A Guide to Self Esteem and Confidence Building
By Kenneth McRae
Copyright 2012 Kenneth McRae
Smashwords Edition
Table of Contents
The Conscious Mind as Gatekeeper
Your Subconscious Mind Remembers Everything
A New Way of Thinking about Reality
Building Self Esteem and Confidence
Self-Acceptance for Personal Growth
Dealing with Negative Thoughts
Transforming Problems into Advantages
The aim of this book is to illustrate the strong connection between self-belief and quality of life and to demonstrate how to build self-belief where an individual has come to realize that low self-esteem is having a detrimental effect on his or her quality of life.
Poor self-image, or negative core beliefs, develop in various forms and to differing levels of significance, consequently affecting different individuals in different circumstances in a variety of ways, some almost insignificantly and others to the extent that their lives have become a daily ordeal filled with anxiety, self-doubt and intense feelings of low self-worth and personal “failure”.
The feeling of low self-esteem, in whatever form or level of intensity it manifests itself, basically relates to a problem of perception, more specifically self-perception. The way in which you perceive yourself, whether positively or negatively or fluctuating between the two, has a direct bearing on your quality of life, on your chances of success in any serious endeavour and on your ability to deal constructively and positively with life’s periodic challenges.
If for whatever reason you’ve come to believe that you’re not really worthy of love and respect, then this belief, however subtly and deeply embedded in the psyche it may be, will inevitably have a negative influence on the tone and nature of all of your impressions, thoughts and subsequently the actions that you take in your day to day life.
Some people who lack confidence and self-belief are aware – even consciously – that their feelings of inferiority or inadequacy are “unnecessary”, that there’s no actual foundation in reality for them, but still nevertheless feel that they just can’t get out from under the dead emotional and psychological weight of this belief in their lack of worth and ability, whether it be to succeed financially, find a meaningful relationship with someone or to just feel able to freely and creatively express themselves.
Using my own background as an example, from when in my teens I first ventured out into the adult world of work, relationships and so on, right up to my late 20’s, I always had an underlying feeling that wealth was somehow beyond me, that I couldn’t or shouldn’t be financially free.
Looking back on it now, I can recall that whenever some possible opportunity for advancement came my way, I’d be aware of a subtle, faintly noticeable but still influential feeling of negativity about it, as if there was a small but significant voice in my head telling me that it couldn’t or wouldn’t work, or that I wouldn’t be able to handle it, what if this happens or that happens and so on.
My thoughts would almost immediately become unconsciously preoccupied with all of the “reasons” why my financial or career position couldn’t or shouldn’t improve. While I always managed to just get by without ever going completely broke or incurring serious debt, this underlying negative belief about my ability to create financial security ensured that I spent years in various occupations which were sometimes fun but never particularly fulfilling or well paid.
Other aspects of my life were fine, I had a lot of good friends and had a lot of good times and now with my partner Hazel still do but while I was always able to avoid or prevent complete financial insolvency, I felt that I was basically incapable of finding and using a means of generating a decent income in some business or occupation that was fitting to my abilities and inclinations.
It wasn’t until later, after I’d begun to research psychology, the subconscious and related subjects like hypnosis, that I gained a clear insight into the nature and workings of this negative self-belief thus enabling me to address and gradually resolve the issue.
I’d realized that my self-doubt in relation to my ability to find a personally fulfilling and creative way to earn a decent living had a common, in fact widespread basis. I, like countless millions of others, had been brought up to believe that every dollar, pound or whatever had to be earned by the sweat of your brow, that constantly working very hard was the only way and that working smart must somehow involve cutting corners. My upbringing was such that I never wanted for anything of true importance, and my parents were good parents and I was lucky to have them, but they believed that wealth was only possible for a lucky few, and that if I wanted to get anywhere I’d best forget about creative expression, get real and knuckle down to a life of wage slavery. Not quite in those words of course, and it wasn’t exactly hammered into me, but it was the sort of prevailing view or atmosphere that I was brought up in with regard to money generally.
By the time I was in my mid to late teens I’d more or less rejected this mind-set – or thought that I had – but it became apparent fairly soon that I lacked something in terms of direction and had something that could only be described – in retrospect – as almost a fear of wealth and success.
It wasn’t until some years later, as alluded to previously, that I began to realize that it was my own mind – and not anyone or anything else – that was holding me back. I’d also come to realize that the resolution of the problem would also come from within my own mind, from – ultimately – my own capacity for self-belief.
True self-belief brings with it a realization that it’s not getting a new car, or a bigger house, or expensive clothes or any other status symbols designed to garner the approval or envy of others that provides us with that sense of genuine and lasting personal satisfaction and happy self-acceptance, in other words healthy self-esteem, but the discovery of the vast, perhaps boundless potential you have within you to be and do whatever it is that you truly desire to be and do in life.
Poor self-esteem – while it may have been inadvertently implanted by your reactions to various past experiences – is nevertheless a self-imposed mental barrier which constantly distracts you from an appreciation of the reality of the tremendous power and potential you have latent within you.
When you finally – day by day and bit by bit – open yourself up to the realization of the truth about your own inner potential, the need to seek approval by attempting to in some way impress or imitate others fades, and is replaced by a life changing understanding and acceptance of the truth that true positive self-belief and the effortless confidence that naturally comes with it is found within yourself, within your own mind and consciousness, and that you and you alone have the ability to harness and use it.
It was through this process of “self-realization” that I came to see that the doubts I’d previously held about my ability to succeed in some meaningful way were nothing but phantasms, without any real foundation and easily swept away.
Are you frequently assailed by doubts about your ability to make money, or about how socially and/or sexually attractive you are, or about how deserving of love and respect you are, and feel that these doubts or negative beliefs are so deeply embedded and well established in your personality that you’ll live with them and their consequences and be held back by them for the rest of your life? Then consider that the insights, techniques and exercises outlined in detail throughout this book will bring you to a realization of the truth that in reality you are perfectly capable of identifying and overcoming any negative core belief that you may have about yourself – no matter how deeply rooted – and go on to reap the benefits of being able to fully open yourself up to the positive possibilities of being alive and to maximize your own potential in your own life.
To briefly use my own case once again as an example, the practical application of the techniques covered in this book enabled me to positively reprogram my deepest feelings and thought processes relating to my ability to find and harness a means of releasing my creative potential in an emotionally and materially rewarding way.
I haven’t become a multi-millionaire – I’d never focused purely and entirely on money anyway – but I’m doing well in an occupation (I became an import agent and have done quite well with it and so now can focus more on writing and web development) that is fulfilling to me and is of some service to others, and I also run a website at http://www.self-hypnosis-the-key.com
There’s no doubt that all of this came about through the utilization of the power and potential of the mind which I used – as you can too – to considerably boost my self confidence in relation to my previous problem. Without this I’d very possibly still be half-heartedly floundering around living from one month to the next.
I’ve focused the first part of this book on an overview of the conscious and subconscious minds, which I hope will provide some necessary insight into the workings of the inner mind which is where the causes of – and solutions to – problems with self-esteem and confidence are found.
Most – or at least many people – are familiar with the oft-quoted observation that human beings use only one tenth of their potential throughout their lives. This statement is misleading, not because it’s untrue but because it reveals only a part of the truth. What would represent a more meaningful portrayal would be illustrated by the metaphor which has man or woman as the owner of a vast and magnificent palace who chooses to spend virtually his or her whole life confined to a tiny room in the basement of the palace.
This gives us the beginnings of an insight into the relationship or connection between the two elements of your overall and complete “mind”, the conscious and subconscious minds.
Your conscious mind represents your everyday self which perceives and reacts to “reality” as it is experienced by the five senses and through the prism of your preconceptions and prejudices relating to whatever is being seen, heard, touched, tasted or smelled.
Each individual’s conscious perception of themselves and the world around them is almost universally unique. This is why, for example, ten different individuals may give slightly varying accounts of one event or incident which they have all simultaneously seen, because they have perceived it through the prism of their own unique consciousness. And that consciousness – the conscious mind – is made up of impressions of what the senses have experienced and of other impressions absorbed, particularly in childhood, from the ideas and influences coming from other people, the media and so on.
This means that the conscious perceptions of an individual are often “wrong”. For example, a parent of a child may have been brought up to strongly believe that frequent criticism of a child is the best way to make the best of the child, may be absolutely convinced that this is true and right – because their consciousness tells them that it is – but with of course the end result being a child growing up with serious self-esteem problems which could ultimately manifest in any number of negative and damaging ways.
It’s of course true that people do sometimes tend to coalesce into “like minded” groups, forming clubs, societies, political parties, sporting allegiances and so on, and there are widely held fundamental concepts of right and wrong, but it’s still the case that every individual, with to some extent the exception of identical twins, consciously sees and experiences the world around them in a different and unique way. And, as stated previously, these conscious perspectives are often flawed.
At one time, for example, many people earnestly believed that the Earth is flat, or that the soul of a witch could be cleansed and liberated by fire. Some people are still convinced that some races or creeds are inferior or superior to others. And of course many people are sure that their lack of confidence and self-belief is somehow fixed and immutable, that it’s “just the way they are”.
The perceptions of the conscious mind, and the conclusions drawn from these perceptions, are therefore flawed and unreliable, formed as they are from the unique and individual perspective of one unique individual. Two individuals may have completely contradictory views on the same issue or thing. Who is “right” and who is “wrong”? Your conclusion regarding that question would depend entirely on the impressions, feelings and thoughts that have accumulated in your conscious mind regarding that issue or thing. Much if not most of this process often begins in childhood.
Many people believe that their conscious perceptions, feelings and views on or about any number of issues – including their feelings and views about themselves – are set in stone. This is often because emotions become intertwined with perceptions, and the individual comes to feel that he or she has emotionally invested a part of him or herself in this particular view. The idea then of trying to incorporate a completely opposing view into their overall picture of the issue becomes difficult if not seemingly emotionally impossible.
The Conscious Mind as Gatekeeper
The highest function of the conscious mind lies within its capacity to reason. Flawed, narrow and unreliable as its perceptions and conclusions may be, your conscious mind is nevertheless the guiding light of your life. Despite everything it does indeed have much purpose and significance.
Think of your overall being as a car, and your conscious mind as the driver of the car. The performance and indeed the whole future of the car depends on the attitudes and abilities of the driver. Similarly, the level of intuitive knowledge and ability of the user of a powerful computer system determines how much benefit, knowledge etc will be gained from the use of the computer. The head or CEO of a large corporation has a lot of influence in determining the future of the overall business.
The nature of the impressions, feelings and thoughts which habitually occupy your conscious mind have a direct bearing on your quality of life, on the “car”, “computer” or “corporation” that is you in your entirety.
The trouble with this as many people perceive it is that they seem apparently to have no control over the impressions, feelings and thoughts which habitually occupy their conscious minds, and so subsequently have little or no control over the quality of their lives.
(This incidentally is part of the reason why some people appear to cling to the most obviously irrational beliefs, because the maintenance of the belief provides an anchor, a sense of consistency and order in an otherwise apparently random and indifferent universe).
To believe that you have no control over your feelings and thoughts about things – including yourself – is to be misguided. You may have no control over the weather, but when it pours rain all day on the day you wanted to go out, you do ultimately have control over how you react to the situation. How you consciously feel and think about the situation, whether positively or negatively, is actually entirely up to you and nothing or no one else.
Let’s take this significantly further, and imagine that in the course of one day your house has burned down, your partner has left you and you’ve lost your job. No one would sensibly suggest that you just shrug it off and immediately forget about it. On the other hand, you have a choice as to whether you consciously decide to sink into a pit of anger, frustration, despair and self-pity or set about dealing with the situation as positively and constructively as possible under the circumstances.
Likewise, it’s the same with regard to how you feel and think about yourself. Despite the force of emotional and psychological habit which may have been building since childhood, you have a choice about how you want to consciously feel and think about yourself, and therefore consequently about how you want to actually be .
“Too many people overvalue what they are not and undervalue what they are”.
Malcolm S. Forbes
It’s entirely true to say that confidence and self-belief – or the lack of it – is all in the mind. After all, where else could it be? Once you understand and accept this, you’ve actually laid the foundation of a positive and effective approach to dealing with and overcoming self-esteem problems. You’ll have created within yourself the beginnings of a realization that it’s within YOUR power – and not anyone or anything else’s – to change for the better the way that you feel and think about yourself.
And as you positively change the way in which you feel and think about yourself, your self-image improves accordingly. And as your self-image improves, your whole bearing and attitude, your being changes in ways that quickly become noticeable not only to yourself but also to those around you.
“You are very powerful, provided you know how powerful you are”.
Yogi Bhajan
No doubt some people whose negative self-beliefs are firmly and deeply anchored in their minds would consider this to be just too easy. “I’ve been convinced all of my life that I’m worthless, or unattractive, or undeserving of love and respect or socially inept. How can you expect me to just give it all up? Are you really trying to tell me that it can all be changed, just like that”?
In a manner of speaking, yes, though more than likely not “just like that”. Well established negative self-beliefs can’t be changed overnight, but they most definitely CAN be changed, unless the individual concerned is determined not to.
Your consciousness of yourself, whether positive or negative, depends on the nature of the thoughts that you entertain in your conscious mind. There is no “right” or “wrong”. You are what you think you are. The attitude of a person with confidence and self-belief is no more or less rational or irrational, right or wrong, than the attitude of a person who lacks confidence and self-belief. Both self-images are equally valid.
Despite whatever may have happened in your past, whatever kind of upbringing you may have experienced, and no matter how firmly and deeply convinced you are of the actual substance and reality of any negative feelings you may have about yourself, this emotional and psychological state of affairs exists only because you consciously think it to be so.
“There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so”.
Shakespeare
In other words the gatekeeper that is your conscious mind has been allowing too many undesirable and damaging thoughts to enter into and influence your overall being.
Many, perhaps most people, are unaware of just how powerful and significant the thoughts that habitually occupy the conscious mind are. You may well have heard or read about the concept that the mind can affect the body. If someone consistently imagines, thinks about and worries about disease, it’s now widely acknowledged that the chances of them actually contracting disease are increased considerably. If someone consistently imagines and thinks about him or herself as being unattractive, he or she will sooner or later actually be unattractive. On the other hand if someone “sees” him or herself as being confident and successful, that person will be confident and successful.
Thoughts are powerful. Thoughts are energy, particularly when they have a tendency to be consistent. Think positive, you WILL attract success. Think negative, you WILL attract failure. A well-worn cliché of course, but no less true for that.
So what is this mechanism that makes positive thought attract success and negative thought attract failure? It’s not magic, it is the power of thought. If you consistently think of yourself as successful and confident, you will actually be or will actually become successful and confident. Likewise of course for the opposite.
You may well ask “How am I supposed to consciously maintain a consistently positive, confident attitude when in my day to day life I’m bombarded with negativity from external sources”?
Part of the answer to that lies in remembering what’s been said – and known to be true – about positivity attracting positivity and negativity attracting negativity. The other part of the answer relates to understanding that while working smart is often better than working hard it’s also true that nothing really worthwhile is ever gained without some effort.
By this I’m referring to the fact that if you want to switch a consistently negative self-belief to a consistently positive self-belief, you will need to “train” your conscious mind to think accordingly, and this will likely require a certain amount of dedication and commitment.
Dedication and commitment are necessary because the actual process of change from having poor self-esteem to having healthy self-esteem occurs within the vast and probably infinite reservoir of power and wisdom which exists within every sentient human being – the subconscious – and it can and often does take time and some persistence to “persuade” the subconscious to accept and absorb a new belief system.
Your subconscious mind existed before “you” did. It was planning, designing and beginning the creation of all of the working parts of your body and brain long before you had any awareness of your “self”.
At its most basic level it works quietly in the background of your awareness, maintaining and directing all of your bodily functions including repair. Your heartbeat continues while you sleep, not because “you” make it beat, but because the subconscious makes it beat. If you break your leg and a cast is put on it, it’s not the cast itself that heals it. The cast merely makes it easier and quicker for your subconscious to facilitate the gradual knitting together of the fracture.
Think about it and ask yourself, what else could do these things? It is obvious that some “elemental” force is constantly working in the background to maintain your bodily functions and healing.
In this sense, the subconscious operates independently of the conscious mind. You’re not consciously aware of your heartbeat while you sleep or of your leg gradually healing. The subconscious could perhaps be likened to an underground telephone exchange, sending out its messages and instructions over a network of nerve lines, connecting, healing, repairing, adjusting, with the conscious mind, as represented by the above ground user of the telephone, remaining largely or completely unaware of the vast and powerful network functioning just below.
However the conscious and subconscious minds are not completely separate. Sometimes “lines” get crossed and confusion results, in that if the conscious mind habitually entertains negative thoughts, the subconscious becomes influenced by this and starts to make wrong connections, resulting ultimately in for example ill health and disease.
Think also of the many witness accounts and reports of the various phenomena which have been seen to take place in subjects placed under deep hypnosis. Hypnosis is a proven and successful method of accessing the subconscious. When a hypnotized subject was told that an ordinary unheated strip of metal had actually been heated till it was red hot and was then touched against the subject’s forearm, and the subject then flinched with apparent pain and a small burn actually physically appeared on the forearm, what would you think was the actual cause of the burn?
The subject’s subconscious had been – through hypnosis – convinced that the strip of metal was actually red hot, and so has then caused the appropriate physical reaction to manifest in reality.
A man was once placed under deep hypnosis and was then helped to lie between two chairs. He was then told that his body was totally and completely inflexible and the chairs were moved so that only the heels of his feet and ankles rested on one chair, and the back of his head, neck and upper shoulders on the other. A heavy weight was then placed on his abdomen, and he remained in this position with the heavy weight on him, totally rigid and exhibiting not the slightest sign of discomfort, for around 15 minutes before the weight was removed, the chairs readjusted and he was brought back out from the trance.
Where did that level of bodily control and strength come from? It’s safe to say that he couldn’t have done it had he not been hypnotized, had his subconscious not been convinced that his body was as rigid and stiff as a door.
(The main part of the reason why he wouldn’t have been able to do it without being hypnotized is because his conscious mind would have told him that it wasn’t possible).
In England in 1950 a teenage boy had been receiving treatment in hospital in East Grinstead for ichthyosiform erythrodermia – aka fish skin disease – a rare and distressing condition which caused his body to be covered in hard black warts and which made much of his skin hard and scaly. The various treatments applied had had no positive effect. However an anaesthetist, a Dr Albert Mason, who had a more than passing interest in hypnosis – due to his previous successes in removing warts through hypnosis – decided to look into the case. The boy was placed in a deep trance (by Dr Mason) and suggestions were made to his subconscious that the warts and hard skin on his left arm would go away. Within a few days the warts and hard skin fell off, leaving normal skin on the arm. At this point Dr Mason contacted a surgeon and told him of the development. The surgeon then told him that this just wasn’t possible, as fish skin disease was in fact regarded as being incurable because sufferers had insufficient oil producing glands in their skin which made it logically impossible that it could be cured, and that the treatments that the boy had been receiving had probably only really been intended to relieve the condition, not cure it.
The problem of course was that Dr Mason had seen with his own eyes – as had the patient and some others – that hypnotic suggestion had worked. So he decided to persist and again hypnotized the boy, this time placing suggestions that the right arm would heal. Soon after, around 90% of the right arm had cleared up, as had other parts of the body. However the cure stopped there, and future attempts to extend it failed.
Throughout the next few years Dr Mason attempted to cure other cases of fish skin disease through hypnosis however none were successful. He came to the conclusion that this was because prior to being told by a surgeon that the disease was incurable – up to that point neither he nor the patient had ever been told that it was incurable - his confidence in his ability to cure it had been strong, but after having been told by an authoritative figure that it couldn’t be done, his confidence gradually declined and he believed that this was somehow being unconsciously communicated to the boy and also to the later patients. The doubting, critical conscious mind was now inhibiting the powers of the subconscious minds of the boy, the later patients and Dr Mason himself.
This case provides us with an insight into not only what the subconscious is capable of, but also of the importance of positive mental attitude and the difference it can make to the outcome of one’s endeavours.
Marathon runners and other athletes sometimes refer to what they call their “second wind”. This “reserve store” of energy and strength does not exist in some physically quantifiable and measurable sense. It comes into existence and becomes available to the athlete at a critical point or stage in the marathon or whatever because the athlete desires to succeed and also believes that they can succeed. In other words it is a fundamentally mental process, or at least begins as one. Obviously marathon runners and athletes must achieve a high level of fitness to have any chance of success, but the “second wind” phenomenon comes ultimately or originally from the subconscious.
Without the athlete’s desire for success and his or her belief in their ability to achieve it, no amount of physical training could on its own act as sufficient incentive to get through to and motivate the subconscious to find and deliver – in reality – the second wind required to win.
Your Subconscious Mind Remembers Everything
The subconscious does not only enable astounding physical feats but mental ones too. It has recorded – and can bring to recall – every single moment of your entire life since and possibly before birth. It has also recorded and could bring to recall the thoughts and emotions that accompanied each and every one of these moments.
You may not be able to consciously bring to memory the name of a person you briefly met once many years ago, but subconsciously the memory is there. In fact subconsciously you remember every single detail about the person, facial structure, clothing, their general bearing or personality as it was then and so on.
In order to demonstrate this to yourself fix in your mind as clearly as you can the memory or image of some person who you have not seen for a long time and whose name you cannot recall. Think about this image then in your mind ask yourself “what do I remember next”? When this next thing comes to mind write it down and again mentally ask yourself in relation to that “what do I remember next”? and so on.
You will find yourself carried along a chain of seemingly unrelated and unconnected memories and, regarding the forgotten name, it may be that after five minutes or so nothing has come up so you forget about it and occupy yourself with something else then suddenly, say after an hour or two, the name comes back to you clearly. Or it might have come back to you quickly, or perhaps not till after you try the exercise again the next day, but it will come back to you.
Either way, this simple exercise acts as valuable proof of the fact that subconsciously you have recorded everything that you have encountered in your life and can – with practice – recall anything at will, with all of the attendant knowledge and advantages this brings.
These observations and accounts have been included here in order to help create an understanding that the subconscious –your subconscious - holds probably infinite power and potential, and that the idea or preconception that an individual feels that he or she has to go through life burdened with a delusional sense of low self-esteem, as if it was some sort of law of nature, is completely fallacious. The mind – your mind – is, in fact and in truth, capable of anything, irrespective of whatever doubts you may presently hold about that. When you come to understand and appreciate even a fraction of the power, wisdom and ability that is latent within your subconscious mind and which exists throughout the universe, discarding limiting and negative self-beliefs becomes as unproblematic as swatting away a fly.