imbalance are intensified by emotional factors. Giving yourself a headache rather than getting one puts you back in the saddle!

A man told me his coworkers and his “difficult” customers “gave” him ulcers. The ulcer was real. Once he accepted the truth—that it was his ulcer—he changed his behavior and the ulcer disappeared. Remember, he sought medical attention for the ulcer (a smart thing to do), but it disappeared when he accepted full responsibility for his over-emotional reactions.

If this seems bizarre, rest assured it is more common than you might think. The disappearing ulcer is the logical consequence of natural laws. The air around you is filled with radio and television signals, but you can’t benefit from the technology until you tune in to each frequency. Similarly, these principles of self-direction and emotional control are at your disposal, if and when you decide to tap into their power.

To Go to the Introduction click here

Chapter Four: Victimology

2009-10-20T20:42:00.001-07:00

To go to the Introduction Click Here

The popular press bombards us with verbal abuse stories and magazine articles citing “scientific” studies that indicate over eighty percent of our teenagers are sexually harassed. Further investigation uncovers the pollster’s working definition of harassment: “Unwanted attention, bumping up against a person in the hall, leering looks, etc.” This “research” contends calling a young woman a “dog” or “cow” is sexual harassment. While mean and disrespectful, this language is far from “sexual” harassment.

It’s discouraging to see how far from reality we’ve drifted. A six-year-old boy in Evansville, Illinois, was sent home the day after Valentines Day by a teacher who spotted the boy wishing a classmate a happy Valentine’s Day by kissing her on the back of the head. The teacher took him to the office and called the boy’s father, accusing the child of sexual harassment. The father asked the Dean of Student Services how something so ludicrous could happen. In reply to the question: “Do you think a six-year-old is capable of sexual harassment?” The Dean replied: “Certainly, I think a five-year-old is. We are personally liable in such cases.”

United States Senator Ted Kennedy endorsed his views: “You have first, second, and third grade harassers. You have kindergarten harassers. We’re reaching out and identifying them at the earliest grades, disciplining these individuals. As with every aspect of Health Care, early intervention can have a big impact.”

Physical abusers deserve appropriate punishment, but turning young people into helpless victims (of words) does more harm than good. Apparently most Canadians agree. A survey commissioned by the Ontario College of Physicians and Surgeons indicates that 54% of the public and 87% of physicians believe mandatory reporting should not apply to remarks, jokes, or gestures with sexual overtones. 80% of the public and 76% of doctors agree mandatory reporting should apply to sexual touching of a patient. College president Dr. Rachel Edney said that verbal cases present a “bureaucratic nightmare” hampering their capacity to handle complaints involving actual touching.

By muddying the water with vague and impossible to administer rules, we set up unnecessary victimization. Teaching young people appropriate responses to so-called abuses, kills the weed at its roots. Unfortunately Health Ministry officials disagree. A spokesperson responded to the Ontario study:
“Mandatory reporting of such behavior is important because it can serve as an alarm before the abuse becomes more severe.”

This sounds credible but misses the mark. It’s easy to feel abused when others use offensive language, but, to the surprise of self-esteem advocates, most so-called abusers back-off when confronted in a direct, calm, and assertive manner. An added bonus is that they respect those who stand up to them.

Let’s clarify an important distinction. Brainwashing in all its forms is harmful and wrong, but comparing verbal abuse to physical assault is equally obnoxious. All physical abuse is reprehensible. Sexual harassment is particularly hideous, especially as an abuse of perceived power. Unfortunately, there are those who want to turn the use of offensive language into criminal behavior, leaving abusive behavior unresolved by implying we can become the helpless victims-of words!

I object to symbolic solutions designed to make the person applying them feel good about themselves. Lasting solutions inoculate us against verbal attacks. Dr. Tana Dineen in her hard-hitting book Manufacturing Victims, makes a clear distinction between real and fabricated victims. Real victims, she suggests, did not choose to be raped, beaten, or tortured. On the other hand, fabricated victims choose their pain, injury, and trauma.

Self-esteem advocates contend that verbal abuse undermines our self-esteem, going so far as to suggest that most of us come from dysfunctional families! If you find this hard to believe, investigate Nathaniel Brandon’s “The Power of Self Esteem.”
“Most of us are children of dysfunctional families. I do not mean that most of us had alcoholic parents or were sexually or otherwise abused or that we grew up in an atmosphere of physical violence. I mean that most of us grew up in homes characterized by conflicting signals, denials of reality, parental lying, and lack of adequate respect for our mind and person. I am speaking of the average home.”
John Bradshaw, another popular self-esteem author and speaker contends that all of us come from dysfunctional families!

Parenting is tough enough without this heavy burden. What a thrill it is to observe most parents exercising personal responsibly by allowing their children to learn from minor mistakes, letting their children know they are special while holding them accountable for their reaction to life’s seemingly “unfair” events.

To Go To Chapter Five Click Here

To Go To The Introduction Click Here

Chapter Three: Inside-Out

2009-10-16T11:19:00.000-07:00

To go to the Introduction Click Here

Hang on to your belief system—you are about to challenge deeply held core beliefs! Even if you initially resist these ideas, objectively compare them to your own life experiences. As humans, we tend towards projecting meaning onto things. While this, in and of itself, is not bad, when carried to an extreme, it leads to highly undesirable consequences. At worst, we tend to advance our interpretation of events to the level of “that’s the way it is for everyone.”

Three common false beliefs illustrate the depth of our deception. Reread these beliefs several times. One pass through the brain is not enough!

Lie One: Poverty Causes Crime

Often, this contention is repeated with an air of authority. At a press conference, the then U.S. Surgeon General announced that poverty is the root cause of crime. Excuses supporting this assumption include:

“Their background, environment, unfortunate experiences, lack of education, lack of opportunity...are the causes of…”

This flawed belief is easily disputed. If poverty causes crime, everyone brought up in less than desirable financial conditions would eventually engage in criminal activity. This just isn’t so.

Years ago, the Canadian Government relocated an Indian reservation, but some families refused to move. My father, an ordained minister, traveled by rail to conduct services and provide what help he could, including distributing donated clothing. I can still hear him telling me:

“David, if you give this clothing away at no price, you rob people of their self-respect. These are proud individuals who deserve to be treated with dignity.” People exchanged work or small amounts of money for the clothing, retaining their precious self-respect.

Wearing ribbons, spending a night sleeping on the streets etc. may help the person performing these acts feel good about themselves (a suspiciously familiar concept) but these symbolic acts do little to solve real problems. Sadly, such “symbolism over substance” actions tend to disrespect those they are designed to “help.”

Underprivileged individuals can, and do, rise above their circumstances. Poverty, in and of itself, is not the root cause of criminal behavior.

Poverty does not cause crime— criminals do!

Lie Two: He/She Makes Me Angry

I know you recognize this one. A person says or does something and you get angry insisting they are the cause of your distress. Thank goodness this isn’t true. Your feelings are related to their behavior, but they are not automatic, involuntary responses.

What if, in a personal relationship, one partner suggests the relationship would work better if the spouse would just change one tiny annoying characteristic? How might the other respond? Here’s an all too common reaction:

“If you don’t love (like, accept) me for who I am—forget it! This is me. If you don’t like it, there’s the door!”

Here’s another common scenario. A boss verbally attacks an employee, who then storms out of the room. Obviously, the angry outburst caused this reaction—right? No. Under similar circumstances, some people retaliate verbally or physically, while others file formal complaints. These distinctly different reactions indicate there is no direct cause-effect connection between anger and another person’s inappropriate behavior.

Many people believe strong emotions are normal biological body responses of varying intensity experienced by everyone. Your reaction is your responsibility. Blowing off steam may help you feel better, but it doesn’t change your perception that the world (and the people in it) must act as you demand. Wallowing in anger’s mud bath leaves you vulnerable. Changing your beliefs about anger frees you from the Inner-Horse’s childish nonsense. (“He/she shouldn’t do/say that!”) Yes, they should – because they did! Later we’ll expand on this somewhat controversial contention.

Lie Three: You Hurt My Feelings

Can people really hurt your feelings? No. If you doubt this, study the lives of those imprisoned, beaten, or tortured. Search out and read Viktor Frankl’s powerful Man’s Search For Meaning. In Nazi concentration camps, despite unbelievable treatment, many people including Frankl, retained their precious self-respect. Surely we can live by the axiom: Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words can never hurt me.

Here’s a sample of Frankl’s insight:

“In the concentration camp every circumstance conspires to make the prisoner lose his hold. All the familiar goals in life are snatched away. What alone remains is ‘the last of human freedoms’—the ability to ‘choose’ one’s attitude in a given set of circumstances.” 16

In a free society, others have the right and freedom to speak their mind, but you don’t have to accept their opinion. Feedback from others is useful, but be careful of its source. If you’ve been involved in an event reported by the press, you know the importance of evaluating the source of information. In spite of reporters’ attempts at objectivity, they do have a point of view (Private Logic.) I worked in several newsrooms and found most newscasters sincere in their efforts to be objective, but they had strong personal feelings, and this background showed up in their work.

An attendee at one of my seminars blamed her lack of enthusiasm on her father. (He died ten years before.) There is no doubt he influenced her, but, since he is unable to reconsider his actions, don’t you think its time she took over?

Does this contention sound familiar?

“It’s not my fault. He/she made me so mad that I just couldn’t concentrate. I was so stressed out that I got this terrific headache and couldn’t think clearly.”

Claiming this kind of helplessness is an easier position to take than fully accepting personal responsibility. Some workers even negotiate stress days taking time off from the pressures of their jobs. Rest and relaxation makes sense, but allowing people to label workload as the cause of their anxiety deflects them from fully accepting personal responsibility. Workload does not cause stress. (This is an important distinction.)

Freedom to take risk and suffer the consequences of our behavior is the cornerstone of a free society. Unfortunately there are those who advocate feeling good about themselves—even if it means giving up their freedom to succeed and/or fail. Some self-esteem advocates go so far as to blame imaginary villains for clearly self-inflicted problems. Their favorite is the inner child.

Dr. Ellis says it best: “The only person with an inner child is a pregnant woman!” No one but you can hurt your feelings; therefore the wounded child is a masochist! I like the inner child concept as an analogy but not as an excuse for inappropriate behavior.

During the VE-Day 50th anniversary commemoration, one veteran said: “Years ago we didn’t know we had an inner child and if we did, we’d send it to bed without supper.”

Some people get themselves upset at this kind of talk, but I contend that we are not helpless victims of the past. Today’s behavior is the result of today’s decisions, even if we are strongly influenced by the past.

Some professional football players have fallen victim to self-esteem’s seductive blame game. The day before a game where the Miami Dolphins played the Buffalo Bills, linebacker Bryan Cox commented on his hatred for Buffalo fans setting him up as a target. Cox filed suit against the National Football League, claiming racial discrimination prompted him to drink heavily and lose his intensity. Quoted in the Palm Beach Post he said: “For the first nine games you saw Bryan Cox playing with emotion and kicking butt. But for the last five games you saw a person who was just out there.” The NFL fined Cox $10,000 for using obscene gestures, but his attorneys contended the NFL forced Cox to play in a “racially hostile” environment. (Later, the commissioner reduced the fine to $3,000.) This and many similar stories, illustrate the ramifications of self-esteem’s dirty tricks. Cox is entitled to exercise his legal right to hold others accountable for their behavior, but it seems excessive to blame the Buffalo fans for his “loss of intensity and focus.”

Fifty years ago in Escape From Freedom, Erich Fromm wrote:

“Escape From Freedom is an analysis of the phenomenon of man’s anxiety...After centuries of struggles, man succeeded in building an undreamed-of wealth of material goods; he built democratic societies in parts of the world, and recently was victorious in defending himself against new totalitarian schemes, yet,...modern man still is anxious and tempted to surrender his freedom to dictators of all kinds, or to lose it by transforming himself into a small cog in the machine, well fed, and well clothed, yet not free but an automaton.”

Fromm clearly describes today’s world:

“In recent decades ‘conscience’ has lost much of its significance. It seems as though neither external nor internal authorities play any prominent role in the individual’s life. Everybody is completely ‘free,’ if only he does not interfere with other people’s legitimate claims. But what we find is rather that instead of disappearing, authority has made itself invisible. Instead of overt authority, ‘anonymous’ authority reins. It is disguised as common sense, science, normality, public opinion...It is like being fired at by an invisible enemy. There is nobody and nothing to fight back against.” 17

Fromm’s insight is eerie since much of today’s conventional wisdom is based on self-esteem’s flawed assumptions.

Don’t blame yourself for things over which you have no control. You are not responsible for other people’s feelings or reactions—just your own.

In case you assume I am endorsing insensitive behavior, consider this: In Saved By The Light, Dannion Brinkley describes how, after being struck by lightning, he was declared clinically dead. He vividly relived his life in an instant (a common phenomenon) with an unusual twist. He viewed it from the other person’s point of view, feeling their pain in response to his behavior. Whether his experience was “real” is not my point. He certainly offers a chilling perspective.

Contending we are not responsible for other people’s feelings doesn’t give us the right to ignore the impact our behavior has on them. Confucius said: “The best people foster the good in others, not the bad. The worst people foster the bad in others, not the good.”

Treating each person as if our actions make them feel bad or good is fine as long as we avoid the arrogant position that we are responsible for their feelings. This may seem like a minor distinction, but it keeps us from inadvertently treating others with disrespect.

Chapter Four: Click Here

Introduction: Click Here

Chapter Two: Mind Games

2009-10-04T11:04:00.001-07:00

Click Here to go to the index page

Pain is part of any growth experience, but unnecessary suffering adds no value to your life. No one gives you extra credit for enduring unnecessary grief. Tragically, a great deal of emotional suffering is avoidable, since it is the direct result of self-esteem’s flawed logic.

People in Great Britain drive on the left side of the road but, visitors from North America proclaim:
“These people drive on the wrong side of the road! This doesn’t feel right!”

Motorists in Great Britain drive on a different side of the road. This experience doesn’t feel right to foreign drivers; therefore, to them, it must be wrong! But everything that feels wrong isn’t always wrong—just different. This is a distinction that most people never make. They simply trust their feelings as if they all come from the same source. (They don’t.) Would you allow a five-year-old child to drive your automobile? Of course not, but some people allow a five-year old to run their lives.

I’m amused when people say the mind is like a computer. Really? Which came first? Unfortunately, most of us operate man-made machines better than we use our minds. Imagine how many more digital recorders would be flashing 12:00 if there were no instruction booklet. Our mind comes without printed instructions, and we have different opinions on how to best utilize our mind power. Invariably most of us fall into the trap of replaying old experiences and the strong feelings attached to them.

During sporting events, when a player misses a scoring opportunity, my wife and I yell out: “They’ll score on the replay!” They never do. Our mental replays aren’t so accurate. Remember my public speaking example? I replayed experiences when I least needed them. In the process of trying to overcome my panic, those old memories resurfaced. Worse still, my body recreated the appropriate physiological conditions (sweaty palms, increased heart rate, nausea, quivering muscles, flushed face etc.), and my mind responded to those “feelings” with panic. Happily, this cycle can be broken.

Habits form through repetition, but replacing old habits seems hard. This leads to beliefs such as:

• You can’t teach an old dog new tricks.
• People resist anything new.
• There is a natural resistance to change.

Careful scrutiny tells a different story. We do not resist all change—just changes we believe are forced upon us. Changing habits, as difficult as it may seem, is well within our control. Imagine having to constantly relearn every habit—dressing yourself, finding your way to work, making coffee, etc. What a nightmare! The problem isn’t your mind’s capacity to develop different habits—it’s accepting how habits form and changing them by choice.

We tend to confirm familiar positions rather than accept new ones or, as one philosopher put it, “Most people don’t change their mind; they just rearrange their prejudices.” Understanding and accepting this human tendency is the first step toward consciously replacing irrational fears with constructive alternatives.

My grandfather delivered milk in a horse-drawn wagon, and he told me that once the horse knew the route, it was hard to change its programming. In fact, the horse wouldn’t move until it thought the milk was delivered. Imagine riding a horse to work. You trot along to an intersection where you used to turn right, and now you want to go left. You pull on the reins and the horse resists. You pull harder the horse resists even more. The habit side of your mind operates just like a trained horse.

In The Greatest Power in the Universe, U.S. Andersen writes about our two minds: “The subconscious mind is the horse, and the conscious mind is the rider, and the horse does what the rider tells it to, and any rider can take over the horse, but without a rider, the horse acts crazy.”

The habit side of your mind (I call it the “Inner-horse”) has a distinct advantage—it controls emotions. When intellect and emotions cross, emotions win every time. That’s why knowing the cause of your fears is of little value. Emotions are like finances. Most people have opinions about money-management, and intend to do something about their financial future—but many fail to act on those intentions. Bank accounts grow through money management, not intentions!

Emotional management is equally straightforward and action-oriented. Knowing how to manage emotions is not enough. Until you translate your intentions into action, nothing changes. The Inner-horse wins. Unfortunately, your Inner-horse uses strange logic and flawed assumptions. Most of us let the “Inner-horse” (overemotional reactions) take over.

John G. Geier, Ph.D., co-author of The Energetics Of Personality, coined the phrase Private Logic—our “makes-sense” system. People create their own little world and behave sensibly towards it. I have a friend whose idea of relaxation is inviting friends over for a party. To me, unwinding is spending time with a small group of close friends or, better still, curled up with a good book. How many times have your friends told you about a terrific movie, enthusiastically suggesting: “You’ll love it!”? You go to see it and leave holding your nose in disgust. This is Private Logic! We see life our way. As much as we “know” this, many of us act shocked when others see things differently and behave accordingly.

For example, an executive attends a weekend retreat climbing rocks, ropes, and paddling a canoe down a raging river proclaiming: “What a great team building experience. We’re all going! It’ll be terrific!” Shocked when others respond unenthusiastically, the executive labels people as “negative,” “resistant to change,” or “a poor team player.”

In my vocabulary, good and sweat do not go together. To me, it’s an oxymoron. Objective opinion is another oxymoron. While most of us try to see both sides, we all have a distinct point of view.

Other people’s fears seem strange to us, and psychology’s quest for a deep-rooted causes often ends in disappointment. In fact, some professionals view some panic disorders simply as misinterpretations of normal body sensations.

Reread this important statement:

“Many panic disorders are misinterpretations of normal body sensations.”

With this in mind, here is the first in a series of simple, action-oriented fight-back strategies designed to help you counter self-esteem’s dirty tricks.

At first, it may be necessary to have this conversation after the panic subsides.

Here are examples of “killer” phrases and their alternatives:

• My back is killing me!
Substitute: My back feels sore.

• He/she is a pain in the (body-part of your choice.)
Substitute: I’m reacting to...

• I’m all stressed out!
Substitute: My demanding programming is...

• I am angry.
Substitute: I am getting myself upset.

• I can’t think straight.
Substitute: My reactions are clouding my thinking.

• I have to succeed.
Substitute: I want to succeed, but I don’t have to.

• I can’t do this!
Substitute: I’m having trouble doing this.

By strongly disputing negative or exaggerated self-talk, you significantly reduce negative stress while accepting full responsibility for choosing your emotional reactions. Please don’t let the simplicity of this idea fool you. That which appears simple may not be easy. What may be easy to do is also easy not to do.

When I was a boy, my friends played a game where we asked a person to study a room filled with obstacles such as tin cans, chairs, tables, etc. We blindfolded them and quietly removed the objects. Our “victim” carefully avoided objects that were no longer there—vividly illustrating the famous quote: “We have nothing to fear but fear itself.”

Even though your “Inner-horse” tells you: “This approach is cold-blooded and unemotional,” applying this simple procedure uses strong emotions to challenge the human tendency to pander to immediate gratification. If and when irrational fears strike, covert them into manageable concerns, responding in a way that is constructive and practical. Repeated application of this technique creates, by choice, new and different habits of thinking.

What comes out of your mouth represents your thinking. Your thinking creates your actions. Your actions produce results. Change what comes out of your mouth (even spoken in your head), and you gain access to creating new behaviors, giving you access to new and different results.

Emotions are not you. They are predetermined responses based on old thinking habits. Thinking and acting like a helpless victim is a dangerous habit and one of the many negative by-products of today’s system of self-esteem.

Joseph Wolpe works with people to overcome irrational fears by changing their behavior—not uncovering some supposedly deep-rooted cause. He routinely cures people in several weeks, not years.

In 1988, David Clark, an Oxford psychologist, proved that many panic disorders are simply misinterpretations of bodily sensations brought on by anxiety. Under mental stress, a faster heartbeat and shortness of breath are caused by over breathing—not symptoms of a heart attack. Using sound medical information, panic-stricken individuals can learn this important distinction and stop escalating harmless feelings into full-blown panic attacks. This technique produces a 90% cure rate, while for some users miracle drugs come with a host of undesirable side-effects.

The body does not analyze; therefore, using your mind in concert with your body is an effective (and intended) use of your faculties. Unfortunately some of us allow our bodies to dominate our thinking. Failing to choose and create our own feelings turns us into robots—automatons—the very outcome most of us fear!

Managing self-talk begins our journey beyond self-esteem towards creating the life we choose!

Go To Chapter Three: Click Here

Welcome

2009-09-24T13:07:00.000-07:00

Welcome to the curse of self-esteem or Creating the Life You Choose. I began this post based on a desire too offer a viable alternative to the "self-esteem" approach to life and business. Our goal is to shine the light of truth on the philosophical base of the movement and offer a viable, constructive, and practical alternative.

If you're new to this blog, please begin by clicking below. To make it easy to follow - we've put the chapters in order.
Thanks for visiting. Please let us know you were here and give us your feedback.

Dave Mather

Introduction: Click Here

Chapter One: Click Here

Chapter Two: Click Here

Chapter Three: Click Here

Chapter Four: Click Here

Chapter Five: Click Here

Click Here to go to Chapter One

Find me on LinkedIn

Email Me:

Chapter One: The Curse of Self-Esteem

2009-09-21T09:08:00.000-07:00

Click here to go to the index page

“The Curse of Self-Esteem or What’s wrong with the Feel Good Movement?”. . .
Cover of Newsweek Magazine

When the National Council for Self-esteem asked one hundred teachers to define self-esteem, they gave 27 distinctly different definitions. Imagine if you asked a thousand teachers! After weeks of careful deliberation, the Council defined self-esteem as: “The experience of feeling that you are worthy of happiness and capable of managing life’s challenges.”

A prominent self-esteem advocate, Nathaniel Branden explains:
“Self-esteem . . . is an intimate experience; it resides in the core of our being. It is what I think and feel about myself, not what someone else thinks or feels about me.”

Self-esteem issues develop when children learn (incorrectly) that there is a direct cause-effect relationship between outside influences and their emotions. They make this assumption after hearing statements such as: “She/he makes me angry” or “That makes me sad.” Educators reinforce this false perception by teaching a distorted view of self-esteem. I suppose they feel that if they don’t do this our children won’t “get it.” Unhealthy comparisons such as: “Why can’t you sit quietly like other children?... You’re so clumsy ... Don’t be so emotional ... You shouldn’t feel that way ... You’re hyperactive ... You have a short attention span.” ... serve to reinforce a child’s insecurity.

Even positive reinforcement from a feel-good-about-yourself perspective leads young people astray. We have swung the pendulum too far, as illustrated by a public school principal in Ohio who said teaching children two plus two could equal five protects their precious self-esteem. (Give me a break!)

Bill Bennett, former United States Education Secretary, quotes an international study of 13 year olds given a standardized math test. Researchers asked each student to predict the results. On the test, Korean students did best, Japanese students second, and Americans last. However, the American students predicted they would be number one, while Korean and Japanese students placed themselves lower than their actual scores.
When feeling good about yourself (self-esteem) replaces striving to be the best you can be (competence), standards decline. In the past thirty years, SAT scores have dropped at least seventy-five points! What’s going on here? I thought feeling good about yourself improved performance? Apparently not.

The good news is that we can expose the damage done by the system of self-esteem and learn to defend ourselves against its dirty tricks.

In my early school days, I was doing a math problem on the blackboard when my teacher yelled out: “Mather, you’re better than that, now smarten up!” My throat went dry, my face got red—I couldn’t think. I stumbled through oral book reports feeling foolish as I felt my face turn bright red. My hands shook and a strange quiver appeared in the muscles of my right leg. I panicked. For years I mentally replayed these and similar experiences. My current behavior was based on mentally revisiting these old feelings thousands of times. I gave myself plenty of unnecessary grief. Who says getting an algebra question wrong or losing your place in a memorized speech is making a fool of yourself? (I did!) I made a giant leap of faith by attaching my panic to the act of speaking in public and from that decision on, I avoided public speaking like the plague. Those around me supported my fears by assuring me I was not alone.

Many people go through life creating similar, unnecessary panic. There are those who desperately look for painless ways to overcome similar fears by attending one-day public speaking seminars conducted by so-called experts. Participants know they won’t be asked to speak at these meetings, which pander to their fears. Organizers base these seminars on a flawed model of self-improvement contending: “Until you know why you are afraid, you cannot overcome your fears.”

Nathanial Branden suggests:
“... the therapist’s chief task is to make the patient aware of the psycho epistemological processes by which his values and goals were chosen... The patient has to be led to understand in what ways his initial default on the responsibility of independence generated the sense of insecurity ... Is the patient’s understanding of the nature and origins of his problems all that is required to produce a cure? The answer is: No, it is not all that is required; it is essential, but is only a first step.”

Are you confused? So am I. Read that quote again, slowly this time … (Okay, if you’ve read it more than twice—move on.)
Sadly, uncovering the underlying cause of our distress still leaves us with the task of dealing with our panic and, worse still, deflects us from the responsibility of developing genuine competence.

Medical experts express concern over the administration of drugs to ostensibly deal with these psychological problems. Even more disturbing is the practice of subjecting young children to powerful drugs. Imagine a child, difficult to handle, drugged while sitting in a classroom. I know there are those who challenge this kind of talk, so here is the opinion of Dr. Richard Bromfield, Ph.D., of the Harvard Medical School. He calls the drug Ritalin “wildly over prescribed,” and suggests that drugs treat only symptoms, not underlying causes. He explains: “Medication becomes a badge of helplessness. How can a child develop the capacity to control himself while the prescription’s strong message is he can’t?”

Responsibly prescribed drugs do seem to help some children, but doctors are concerned about their side effects. Labelling children as helpless or somehow backward is highly irresponsible. With confusing data on both sides of the issue—what are parents to do? There may be a reasonable alternative.

Suppose I am afraid of water and won’t learn to swim. I have all the symptoms —sweaty palms, queasiness, flushed face and the mere thought of swimming panics me. I rationalize that I really don’t want to learn how to swim. Secretly, I feel foolish. Is it necessary to understand why I am afraid? No! Even if I succeeded in enhancing my self-esteem, I’m still left with the issue of learning how to swim! What I need is a qualified swimming instructor. Does he\she need to know why I am afraid? No. Since I cannot effectively coach myself, it is important that my coach knows how to teach me to swim.

Unfortunately, self-esteem psychology permeates amateur sports coaching. Experienced coaches know better, but rookie coaches fall into the trap of wanting to protect a player’s fragile self-esteem. Don’t misunderstand; I’m not endorsing cruel, over-critical, or over-demanding coaching, but self-esteem’s feel-good-about-yourself philosophy stifles the development of high-level competency.

A Canadian Olympic gold medalist told me that expert coaching (including direct suggestions for improvement) was instrumental in his journey towards world-class performance. This swimmer disliked his coach’s demeanour but under his tutelage improved faster than ever, eventually winning a Gold Medal.

Think back to your favourite coach. Were they tough or easy? I had a football coach who, after telling us to do three laps, yelled: “One more lap.” We’d moan and groan, but we did the laps. He pushed us knowing we’d need reserve energy during the game. He pushed us farther than we believed we could go.

Recently I spotted this headline:
COACHES TEACH YOUNG BOYS TO PLAY BALL AND TO FEEL GOOD ABOUT THEMSELVES.

Intrigued, I read further. One coach said: “We all have to do our best. It’s just fair and the way it should be. It doesn’t mean being better than anyone else. It just means doing your best...”
He told reporters that yelling parents aren’t tolerated and no one gets berated or humiliated for goofing up. No player is ever isolated because of what they’ve done on the field. Cheering is welcome, but no temper tantrums.. These coaches allocate playing-time by using the most competent players during crucial points in a game. Team members accept this—and there’s no whining! Contrast this with fairness doctrines insisting on equal playing time. Except with very young children who need playing time to develop basic skills, equal time robs players of the motivation to earn their place on the team. Effective coaches avoid unfair comparisons and motivate players to be the best they can be by building competence not self-esteem.
Sports is just one of self-esteem’s many victims. Some educators, apparently oblivious to their responsibility of preparing students for a competitive world, fall for its twisted logic. One school baseball league actually eliminated scoring altogether. (Do you think the players kept score anyway? You bet!)

So-called fairness doctrines stress equal outcome not equal opportunity. This is the promise of “outcome-based education” which sounds harmless, until you investigate its roots—self-esteem! You can’t guarantee equal outcome without significantly lowering standards. Lowering standards just to make things “fair” is a knee-jerk reaction. When choosing sides in school sports, I was always one of the last players chosen. Granted, I felt badly about it, but this only served to convince me that a professional sports career was probably not an option.
Ironically, flawed self-esteem logic sets up unrealistic and dangerous comparisons. If you think beating someone in a skills competition makes you a better person (self-esteem), you mislead yourself. If I’m better than you at math, I’m better at math—and that’s it! Comparing your peformance to someone else’s performance invites feelings of inadequacy. This phenomenon is the system of self-esteem at its worst. Your achievements do not make you a special or less than special person.

In the Broadway show A Chorus Line, dancers line up with their 8x10 glossies singing: “I am not my résumé!” You are not what you do. You are YOU. A hit song says it best “No one can compare to you!” As Wayne Dyer puts it: “If you are what you do, when you don’t—you aren’t!”
I was invited to speak to a local networking support group of a hundred or so unemployed executives. They found the I am not my résumé concept particularly enlightening. A government agency had provided them with self-esteem tapes ostensibly to help them better cope with being “downsized.” Most of these people didn’t know what hit them. For years they believed they were their résumés.

Our local paper published an article exposing this gross misuse of government funds. Unemployed people deserve better treatment, but so far nothing has changed. One city spent over three-quarters of a million dollars on this stuff. The scam continues!
It may feel good to allow emotions to run our lives but developing genuine self-direction means choosing constructive rather than destructive thought patterns. Genuine courage involves making choices most likely to attract the results you truly desire.

Here’s Dr. Albert Ellis’s advice*. “Imagine that you are performing something remarkably well . . . Let yourself feel very happy about this accomplishment. Now observe your happy feeling. Is it only a feeling of being happy about your performance? Or do you also—be honest now—feel great about you, about yourself, about your whole being? . . . If you do feel like a noble, superhuman, holier than thou person, you are then, according to RET, experiencing an inappropriate positive feeling. For you are then in a grandiose, egotistical state. You have jumped from the idea that “My behavior is outstanding” to “I am therefore an outstanding, great person.”

* Albert Ellis How To Stubbornly Refuse To Make Yourself Miserable About Anything
Carol Publishing Group

Sidebar: The term patient bothers me. (Ellis and Schaef use client.) If a person acts the way others think they shouldn’t, does this make them sick? The power doctors have over their patients is awesome as illustrated by a disturbing experiment. In 1973 several mental health professionals presented themselves at various hospitals declaring that they “felt empty” or “hollow” (bad about themselves?) Hospitals admitted them for periods of seven to fifty-two days. All were diagnosed with various illnesses but acted normally once admitted. One of the participants, Dr. D.L. Rosenhan, professor of psychology and law at Stanford University said: “We continue to label patients schizophrenics, manic-depressives, and insane, as if those words had captured the essence of understanding... We have known for a long time that our diagnoses are not reliable or useful, but we nevertheless continue to use them.”

Go To Chapter Two: Click Here

Find me on LinkedIn
Email Me:

Introduction: Curse of Self Esteem

2009-09-11T11:32:00.001-07:00

Click Here to go to the index page

It seems everyone wants to improve the quality of his or her life. Unfortunately there are those who invest time, effort, and money on self-improvement and fail. Dieters regain the weight they lose—plus a few new pounds. Worriers try positive thinking—until panic strikes again and again. Thousands more join health clubs and then quit. Others buy expensive exercise machines, eventually hiding them away in closets—out of sight, out of mind. Most of these people think they have “low self-esteem.”

Fixing self-esteem (feeling good about ourselves) is a national obsession and multi-million dollar industry. Talk shows extol the virtues of self-esteem, and dozens of self-esteem books and tapes are published each year. Schools invest hundreds of hours and millions of dollars indoctrinating children to feel good about themselves.

The modern system of self-esteem has its dark side. Falling SAT scores and dependent, over-socialized students who afraid to approach a person of the opposite sex because they fear charges of sexual harassment are only a few of the side-effects of a misguided application of the system of self-esteem. Influenced by self-esteem rhetoric, educators reject marks and grades contending poor grades make students feel “bad about themselves.” Eliminating test scores robs students of important points of progress. As every young student knows (and will tell you, if asked) keeping track of your batting average is essential in baseball. What is wrong with keeping score in academic endeavors?

When I was a student, my father taught me to look up the answers to questions I had missed. He said I’d remember them long after I forgot what I studied in cram sessions. Most of today’s students seem unaware of this strategy. When I asked a young woman who got seven out of ten on a test, “Did you look up the answers to other questions?” she answered“What for? I got my mark.”

Fortunately, not all teaching professionals align with the self-esteem movement. Leslie Katz, president of the National Association for the Education of Young People, is quoted in Newsweek as saying: “I’m getting sick of the empty slogans.”

Today’s early self-esteem “training” tends towards symbolism over substance with banners, awards, recognition, gold stars, and happy face stickers. This obsession with self-esteem is difficult to challenge since it all seems so harmless. What could be wrong with helping people feel good about themselves? Plenty! If students take their self-esteem “training” too seriously, it leaves them ill prepared for a competitive business environment. Discouraged new employees blame the system, job pressures, or management for their distress. After years of handing in test papers and waiting for their marks, students expect similar feedback from their manager. In the workplace feedback is inconsistent at best—except during uncomfortable performance appraisals. When given feedback about job performance, many young employees react as if it were a personal attack. This renders them helpless when attempting to significantly improve their performance. Their negative reaction to this new environment create unnecessary stress and feelings of hurt, anger, and/or depression.

The Self-esteem Scam was the working title for this book. A scam is a con—a trick. However, all scams are not perpetrated on unsuspecting or helpless victims. Weekend tennis, hockey, baseball, football, squash and soccer players buy expensive equipment in the mistaken belief that wearing the best equipment will somehow improve their performance. Celebrity endorsements capitalize on this human frailty. Advertising, no matter how clever, cannot fool an enlightened audience. If there is a scam, it’s the one individuals perpetrate on themselves. Deep down, they know Michael Jordan shoes or Wayne Gretsky hockey sticks don’t guarantee improved performance—but, somehow, they wish they would.

Babies eat tasteless, mushy food, and youngsters have training wheels on their bicycles, but eventually they grow out of them. It’s equally important we grow out of our need for self-esteem.

Today’s system of self-esteem panders to intellectual laziness and narcissism. Feeling like a winner is not the same as being one. Creating the life you choose means emphasizing actions over rhetoric and leaving self-esteem’s stars, ribbons, banners, and slogans behind.

After exposure to the principles in this book, one person’s reaction was: “You are disputing something I have tried to live for twenty years. It’s part of our culture. It’s hard to accept that it may be flawed. If you’re right—that’s scary.”

As frightening as a different way of thinking seems, perhaps I have stimulated your curiosity with bold challenges to conventional “wisdom.” That’s my expectation—to shine the light of truth on the system of self-esteem, exposing its weaknesses and offering constructive strategies to counteract its negative impact.

Consider this perspective. If you hold something in high esteem, you place it above something else. The goal of self-esteem is to determine how worthwhile you are. Ask yourself: “How worthwhile am I? What is my level of self-esteem? How did I arrive at my decision?” Individuals are unique; therefore, all comparisons are flawed. However, today’s system of self-esteem suggests (incorrectly) that in order to determine your level of self-esteem, you must compare yourself to others or, worse still, compare yourself to an unrealistic idea of what you should be. The self-esteem movement denies this, but to esteem something means placing it above something else. This gives self-esteem its sting and accounts for plenty of emotional pain and suffering.

Some people arrive at their opinion of themselves by comparing accomplishments; others work hard at getting people to like them. Feelings of inadequacy, hurt, anger, and depression immobilize them creating unnecessary pain and suffering—all based on lies!

In Final Analysis, Jeffrey Masson says: “At a theoretical level, I wasn’t sure I could believe that one could develop “character” by simply having a good model, by imitation, as it were.”

When I read that, I almost cheered out loud! Studying successful people is a good idea, but comparing yourself as a person to a role model crosses the fine line between admiration and unrealistic comparisons. If you engage in such comparisons, you’ll end up feeling bad about yourself. Relationships crumble, ambitions shatter, and the blaming begins. “If only....” (You know the script!)

Traditional psychology offers little help. People live with their frustrations anxiously awaiting enlightenment. Compare psychology to technology. Today we have access to faster and more powerful computers, but where are the breakthroughs in psychology?

In Behavior: The Control of Perception, William T. Powers says: “Psychology in particular has been a disappointment, promising much and producing essentially nothing with the power to change our lives that, say, the transistor has had.”

In Why Some Therapies Don’t Work, with Raymond J. Yeager, Ph.D., Dr. Albert Ellis says: “Rational-emotive therapy (RET) was first introduced in 1955, subsequent to my general dissatisfaction with psychoanalysis and my discovery that my psychotherapy clients were not benefiting from getting ‘in touch’ with unconscious motivations or ‘working through’ transference reactions, as traditional psychoanalysis explanations maintained.”

Because the system of self-esteem is positioned as “psychology,” most people feel less than qualified to judge its validity. As a result, they accept its suffering, hurt, and depression, unaware that these emotions are the result of the system itself. It’s important to challenge the underlying assumptions of today’s self-esteem movement. After all, we are the “customers” of this system, and it’s not working!

Advocates would like us to believe that the system of self-esteem is science. It isn’t. In Beyond Therapy, Beyond Science, Anne Wilson Schaef states: “We were working out of a model (still prevalent) that basically said if we understood a problem (and sometimes could make the client understand it), the problem was solved... I saw that under the guise of scientific objectivity, psychology and psychiatry essentially functioned out of an emotional, judgmental base that often blamed and disrespected the client.”

In PsychoBabble, Dr. Richard Ganz, a trained psychotherapist, wrote: “. . .there are extremely infrequent times when the science of the diagnosis and classification of supposed mental illness is shown to be what it really is—speculation at best, criminal at worst.”

Most of my objections are to self-esteem’s outcomes—not its intent. Defenders rally behind their intentions pronouncing: “We’re just trying to help people feel better about themselves.” This is laudable but dangerous. History is full of good intentions gone awry. Marxism, socialism, communism, and many other over-idealistic and “feel good” philosophies have their roots in good intentions.

One might ask: “If traditional models produce such poor results, why are they so widespread?” Ineffective traditional models further the agenda of the people selling them. I call these concepts made to sell, not to use. Similar to the many slice, dice, and chop machines pitched on television, they do work but using them is not as easy as it looks! Millions of these devices end up in garage sales or tucked away in cupboards. In used book stores, self-help and how-to books outnumber all the rest. Authors tell their readers information cannot change lives—readers must do that for themselves. Many people read no further and put the book out of sight—out of mind. On the other hand, the few who apply what they read would never part with their dog-eared books.

My father regularly threw out my grandfather’s homemade walking stick. When granddad cut a new one, it, too, disappeared. If he became dependant on the cane, his ability to walk would have further deteriorated. He lived to be ninety-two and walked unassisted almost to the day he died. My father’s actions on the surface appear cruel—yet were an act of love. The system of self-esteem is just as crippling. Improperly applied it weakens our resolve and undermines our ability to courageously face life’s many challenges.

Before you get yourself too upset or depressed thinking about this, here’s an alternative approach. Instead of searching for ways to feel good about yourself, why not take away the negative power of self-esteem and work toward creating the life you truly want for yourself? Now that’s something to feel good about!

I did not set out to write an anti self-esteem book, so what follows are conversations about self-reliance, personal responsibility, being the primary creative force in your life, and accessing a gateway to the life you choose—by design.

Some of us put up quite a fight when deeply held beliefs are challenged, so I repeat key concepts in different ways or from different angles. Be careful if you catch yourself saying: “You’ve covered that before—I get it—get on with it.” Until you translate new ideas into actions (habits), you really don’t “get it.” Insight alone cannot enrich your life. It is actions, not intentions that produce new or different results. As one philosopher put it:

“To know and not to do, is not to know at all.”

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

“Psychology presents itself as a concerned and caring profession working for the good of its clients. But in its wake lie damaged people, divided families, distorted justice, destroyed companies, and a weakened nation”.

Dr. Tana Dineen
Manufacturing Victims 1996
Robert Davis Publishing

Click Here to go to Chapter One

Find me on LinkedIn

Email Me: