having to rebuild your self-esteem

[Shadow Nexus]

Since I can’t afford a therapist or an ADHD coach(USA), I need some professional advice.

I can’t get a “regular job” and survive on disability. If you read my “Most X-treme!” post, you’ll see the facts as quite clear. I will not comment any further on it. So, I have to rewrite my identity from scratch based on independent business ideas. Also, I have plenty of ideas, lots of help, and resources.

Here’s my problem. All that rejection over so many years wrecked my self-esteem. It was like granite mountain slowly being eroded by the elements until it became small hill. I’m saying so many negative things about myself. I’m doubting succeeding at anything at all. It’s interfering with trying to get moving with any project. The projects are good ideas with great potential. Where do I start addressing the issue of self-esteem?

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[Anonymous]

This is what I’ve learned over the years, and especially over the last month or so:

Live in the moment. This is probably the most important thing you can do for yourself. Living in the moment means beginning every day as a new day and not carrying around the baggage of the past. Think of the mighty Phoenix, rising from the ashes. And do that every single day of the rest of your life. Refuse to let anything dampen your spirit for more than 10 minutes.

Deal with problems and obstacles as they happen and not before. You can go through the whole litany of What Ifs, but at the end of the day, they might not even happen. But if something doesn’t go the way you hoped, take 10 minutes to be mad or upset and then shake it off and move on to Plan B. Acknowledge negative thoughts and then let them go. Visualize sending them out to sea, like little baby sea turtles.

Assume everything will have a positive outcome and not a negative one (see Living in the Moment). Don’t base your assumptions about other people’s reactions on things that have happened in the past.

You can do this. From now on, I want you to stop saying anything negative about yourself. Look yourself in the mirror and smile. Be kind to yourself. And every once in a while, treat yourself to something special, even if you think you can’t afford it or don’t deserve it. It could be something as simple as getting a haircut or buying a new shirt, or treating yourself to your favorite food that you don’t have every day. What it is isn’t as important as the fact that you are going through the deliberate motion of treating yourself like you are your best friend.

YOU ARE A WORTHWHILE HUMAN BEING and you should start seeing yourself that way. Nothing else really matters.

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[munchkin]

Imagine a young person who is your child or someone you know who is really promising and has their whole life ahead of themselves, and is not damaged goods, and could do anything in life. Now if you could advise them, or provide resources for them, what would you do? what would you say? Would you encourage them to look nice? To get educated? To make friends and surround them with positive people who can help them succeed? Would you want them to have a clean and nice environment to work and live in? Now flip it around – that person is you! You can be your own best friend and nurture yourself and belive in yourself! It just might be contagious… When you are doing new things and improving your life, people are attracted to that because they want to be around people who are on a good path. It’s a snowball, momentum kind of thing where you start small with something you can definitely succeed with, and then it makes you and people around you feel good, which powers you up to the next thing. And so on and so on, with failures and successes and two steps forward and one step back. It’s kind of like being adolescent all over again… I don’t know, I’ve managed to come up from the ashes more than once by doing stuff like this…

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