www.getnewvisions.com/selfesteem/course

A Course in Self-Esteem 

2. The Subject No One Talks About

by Channing Grigsby

Our self-esteem underlies our behavior, our feelings, our thoughts, our attitudes. Our self-esteem is primarily a matter of that invisible world of mind which involves language, thought, belief, and interpretation, and of the emotional responses we have to that invisible world.

Self-esteem describes the relationship we have with ourselves. And that relationship possesses psychological, mental, emotional and spiritual dimensions. Our relationship with ourselves can be positive and supportive, and critical and destructive, and it can be a confusing mix of both. In this relationship with ourselves, we hold a generalized attitude or expectation, which is often unconscious, about how things are and will be. While we wouldn't think twice about saying that a person's relationship with their beloved person controls their lives: he doesn't like parties, so they don't go to many parties; she doesn't like the opera, so they don't go to many operas, we do have a hard time saying the relationship we have with ourselves controls our lives. But it does.

Our self-esteem affects everything we do and how we feel about everything we do. Our self-esteem is a matter of both mind and heart, thought and feeling. It is about how you think about yourself, how you feel about yourself. The level of our self-esteem controls our lives — controlling not so much the world but our experience of the world. And our experience of the world is our reality.

If you esteem someone, you both honor and admire them for their qualities and character and even perhaps wisdom. The dictionary definition is that esteem is about regarding with respect and admiration. But esteem is an ancient idea. The term "esteem" comes from the Latin verb aestimare, which means "to set the value of." Thus, the concept of esteem is inescapably tied up with the notion of valuing and value, of what is important. In self-esteem, we are talking about how we regard ourselves, how we value ourselves and about our worth  —  our self-worth.

One component of high self-esteem is a conviction we are inherently valuable: "I am worth loving." Another part is a sense of competence, a sense of power that we can handle what happens: "I am able to do what I need to do to live well." And a third part is what most people think of when they think of self-esteem, and that is confidence. Knowledge based on past experience that we can rely on ourselves and that what we do will work.

In addition, self-esteem has levels:

We can see ourselves as no-good.

We can see ourselves as medicore.

We can see ourselves as good, but not quite good enough (and that "good-enoughness" is precisely the issue.)

We can see ourselves postively, realistically in terms of our strengths and weaknesses, and as valuable and lovable and able, not perfect, maybe, but good- enough.

High self-esteem allows us to experience satisfaction and joy in life. We are able to be in touch with what we feel and to express it. Too often, we not only don't experience our feelings, we don't know what our feelings are. People with high self-esteem can pick and choose what they wish to do —   they know their own mind, and they approach the world with creativity and ingenuity. They are not set down by problems or obstacles, but challenged by them. They are resiliant and more resistant to stress. They like themselves and they like their lives and they work to enrich both.

But in a world which emphasizes success and accomplishment on one hand and modesty on the other, in a world in which most people's self-esteem is damaged, achieving a strong sense of self-worth can be very complicated. While self-esteem may participate in that invisible world of mind and thought and feeling, it's effects in our lives and loves and the world are much more obvious . . . .

Low self-esteem is endemic in our society. Look at the levels of our substance abuse, addictions, compulsive behavior, our lack of response to serious problems in our society and our culture. Look at our attachment to the material world and its apparent, so-called rewards. Look at our conformity, our unhappiness, our confusion about what's what.

Our societal low self-esteem is obvious in the ways we treat our children. A simple example from my own recent experience. In the fall of 1992 a severe hurricane, followed by a devastating storm, demolished parts of southern Florida. Six months later, in a California supermarket, I saw a harried father who was accompanied by two children, two boys, about eight and five. Both boys were laughing and playing and having a good time, but they were also obviously exasperating their father, who kept trying to control them, settle them down. After one of the father's especially sharp and loud rebukes, they passed me, and I heard the father say, "If you guys were in south Florida, you'd be classified as a natural disaster." Should we be surprised our children don't feel like powerful and strong and healthy people? Look at the various statistics about teen-agers: runaways, teen-age pregnancy, teen-age suicide, and violence, plus various substance abuses.

Addiction is a major symptom of low self-esteem. One writer, physician and writer Andrew Weil,* has argued that addiction is the human condition, the most fundamental human problem, from which all other problems result. Anne Wilson Schaef** argues we live in an addicted society. Low self-esteem in our society is demonstrated by a host of addictions. Substance, for instance: we have 30 million alcoholics. The demand for cocaine is enormous  —  enough to support an entire underclass in America and a significant portion of the nation of Columbia and Mexico. Caffeine, sugar, diet pills, tranquilizers. In addition, we have a host of process addictions, which are compulsive behaviors like workaholism, gambling, addiction to religion, to money, to power, to sex, and to love and relationships. Just recently, I heard an estimate that there are about 50 million survivors of incest in America  —  that's 20 percent of the population. And that's just one form of the abuses that has been identitified in families. One estimate is that up to 95% of American families are dysfunctional to one degree or another.

Worse, addictive behavior affects more than just the addicted person: it affects everyone around them. Everybody either is addicted or knows someone who is addicted to something, which gave birth to the idea of co-dependency. People who live with an addicted person are affected by what that person does. People who are now adults but were raised in alcoholic families share similar life, relationship, and intimacy problems, and they identify themselves as Adult Children of Alcoholics. Increasingly, twelve-step programs like Alcoholics Anonymous are being used to address other behaviors, from Co-dendency to Gambling to Overeating to Emotions.

In addition, addictive behavior is terminal. Many people have a hard time accepting this statement, but humans have a capacity for what is called toleration. This typically happens to heroin addicts, who start with a small amount of their fix in order to feel good. But then over a period of time, their body becomes tolerant of the drug, habituated to it. More and more of the substance is needed to get the same effect, the same high. Addictions get worse and worse unless we intervene. People do die of alcohol: they are said to drink themselves to death; people do die of illnesses related to cigarette-smoking; people do die of overwork. Addictions are terminal. They get worse and worse until we die. An addiction is a way of committing slow, indirect suicide. Unless we do something about it.

"Dysfunctional" has become a jargon word these days, but it simply and eloquently means "does not work, doesn't do what it is supposed to." If we look around, we can see dysfunctionality in our families, our relationships, our personal lives. Some people go even further, like psychologist Anne Wilson Schaef, who sees dysfunctionality throughout our society. She argues most of our institutions, our politics, our government, our classrooms and schools and churches, and other organizations like businesses and corporations, are dysfunctional. As she says, our addicted society is "based on the illusion of control, the illusion of perfectionism, thinking processes that twist reality into left-brain constructs, dishonesty, and denial."* The culture we encounter on a daily basis does not, to put it mildly, support high levels of self-esteem. Rather, it drills and drums comparisons, negative judgments, and inadequacy into us.

It is unreasonable to expect people from a dysfunctional culture and background to behave in healthy, functional ways. And if we were raised in this society, and most of us were, it is difficult to resist its negative structures and impacts. It is also difficult not to carry those negative messages into everything we do, wherever we go.

As a simple example, take the primary message that advertising in America communicates to the public. The message is that we need this product. The implication is that we are and will be inadequate, unsatisfied, unhappy, unless we are buying and using this car, that toothpaste or mouthwash or toilet paper or pain reliever. With the product, we will be okay; but without it . . . well, draw your own conclusion. And the question is, what is the cumulative impact of thousands of such messages on people who hear and see them? The negative message is subtle, so covert and hidden, it is hard to fight, so it is difficult in the face of that bombardment to say, "You're crazy —  I'm just fine, thanks." Sometimes, high self-esteem is hard to maintain.

Low self-esteem touches everything we do and touches every area of our lives, from our dreams to our work to our loves to our lovemaking. It determines how well we live with ourselves and with others. Low self-esteem respects no one — nothing outside exempts us.  It does not matter what class we're from or our station in life. It doesn't matter where we live, how much money we have, how successful we've been, how many degrees or years of schooling we have, who we're married to, what kind of car we drive, where we've come from or where we're going. It's quite easy to be well-off, even rich, well-educated, well-placed, and very successful and still feel really lousy about yourself.

**Anne Wilson Schaef: When Society Becomes an Addict, Harper & Row, 1987  

© 1997, C. Grigsby, All Rights Reserved. 2 Aug 1988

Comments? E-mail to: Channing