Self-concept & Self- Esteem

I view low self esteem as a virus. Yes you can get rid of the symptoms, however it lurks in the background, attacks normally when you are feeling not particularly great physically and mentally.
Its a vicious little virus that creeps up  can change you from being happy, confident to a shadow of your former self.

On my counselling course we looked at self concept and self esteem. The simplest explanation is to look at how a baby elephant is trained.

Elephants in captivity are trained at a early age, not to roam. One leg of a baby elephant is tied with a rope to a wooden post planted in the ground.

The rope confines the baby elephant to a are determined bt the length of the rope. Initially the baby elephant tries to break free from the rope, but the rope is too strong.

the baby elephant "learns " that it cant break the rope. 


When the elephant grows up and is strong it could easily break the same rope. However as it learned that it couldn't break the rope when it was young the adult elephant believes that it still cant break the rope so doesn't even try.

Humans operate in a similar way. We learned something about ourselves at a early age and still believe it now as a adult. even though it may not be true we operate as if it is.

Fortunately we can make conscious choices, as humans I think its our duty to change and grow throughout your life, and you can change how you perceive yourself for your own growth and better humanity.

We were given this excercise.
1 Write about what you learnt about yourself when you were young and from who?
2 which of these messages continue to dominate your thoughts today?
3 which of these messages support and which detract you're own confidence,happiness and satisfaction?
4 are these messages truth or simply a belief?
5 which messages do you want to change and improve your self-esteem
6 write new thoughts you choose to believe to support your positive self- esteem, confidence and happiness?

so my answers :
1 mother
- I was creative
- too thin
- not academic
- "soft"
- not as good as my sister

2 Father
- Creative
- warm hearted
- funny
- not as clever as my sister

3 Sister
- weird
- funny
- not academic
- absent minded

The ones that dominate my thoughts today remain that Imo weird, creative,funny, absent minded, soft
The feelings that detract from my self esteem are the obviously weird ( although sometimes `i see this as a good thing) soft- ill explain that- my mum gets pushed around a lot as she has low self esteem herself and has always said to this day ' im soft so thats why it happens' . I think she was trying to make me feel better when i was younger by saying " your soft like me" maybe trying to say you have a kind heart and people take advantage. It came across as negative and I saw myself as weak and pathetic.
Although I am obviously not weak or pathetic I do have days when these thoughts come back.

Absent minded- I know that this again has a lot to do with dyslexia but I still get a little kick to the self esteem when I do something wrong if ive had a bad day. To me it means stupid.

positive to my self esteem are that i'm warm hearted, funny and creative.

These messages negative ones aren't my true self, they are thoughts and at times believes that pop up when im down, when the low self esteem virus kicks in.

this has been interesting doing this ex cerise makes me pin point where my negative feelings come from, see things in my parents that I wont repeat with my own children.

I always felt my sister was the intelligent one, I was always told your more creative then accademic so thats what I chose my degree in etc. If I had have had more encouragement I think I would have chosen  phycology. I remember when i told my mum i wanted to study this at A level she laughed and said " are you sure you can do that"

Also my mums lack of self esteem impacted me. I felt unattractive and too thin as a teenager as she told me I looked too thin regually, this is something  I heard her say about herself from a very young age.
I think its because she was bullied at school for being tall and thin ( kids are weird)

I will tell my kids they can do anything they put their minds to, do my best to give them a positive self image, and not favour one child over the other.

My parents were very good, im sure my kids will write things about my parenting in the future about mistakes i have made. I just hope these arent included.