Continuing with the conversation I had with my friend Fulgencio, he said that today, it seems that talking about self-esteem is fashionable. 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. That self-esteem is the key to success. However, it is clear to me that we do not know each other, so we cannot love each other.
Certain?
– 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?
– Because 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.
– It is very risky to tell you but that is it. Since you were born you have been turned against yourself and have been taught to move away from yourself, to look for what you need in the wrong place.
- But who? How? Why? So that? - - Who?
I had already told you: your parents, your teachers, friends, co-workers, advertising, your religious and political leaders.
How? Making you believe that you are incomplete. That you need to perfect yourself, that there is something wrong with you, with your nature, with 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? Out of ignorance, out of inertia, out of unconsciousness, because you are asleep.
So that? To maintain the state of things at any cost.
– Ufff? It's too much information for me.
Let's see give me one of the clearest examples.
– Alright, here it is:
A baby comes into this world 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: programs, conditioning, comparing, repressing, manipulating.
They make him see that he has to be "shared", 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 theirs; 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 say that like it's an aberration.
– 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"...
– Híjole it seems that you were talking about me, I admit that it was quite violent in my case…
– 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 an ignorant 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, they expected you to be like them.
– My grandfather was an inveterate drunk