HealthyGamerGG - How Self Esteem is Built

Episode Date: March 1, 2022

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The problem is that you're missing a piece of the equation, which is that like there's, the ego comes in and it starts defining you this way. And once the ego comes in, then you stop thinking about external factors. How self-esteem is built. Do you guys have any thoughts or input on it? So to change self-esteem is to first understand the factors on which it is built. Self-esteem is based on three sequential factors. Unconditional human worth, love, and growing. So I don't know exactly. This seems like it's from a, you know, know, some kind of self-help book or something. I'm not sure exactly what the source is. So, and then goes on to sort of talk a little bit about Howard's laws of human worth. So

unconditional human worth is beautifully described by five axioms based on the work of Claudia Howard. All have infinite internal, eternal and unconditional worth as persons. All have equal worth is people. Worth is not comparative or competitive. Although you might get better at sports, academics, business, I might be better in social skills. We both have equal worth as human beings. Externals neither add nor diminish worth. Externals include things like money, looks, performance, and achievements. These only increase ones market or social worth. Worth is a person, however, is infinite and unchanging. Worth is stable and never in jeopardy, even if someone rejects you. worth doesn't have to be earned or proved it already exists just recognize except and appreciate it

so then i think that goes on to sort of share some diagrams and stuff um so this is a really cool post because i think how self-esteem is built is kind of an interesting topic so generally speaking we talk a lot about identity we talk a lot about worth and self-esteem and ego and confidence and all that kind of stuff. But I don't know that we've ever talked quite so much about how to build up positive self-esteem, right? So I don't know that we've ever discreetly addressed that question. There may be some stuff about it in Dr. Kay's guide. I think that's where we really go in depth about understanding ego and confidence and how to develop confidence and how to get rid of ego. But generally speaking, the approach that we take is about

dismantling or disarming or getting control of ego. We don't really talk quite as much about building up self-esteem. So let's try to take a different perspective today and talk a little bit about how to build self-esteem. So in order to understand how to build self-esteem, the first thing that I want to do is talk a little bit about how do we lose self-esteem. So this, too, is going to be an answer that I'm going to lean a little bit heavily on my yogic training, meditative training, you know, monastic training, as opposed to sort of of the science, but I think that there's good correlations. This is really an area where I think science and spirituality sort of really start to overlap. So think about when you're a kid,

okay? And when you're a kid, you kind of just, you do you, right? Like, you're not really, you don't think of yourself as good. You don't think of yourself as bad. You generally speaking, hopefully are accepted. And so where does the idea of conditional love come from, right? And Like, where does this idea come from that you are, you don't have good self-worth? And this tends to come from a couple of places. So the first thing that people may say is that it comes from other people, right? So when other people like don't treat you well or they start, as parents start giving you conditional love, then you start to lose unconditional love and unconditional self-worth.

And so that's true, right? So we've touched on, there's some stuff on this in Dr. K's guide. we've talked some on stream about attachment theory, which in essence posits that emotional mirroring is responsible for a large part of like security in a person. So when I feel bad and the emotional support structure around me feels bad with me. So if I trip and fall and like my mom runs over, she's like, oh my God, my poor baby, are you okay? And you'll sort of notice this that across culture is generally speaking, adult. will have exaggerated responses towards kids. And why is that?

It's because it's part of the emotional mirroring process, right? So if we're emotionally mirrored well, and that usually correlates with being loved unconditionally by our parents, then we feel secure in ourselves, and we start to, like, develop strong self-esteem. So what's the flip side of the coin? So at some point, people will start to have expectations of us, right? And I think what I tend to see a lot in our community especially is that people will have expectations of you.

So they'll say like, you know, my mom may be, you know, may pick me up when I fall down. And that's wonderful. But her love for me may be somewhat conditional as well. So, and this can be somewhat healthy too, which is like, you know, I'm going to be treated differently depending on what grades I get. I'm going to be treated differently depending on how I behave and how I, you know, act and stuff like that. socially, academically, professionally, how good I am at sports. And so as our brains start to understand the structure of our society, what our brains do is start to like form hierarchies of worth.

And this is sort of like common, right? So if you like think a little bit about, let's say I'm dating someone and then, you know, my family asks me like, what do they do for a living? And what's going on in that moment is that they're bucketing this person, right? And depending on my answer, they are going to be elevated in terms of social standing or devalued in terms of social standing. And so what happens is like as our brain develops, we start to see that there's like conditioning going on. They're expectations.

And we start to be judged based on those expectations. But that in and of itself, I don't think, is where we lose self-esteem. Because self-esteem is about the esteem that we have for ourselves, right? it's not about the way that we're judged by other people. And in fact, if you all watch the confidence versus ego lecture in Dr. Kay's Guide to Mental Health, you'll recognize that the big difference between confidence and ego is whether the judgments of the outside determine my value or the internal judgments determine my value. Right? That's the big difference. So where does a loss of self-esteem come from?

Why isn't that when I grow up with unconditional love and I think I'm an awesome kid, Why do I start to think I'm not an awesome kid? Is it because I'm relying, I'm starting to rely on the judgments of other people? That's one way of looking at it. But I'd say there's a key step here that we haven't really talked about. And that is the internalization of external expectations. So what tends to happen, and this is the really key step, that if you want to learn a little bit about how to develop your own self-esteem,

your own self-esteem, it has to be yours. But at some point, what we tend to do is internalize the expectations of others. Right? So, like, it's not just that my parents judge me for doing well in school or poorly in school. Like, even now as an adult, I can get judged all the time. People can be critical of what I say and do, et cetera. Right.

And that doesn't necessarily have to impact my self-esteem. It's just a criticism. And the criticism can just be handled in an appropriate way, which is I can adjust my behavior without it having a hit to my self-esteem. So when does it hit my self-esteem is when I internalize that criticism. When I internalize that expectation, when I translate from my parents who say that you have to get a 4.0 to be a good kid, to be a smart kid, when I internalize that expectation and I say smart kids are kids that have 4.0s, good kids or kids that have 4.0s.

And once I adopt that expectation internally, once I attach my value as a person to an external outcome, that's when self-esteem gets shot. Right? And so this is where, but like, don't parents do that to you? And sort of, yes, because as a child, we don't, it's very difficult for us to, like, have an internal sense of self that is separate from the rest of the world. Right? So as children, our brain is designed to interpret external information for, like, our own internal roadmap. We're learning about things like who I should smile at and who I should not smile at. We're learning about things like gravity. We're understanding language, social nuance. We're understanding all this kind of stuff, right? What kind of clothes do I wear? Do pants go on heads or do they go on

legs? There's all kinds of stuff that we are internalizing as children, which is why if we turn back to attachment theory, like kids who have early adverse life experiences tend to have messed up attachment. And the earlier in life that you tend to have difficult attachment experiences, the more difficult it is to sort of develop good attachment. Whereas being abandoned at the age of five is like generally speaking, on average, more damaging than being abandoned at the age of 55, right? May not necessarily be true, but generally speaking, it's true that way. And what's the difference there? It's because as a 55-year-old, I have some internal sense of self. I don't automatically my brain is not wired to download everything from the outside world and turn it into something

internally. So what does this mean for self-esteem? Right? So if this is sort of the case, like how do I start unpacking this, how do I develop self-esteem? And so there are kind of two important answers here. One that's a little bit external and one that's a little bit internal. So the sad truth is that one of the fastest ways to develop self-esteem and kind of probably the easiest way is from other people, right? So like this is something that we see a lot in group coaching, for example. So I've worked with so many people who will say things like, oh, I'll tell them, like, I think you're a wonderful person. They're like, you're my psychiatrist, you have to say that. Right. So any kind of praise I give someone is sort of like, if they don't think that they're a

good person instead of accepting that praise, what they do is they like, they take their internal sense of self and they look at our relationship and they filter that praise through their perception of self. And it may be logically correct, right? So it's kind of like, okay, fine. So what we see in group coaching, which is really interesting, and so this is a good way to build self-esteem, is that, you know, these people aren't paid to tell you anything. And so when you win the approval of the people in your group who are paying to be there just like you are, it means a lot more than winning the approval of your psychiatrist, of your mom, or of your, you know, coach. Where if we kind of look at like your mom says, oh, darling, that's the best artwork I've

ever seen. You're so talented. You're so talented and so handsome and whatever. And so if we think about the value that we extract from mom loving our artwork, it's going to be different from being accepted by our peers. So a lot of self-esteem can actually come from like external people. And that's the simplest way to get it. There's even some research that suggests that, for example, with personality disorders, you know, stable relationships that are emotionally supportive over periods of time can start to really deal with some of those attachment issues and actually cause like improvements and symptoms for certain kinds of attachment disorder. I mean, personality disorders like borderline personality disorder.

So as unfortunate as it is, like sometimes the way to, the easiest way to get self-esteem is from other people. It's to actually cultivate people who, you know, treat you for who you are. and as you hang out with people, don't push them away because it may feel super awkward. But then you can start to learn through mirroring of others, because remember, that's how we originally develop attachment and security and stuff like that, and that your self-esteem can improve. The second way to really think a little bit about self-esteem from an internal sense, give me a second, is through sort of understanding this key step, where once I internalize

the expectations of the outside world, and I start to believe them myself, my self-esteem will start to decrease. And so what do you kind of do about that? And this is where I'd say, like, think a little bit about the way that you judge yourself. So if you have low self-esteem, that means you don't think you're worth very much, right? But where did you come up with the standard for your judgment? And what you'll tend to find is that you may have a judgment which you think is very logical. But I'd say that most of the people that I work with with low self-esteem, tend to apply a different standard to themselves than they do to other people, right? Oh, other people should go get therapy. That's wonderful that other people are getting therapy.

But I feel weak. I feel like I should be able to handle this on my own. And so there's a really, really subtle point from kind of Vedic psychology, which is that once we extra, once we take those external expectations and we internalize them, it becomes a part of our identity. It becomes a part of our, a hum god. It becomes a way of looking at our self. right? It's like our identity at that point. And so this is the other really key thing is to start to tease apart like, who am I compared to what are the expectations of the world? So like just because I perform in a particular way does not necessarily make an identity determination. So I'll give you guys just an example of this. So if I get a 4.0, I think I'm smart. So a 4.0 is an

outcome, right? Like it doesn't mean that I'm smart or stupid. And you may say, well, duh, Dr. K, of course it means you're smart. Well, let's think about that for a second, right? Maybe my parents made a $10 million donation to the college. Right? So maybe there are all ways, all different ways of getting a 4.0. Maybe you've got a 4.0 because you're a 26-year-old neurotypical person with a normal IQ and you're now in the fifth grade where they're teaching basic like arithmetic and subtraction and multiplication. Right. There are all kinds of reasons why the outcome doesn't necessarily have to become part of the ego. But as we go through life, what tends to happen is we, you know, we do make that shift.

We do say that this outcome is because of me, right? So we see this a lot with people who, like, have difficulty dating and they think, like, as they get rejected by people over and over and over again, and the other interesting thing is sometimes there's not over and over again. Sometimes it's once or even, it's really zero true rejection. I've worked with people like that. They start to believe that I'm unlovable, right? Which sort of makes sense from a logical standpoint.

I'm not saying that the logic is like incorrect. Like it makes sense, right? So our mind when it comes to conclusions, it's not, it's smart. Your mind isn't dumb. It's smart. The problem is that you're missing a piece of the equation, which is that like there's the ego comes in and it starts defining you this way. And once the ego comes in, then you stop thinking about external factors.

Right? So if I start to believe that I have low self-value and I go and I ask someone out and they say no, my mind uses that as greater evidence that I have low self-value and I'm unlovable, whereas it doesn't really do an objective analysis of like maybe the reason they said no is because they've got terminal cancer and they're going to die in four weeks. Maybe the reason they said no, rare occurrence, is because they aren't into a ready for a relationship right now. Maybe the reason they said no is because they're already dating.

Maybe the reason they say no is because they're asexual. Maybe the reason they said no is because they're not attracted to my gender. Maybe the reason they said no is because they're not attracted to my hair color. Right? Like there's all kinds of reasons that people can say no. But it's the ego that sort of assumes that all of those things have to do with you. Right? So when it comes to like recovering your self-esteem or building self-esteem, you can absolutely do it externally.

but the second piece is to be very critical of the expectations that you've internalized. And how did you come to believe the things that you believe about yourself? Right. And this is the kind of thing that people can work on absolutely in therapy, but it's not exclusive to therapy. So if we talk about, you know, the process of discovering what I believe about myself and where does that come from, that's a process that musicians go through. That's a process that monks go through. That's a process that people go through. That's a process that people go through through journaling and stuff like that. So that's not, you know, necessarily only the province of therapists. They're very good at that kind of stuff, by the way.

So I highly recommend doing something like that. But it's really sort of dismantling like the identification with the thing because that's where the suffering comes from. That's where the self-esteem comes from. Whereas like the outcomes are just the outcomes, right? If I didn't get a 4.0 I got a B, I can start to think all kinds of things about myself. Oh my God. Other people are smarter than me. I'm not so smart. Or I can just acknowledge that, hey, you know, history is really not my strong suit. I really did not enjoy the class. I wasn't able to put forth as much effort and focus as I really wanted to. So be it. Right. You can like acknowledge the outcome. You can even learn from the outcome and grow from the outcome without getting your ego involved.

And I would even argue that growing from the outcome and learning from the outcome is way easier when your ego isn't involved because that's when you really learn, okay, like, well, how did I screw up here? right? Because in a funny way, there's this paradoxical ego thing where the ego says, oh, I'm an idiot. That's why it happened. And then there's no like forward progress, right? It's it's an answer that the ego gives you that sort of in a weird way blames you 100% and absolves you of the responsibility of doing anything about it. So it's like an interesting like way to stay stuck and dodge criticism by just having a blanket blame. Yeah, that's just me. I'm an idiot. right? And you'll see this even like in relationships. Like I don't know if you've had people where when you try to criticize them, they'll just like, they'll say like some really self-deprecating thing that sort of disarms your criticism. And then you can't, you're like, you know, hey, I thought you were going to pick me up from the airport. Oh yeah, stupid me. I guess I'm just a complete idiot because I forgot like my bad. Like I don't know why you relied on me in the first place. I'm clearly a dumb ass. Right. And it's like, I'm not saying that. bro. But there's no productive conversation there, right? When people sort of double down. Like, I see this a lot, especially when people who have addictions, where they'll just like

toss that out there because they feel so bad about themselves and like, kind of be like, yeah, I'm an addict. Like, it's not like I can function anyway. Right? And so then like in doing so, they actually don't progress or try to grow. I'm not blaming him for it, right? because it's a sign of, you know, really, really low self-value and their egos in control, like it's okay, but let's be a little bit critical about what's going on.

So just to kind of summarize, you know, we've talked a lot about ego, self-confidence. There's a lot of stuff in Dr. Kay's guide about that sort of thing. If y'all are interested in a deeper spiritual perspective on that, strongly recommend you check out the Atman Pada, which is the path of self and, like, how to understand what's the core self. And generally speaking, you know, when we talk about those kinds of things, we'll talk a lot about disarming ego and the nature of identity. We have a lot of meditations on that subject as well. But this question today was a little bit different, which is like, how do you go about building self-esteem? And the truth is that there are two real ways to build it. One is externally, which is a

little bit tricky, right, because it means that it's kind of out of your hands. But this is the thing about life is that you can't necessarily do everything easily by yourself, right? Sometimes you need help from other people, and that's actually completely okay. The second thing is from an internal perspective. So as, from an external perspective, as people start to treat you well, you may start to believe that you yourself are a good person. Because that's usually where strong self-esteem comes from. It comes from kids growing up, being taught that they are good people. The second internal way to sort of work on your self-esteem is to recognize that there are external expectations which the world may have, which at some point you begin to internalize. And as you internalize, and as you internalize,

an external expectation, it can get tangled up with your sense of identity. And once it gets tangled up with your sense of identity, it's going to affect your self-esteem. So that disentangling process of starting to recognize, sure, a 4.0 is better than a 3.0, but where did I get the conclusion that people who are smart get 4.0s and people who are dumb get 3.0s? Are there any smart people that I know that have gotten a 3.0? Are there any dumb people? Are there any dumb people that I know that I've gotten a 4.0. And as you start to look at that a little bit critically and like how did you get entangled in this? So how did you start to believe these things about yourself? Hopefully you'll start the process of disentangling that ego from the external expectations.

And as a result, as you move away from ego, your confidence will rise and hopefully your self-esteem will improve.