In working with Self Esteem, we need to be aware of two dangers. One is that of oversimplifying what healthy self-esteem requires and thereby of catering to peoples hunger for quick fixes and effortless solutions. The other is that of surrendering to a kind of fatalism or determinism that assumes in effect that individual “either have good self esteem of they haven’t” that everyone destiny is set (forever) by the first few years of life and there’s not much to be done about it (except years or decades of psychotherapy) Both views encourage passivity, both obstruct our vision of what is possible.
Experience is that most people underestimate their power to change and grow. They believe implicitly that yesterdays pattern must be tomorrow’s. They do not see choices that -objectively -do exist. They rarely appreciate how much they can do on their own behalf if genuine growth and higher self-esteem are their goals and if they are willing to take responsibility for their own lives. The belief that they are powerless becomes a self -fulfilling prophecy.
Self esteem is life supporting and life enhancing.High self-esteem seeks the challenge and stimulation of worthwhile and demanding goals. Reaching such goals nurtures good self-esteem. Low self-esteem seeks the safety of the familiar and undemanding. Confining oneself to hte familiar and undemanding serves to weaken self-esteem. The more solid our self-esteem the better equipped we are to cope with trouble that arise ain our personal lives or in our careers. the quicker we are to pick ourselves up after a fall. the more energy to begin anew. (An extraordinarily high number of successful entrepreneurs have two or more bankruptcies in the past so failure did not stop them).
As for relationships people with similar level of self-esteem tend to connect or marry with others who have the same level. The healthier our self-esteem the more inclined we are to treat others with respect and fairness- since we do not tend to perceive them as a threat. We do not approach encounters with automatic expectations of rejection or humiliation.
With Love it is not difficult to see the importance of self-esteem to success in the arena of intimate relationships. There is no greater barrier to romantic happiness than the fear that I am undeserving of love and my destiny is to be hurt. The relationship of love feels natural, benevolence and caring so you have something to give and not trapped in the feelings of deficiency.
For those with low self-esteem when they know they are doomed to behave in ways to make reality conform to their knowledge. Since our knowledge is not to be doubted or questioned, it is facts that have to be altered: hence self -sabotage. A man falls in love, the woman returns his feeling and they marry. But nothing she can do is ever enough to make him feel loved for longer than a moment, he is insatiable. However she is so committed to him that she perseveres. When at last she convinces him that she really loves him and his in no longer able to doubt it he begins to wonder whether he set his standards too low. He wonders whether she is really good enough for him. Eventually he leaves her, falls in love with another woman and the dance begins again. Everyone knows the famous Groucho Marx joke that he would never join a club that would have him for a member. That is exactly the idea by which some low self-esteem people operate their love life. If you love me, obviously you are not good enough for me. Only someone who will reject me is an acceptable object of my devotion. A woman feels compelled to tell her husband, who adores her all the ways in which other women are superior to her. When he does not agree, she ridicules him and the more passionately he worships her the more cruelly she demeans him. Finally he walks out of their marriage so she is hurt and astonished. How could she have misjudged him she tells herself? I always know no one could ever truly love me because she always felt undeserving of love and now she has proved it.
The tragedy of many people’s lives is that given a choice between being “right” and having an opportunity to be happy, they invariably choose being “right”. That is the one ultimate satisfaction they allow themselves.
A man “knows” that it is not his destiny to be happy. He feels he does not deserve to be. (Perhaps growing up in a household where his parents never know any happiness of their own). But when he meets a women how attracts him and she responds in kind he is happy and for a while forgets that romantic fulfillment is not his “story” , not his life script. So in his joy he temporarily forgets that it does violence to his self-concept and this makes him feel out of alignment with “reality”. Eventually however the joy triggers anxiety as it would have to for one who feels misaligned with the way things really are. To reduce his anxiety hi must reduce his joy. So guided unconsciously by the deepest logic of his self-concept he begins to destroy the relationship. So again we observe the basic pattern of self-destruction. If I “know” my fate is to be unhappy, I must not allow reality to confuse me with happiness. It is not I who must adjust to reality, but reality that must adjust to me and my “knowledge” of the way things are and are meant to be.
Self-esteem – high or low – tends to be a generator of self-fulfilling prophecies.