– Self-esteem is in fashion. Everyone talks about loving oneself, that we have to love ourselves first in order to love others, that self-esteem is the pillar of human development. However, if it's clear to me, we don't know each other, so we can't love each other. I am right?
– It would be more accurate to say that you have to stop hating yourself. Most people not only don't love each other but hate each other.
– We are always judging and criticizing ourselves, trying to change, to improve, to be different.
– The first step of human development is not self-esteem, it is acceptance.
– And why is it so difficult for us to accept?
– You cannot accept yourself because you have a false image of yourself and you do not realize that this ideal image of “what you should be” has also been imposed on you by others. That's why you always criticize yourself, that's why you always judge yourself, that's why you don't respect yourself. You desperately seek to improve yourself, to be better, without realizing that it is absolute stupidity. You can't get over yourself, nor do you need to. You can't be better, nor do you need to be.
– It's like always being against yourself.
– That, since you were born you have been turned against yourself and have been taught to move away from your being to look for what you need in the wrong place.
- But who? How? Why? So that? – I asked between annoyed, sarcastic and really intrigued- It sounds like a conspiracy.
- Who? Your parents, your teachers, your religious and political leaders.
How? Making you believe that you are incomplete. That you need to perfect yourself, that there is something wrong in you, in your nature, in your sex. Making you believe that you have to become someone in life, that you have to achieve great things, that you have to buy what they sell you,
Why? By ignorance, by inertia, by unconsciousness.
So that? To maintain the state of things at any cost
And no- finally said– is not a conspiracy because they themselves are part of the process.
– Ufff? Wait a minute, that's too much information to measure me one of those clear examples you're used to.
– Alright, here it is:
A baby comes into this world being perfect, absolutely perfect. Full of possibilities, gifts, virtues and beauty.
His parents, who want him to be a "good person", begin to educate him, which in this society means: conditioning, comparing, repressing, manipulating.
They make him see that he has a "shared" cheese maker, that is, that he has to lend his things even if he doesn't want to, they make him see that he has to be "good", that is, that he has to put the interests of others before his; They make him see that he has to be "humble", that is, that he should not feel or speak well of himself.
With the best of intentions, they tell him that if he wants to be someone in life, he has to study and succeed. The child deduces: “If I have to become somebody, it is that right now I am nobody at all”.
- It can not be so bad. You put it as if it were a concentration camp.
– I am going to remind you of some of the phrases with which your personality was created:
“You are useless”, “you are good for nothing”, “you will never achieve anything in life”, “why are you not like your brother who is a scholar?”, “I must be paying something to have a son like you” , "Are you stupid or what?", "Leave it there, you're going to be an idiot", "This is my house and if you don't like it, get out", "Because I'm your mother, that's why"...
– Okay, okay, I admit it was quite violent…
– This is how we were educated: With conditioned love, sarcasm, threats, criticism, warnings and prophecies of failure.
– Prophecies of failure? How's that?
– Your parents repeated to you “to motivate you” that you would never achieve anything in life, that you would never get anywhere, that you were good for nothing; all that is what is expected of you. Those are your expectations.
– What a way to motivate me!
– Imagine for a moment that life is going well for you and you start to achieve your goals. An alarm goes off in your unconscious mind saying “Stop, you're making your parents look bad! You are making them look like liars.”
– And I suppose that if your parents did not achieve anything in life, you also feel guilty for surpassing them. TRUE?
– Sure, even behind your own name there are a lot of hidden expectations. If they called you after your grandfather or your mother, it is because they expected you to be like them.
– My grandfather was an inveterate drunk.
– I continue with my example.
Upon reaching adolescence, this person already has a deformed and diminished self-image. Her original beauty has been covered with insecurities, her capacities are already covered with traumas and complexes. Self-esteem, natural in all babies, has been transformed into contempt, into the certainty that they have to "fight" to be someone important, that they have to show the world their worth, that they have to fight to get ahead.
– You talk about special cases, in which the parents do not do a good job…
– I'm talking about all of us! -Our poor parents transmitted to us their fears, their insecurities, their expectations, their misconceptions of life. They loaded onto us their failed dreams, their grudges, their limiting beliefs.
– They had no choice. They were not aware of what they were doing.
– That's right… can I continue with my example?
– Follow please.
– Our little friend attends catechism, already feeling bad about himself, carrying a bag of misconceptions about himself and life and what does he learn there? That he was born tainted by original sin: a sin he did not commit
What dust it is and to dust it will become.
What is a sinner?
That your sexuality and the energy that moves you is dirty and sinful?
That nothing good can come out of man.
That he has to be saved from himself.
He learns that someone died because of him, because of him, because of his great fault.
They fill him with fears about hell and his reasons for being good are after death, in paradise.
They give him a bunch of rules that he didn't choose, that didn't come from his conscience or from his heart. He follows them out of fear, because someone told him.
– Wait, give me a moment. When you talk like that about religious concepts, I feel very scared.
– Of course you feel afraid! That's part of the way you were programmed, you were instilled with a terrible fear of questioning religious beliefs. They told you that is also a sin!
– And it is not a sin?
- What do you think?
I don't know, I feel...
- Let's keep going.
Let's say that our hero becomes an ordinary adult, that is to say: unsure of himself, deplorable common concept, repressed in his sexuality and his joy for living and full of fears and doubts. In these conditions, he desperately searches for something that makes him feel good, that makes him feel valuable, worthy of being loved.
- No no no. I believe that about myself, that I always felt so bad. Of others that it is clear that they have traumas in their childhood but of all???
– Everyone feels that way, my love, everyone.
– My brother, who is quite a winner?
– Your brother too. Those who appear not to feel this way are compensating, that is, they calm their anguish with something that is socially accepted. Why do you think your brother works sixteen hours a day, six days a week? Because he is happy with who he is?
– No, I guess not.
– Your job is what gives you a fleeting sense of worth.
– Did you call me “my love”?
– Shall we continue?
– Mhhhhhh.
– This great need for acceptance, recognition, love. It is used by others:
What is it that will make you feel good about yourself? The car that I sell.
What is the one that will make you feel beautiful? The clothes, the perfumes and the accessories that I offer you.
Are you overwhelmed by feeling repressed all the time? I have the solution: Bacardi, Corona, Johnny Walker.
Do you feel rejected? My credit card is “the key to the world”.
Do you want to be someone in life? Computer courses, English.
Caught? Come to the Marlboro world.
– And no one notices the manipulation?
– They are so used to it that they no longer notice the lack of respect and the insult to their intelligence, they are so stupid that they swallow everything.
- Of course not. Can not be.
– It is enough to watch television for a while to know that I am right. Everything they sell you is related to your feelings of low self-esteem and your need for love.
– I still refuse to believe it.
– You can deny it all you want but, you are starving… hungry for recognition, acceptance, love. You go through life doing circus, maroma and other just to get others to see you, recognize you, admire you, respect you, love you. You look for something in others that they can't give you because they don't have it themselves, and if by chance someone is able to give it to you, you can't receive it. You don't feel worthy, you don't feel worthy of being loved, respected, recognized.