Are negative criticism and judgment reducing your self esteem? Here is my experience to help you recognize your true value.
After running into an acquaintance at the hardware store earlier in the day, I caught my mind recalling an unflattering conversation I overheard about this person. The comments, from co-workers, were about the children and some unpaid bills. It dawned on me that these comments were statements of disapproval and value judgment. What I found interesting though, was that my mind unconsciously brought up this particular memory. As I considered this, I noticed that a part of me seemed to be feeding off the negative comments, relishing the put downs, and literally sucking the family members of their goodness and self esteem. I tuned into the part of my mind that seemed to feel nourished by their demise, and in a second, it vanished on its own. In its place, a completely opposite picture arose. I saw the mom and kids and felt compassion and love for them. I recognized that, given their circumstances, they were doing their best, just like all of us. Their inherent self worth, self esteem and goodness was clearly apparent. In this experience, I saw how a part of my mind holds on to negative comments, much like a dog that buries a bone to dig up later and leisurely savor and chew on it.
This experience took place in my mind. In truth, I recognize that the inherent goodness and equality that we are all created with and are given by a loving Creator cannot really be stripped away by gossip and negative judgments. However, to my mind, it may seem and feel like they can be taken away. I may fool myself into believing that I or others can be made “less than” or “more than” simply by the positive or negative judgements I make in regards to their behavior, appearance, possessions, character, gender, sexual orientation, skin color, social economic class, etc. But from experience, let me assure you that this only happen in the misguided perceptions and feelings of our mind.
Forgetting the inherent, infinite self worth and self esteem that we are created with, sets us up to judge and condemn ourselves and others. It feels like our judgments have the power to give or take away value from everything and anything we choose. Because we believe this to be true, many of our decisions are aimed at preserving or increasing our value. We have been trained to give a part of our mind the authority to notice differences, compare and assign value to those differences. This is how we order and select what is "best" or has the “best value”. This process sets up a standard for rating, separating and categorizing by degree. We can judge, “this is best (good) and this, the opposite end, is the worst (bad)" with confidence that we are right. This is where our likes and dislikes come from too.
We make judgment templates or images, which are just sets of rules, for quickly making decisions of value. For example, which can of tomatoes should we buy? Our template compares style, price, quantity, taste, etc. It helps us determine the best value. Which movie should we see? We have rule templates that take into account our preferences. It considers information about the type of movie, the actors in it, who invited us, etc. In choosing, it is about what we value and how much we value it. As long as we like the person we are going with, maybe we don’t even care what movie we see.
How do you select which food or slice of pizza to eat at an event? Stop and notice your mind’s decision process. For some of us every piece is not the same. Notice what thoughts cross your mind as you are choosing, if this is so? What did you look for and consider? You will be surprised to notice how complex this choice is, or not. Perhaps you have little preferences when it comes to food or you are starving and don’t care what you eat. The point is that our mind has been trained to quickly evaluate value or worth in particular areas of our consumer life. We "esteem" or value that which we have judged "best". Self esteem then, comes when we have compared ourself to others and concluded that we are "good", "better than others" or at least, "good enough" based on the template in our mind.
The real problem is that we don't just evaluate goods for our consumption, we evaluate people too, including ourselves. A person's worth then, and the ensuing self esteem that follows, is not inherent to the person. It is measured or judged based on their many things: net worth, their titles, accomplishments, money, reputation, fame, power, the car they drive, their race, gender, honor, loyalty to us, intellectual ability, physical beauty, etc. You can see that people with a high level of these things will find it easier to have high self esteem. This type of measuring is deeply reinforced by advertising.
Pay attention to the promise of commercials. They are selling the generally accepted “values” of society in one shape or form. We buy things that we feel will increase our value. We see that we can make others feel valuable and affect their self-esteem by complimenting them or putting them down with negative comments. We have accepted, by default, a perception that says value can be given and taken away, and that it is possible to lack value.
Lacking value, or self esteem, implies there is “not enough” and we must work to get more. It means that we must work at keeping the self esteem we do have (keeping our body beautiful, the money coming, etc.) to keep feeling good about ourselves. From this perspective, we must also defend our self esteem, especially if we only have a little, if someone tries to take it away. This is where situations can become very personal and even vicious sometimes.
Here is my real life example so you can see how it works:
One day at the flea market a woven box caught my eye, so I approached the table. I asked, “How much do want for the box?” She said, “$20”. I liked the box, but the price was more than I was willing to pay. I asked, “What is the least you are willing to take?” She said, “$20, I paid $36 for it and the difference between me and the other vendors is that I only sell quality.” I reacted to her tone of voice and wanted to say, “Well, I just bought this quality mask for $3”, but I didn’t. I said matter of fact, “This is a flea market.” She replied, “I have been coming here for 6 years and I know what sells.” I said, “I would be willing to give you $10, I don’t need what is inside.” She indignantly replied, “No, it is a set. I also paid $7 for the paper grasshopper inside, and $10 is not even a fourth of what I paid!” I noticed my heart beating faster in my chest, so I started to back away as I said, “This is not personal, either you want to sell it or not.” She replied, “I don’t see it that way, we just have different ways of seeing it.” I agreed, and left.
As I recounted this encounter to my husband, it felt like I had been attacked for no reason. Then I recognized that I put down the lady’s judgment of value when I said, “This is a flea market.” What I was saying, and she picked up on it, was, “You are asking too much, I doubt you will get $20 here.” I reacted that way because I felt put down when she compared herself to the other vendors and judged herself “more than” by saying, “The difference between me and the other vendors is that I only sell quality.” My ego mind interpreted this as, “I don’t sell junk, I am better than others, including you.” To the ego, competition is necessary because there is not enough. The ego’s perspective is “She is distinguishing herself and making herself worth more than me. I have to defend my value." In other words, because value is believed to be limited, to get more, we must take it away from others. We believe that we can only get it, at the expense of someone else (putting others down).
I could have left after she said to me that the least she would be willing to take was $20, the price she started with. Why didn’t I? In my believing than I could be “less than”, my ego got hooked and it turned into a battle. Since I have no way of knowing how this event got interpreted in the woman's mind, the battle was between me and my fear of loosing self esteem. It left me scared and upset. It was this fear that made my heart race. I put my body under physiological stress over a simple woven box which was not exactly what I was looking for in the first place!
Look at your life; examine what makes you feel “more than” and “less than”. Note that you have accepted the belief that outside things or people can affect your self worth and self esteem. This is truly impossible! Stop giving things and people the power to judge your value. Stop your mind from judging your own worth and the value of others. Recognize that we are all created with inherent and infinite self worth and self esteem. The value is within. It cannot be taken away. It can only go unrecognized. Recognize and appreciate your inherent self worth and self esteem. It can’t be taken away unless you believe that it can!
Visit my website to read more articles and learn more about EFT: http://www.healing-with-eft.com
