Do you have too little self esteem...or too much?
As a spiritual life coach, I often encounter people who say they don’t have enough self esteem and want to know how to build it up. My answer is frequently “what do you want self esteem for?”...

Self esteem is a quality that others would observe us demonstrating but it is not something that can be truly attained within. Yes a false confidence can be built up using all the classic techniques of NLP (neuro linguistic programming) or hypnotherapy but all this is just an illusionary bubble which the universe will burst at the first available opportunity. Why is this? Why do we not need self esteem? Indeed why do we not need any such quality at all?

The true self - the spirit within - arises out of our beingness which is the ‘zero sum total of all things’. Another way of saying this is that we are the absolute, everything and nothing simultaneously. When we approach this experience - for it cannot be experienced fully - then there is knowing of the nothingness inside. To most when they encounter this feeling, fear quickly arises because of conditioned programming within the mind - the ego does not like the idea of non-identity and creates an internal drama about loosing it.

However if we can release the idea of needing to be anything, even of needing an identity, then ultimately we keep encountering this place of nothingness/everythingness until we become it all the time.

If we can be content without identity in all circumstances, then the true self (consciousness) flows spontaneously from this nothing/everythingness and although it is without identity inside, others may identify us as having a particular quality - self esteem for example because they observe this in our actions.

When you are in a place where you have nothing, nothing can be taken away. Since self esteem is defined as ‘having pride in oneself’, then that pride could be taken away but since nothing can be taken away from the true self, by definition someone who has self esteem must be less than the true self. In other words they must be being the ‘false self’.

Perhaps that's why they say pride always comes before a fall? So if you find yourself in need of self esteem this week, perhaps its because you already have too much not too little?

Here’s to a week of broken pride and dashed self esteem!

Chris

PS Need help getting rid of self esteem? If so...click here