pillars of self-esteem

I get these e-mails from this site called consciousone. I can't recall how I ended up on their mailing list; probably happened one late night clicking away at links that seemed interesting at the time. Needless to say, there are occasionally some interesting tidbits in the newsletters they send out from time to time. In their latest newsletter sent out this September, which I just got around to reading this morning, I read this article regarding self-esteem and felt it was (for some reason) worth mentioning...

Finding the Pillars of Self-Esteem

When you learn about self-esteem, you learn about becoming more of yourself and getting more out of life. When life offers you its basic challenges, you have to know that you will be able to cope with them. You also have to understand that you are worthy of being happy. But, self-esteem goes so much further than just knowing you can handle making tough decisions and that you deserve accomplishment, love and fulfillment.

Self-esteem includes the ability to trust yourself, to be comfortable with your life and what you've done with it. In fact, no one can ever have too much self-esteem. We look at people all the time who boast and really think a great deal about themselves and we think they have a great amount of self-confidence and self-respect. This we often relate to having self-esteem.

People who boast and act arrogant actually have low self-esteem. It comes from thinking that you have to prove yourself to others, that no one thinks highly of you. People with self-esteem are content with themselves. They don't feel the need to brag to the world and announce every great detail. Having self-esteem means you already know people think highly of you and if they don't, they don't know you.

Low self-esteem leads to so many adverse conditions other than merely not feeling good about yourself. You sabotage your own health when you don't have healthy thoughts and you don't follow healthy life patterns. Low self-esteem has a strange way of often governing these things. A person with depression is known to develop unhealthy life habits and require more trips to the doctor's office. This begins the vicious cycle where a person with bad health problems develops lower self-esteem.

Sabotaging your own health is merely an example of how you can ruin your own potential for finding true happiness. Your own success is at stake. You have the ability to do great things and be a great person. But, you reduce yourself to getting by and settling for what life gives you. That's where you have to develop the ability to trust yourself. We all get a little queasy in the stomach when it comes to taking on a new challenge and trying to meet the expectations some people have of you. But, those of us with self-esteem march forward and make things happen. We trust that we will do a great job and we also trust that we deserve the success that goes with it.

I apparently saw something in this - some truth - that made me pause and take it in. But then I have to stop and kick myself because, really, what is this all about? I think any person with their wits about them could guess it: they are trying to sell something. Though I shouldn't be so harsh. Certainly there are tools out their that do a lot of good, and there is nothing wrong with promoting a product, but it definitely was a confirmed suspicion. Anyway, even with that in mind, there was still something I appreciated in the end after reading this blurb on self-esteem. And of course I went to amazon to find out a little more about the book and author. But in all truth the last thing I need is another self-help, life improving, how-to be better book! They all usually say the same stuff, anyway, with slight variations.