Self Esteem, Vulnerability & Why I Stopped Meditating

Amigos!

The big 3 newsletter is here.

• 1 mental health tip
• 1 social skills tip
• 1 personal reflection

Let's dive straight in...

1.) Self Esteem

This week I’ve been deep into the rabbit hole of self-esteem.

And the origins and consequences of this psychological concept are a lot more ridiculous than I thought.

The self-esteem movement began in the mid 1980s and was led by the Californian politician and amateur psychologist John Vasconcellos. He argued that low self-esteem is the root cause of many personal and social problems and simply raising it would act as a panacea for us all.

In other words…

The solution to all problems = self love.

But to save you the full backstory, he turned his political campaign into a quasi-religious movement by manipulating research findings which resulted in the western world becoming obsessed with this idea that in order to get ahead in life you just need self esteem.

Schools soon caught on to the idea and began offering participation trophies to kids, fuelling the belief that “no matter what you do, you’re special.” By 1986, 86% of Californian schools had implemented self esteem programmes to help children. Unfortunately, however, in trying to convince every kid that they are special, this movement has created a culture in which no one is special. (To go deeper into the origin story, check out this article).

But reading about the fragile origins of this psychological concept didn’t surprise me.

Because I’ve had issues with self help gurus telling people to just “love yourself more” for a while now.

Here’s why…

First of all, let’s define self esteem.

• Self-esteem is an attitude towards yourself. Specifically the belief that you have value.

However, and I regret to tell you this, telling people to love themselves (especially men) doesn’t work.

Because the harsh truth is that people who have high self esteem, tend to have high self esteem because they’re smart, talented or successful. Which is to say, your self esteem depends on what you do, not on the affirmations you tell yourself.

The main issue I have with the self esteem movement is that the common message is; you should love yourself and think highly of yourself no matter what.

But what if I’m a bully? What if lounge around all day and make my life and the lives of others a complete misery? What if I’m a kid and I go to school each day and beat people up? What if I’m a… you get the point.

Should I still feel good about myself then?

Worse yet, telling someone to feel good about themselves when they clearly don’t is no different from telling a depressed person to be more happy.

Here’s the issue with the toxic positivity the self esteem movement pushes…

Toxic positivity forces you to wear a mask that doesn’t always fit. Additionally, it stems from the idea that positive thinking will solve any problem. But this runs contrary to a fundamental psychological principle: what you resist, persists. Which is to say, the more you avoid it, the more your repressed negativity grows against you until one day it explodes and you're sat on your kitchen floor crying your eyes out in your dressing gown.

Not to mention avoiding pain removes the one feedback mechanism you need in order to address the underlying issues in your life. To put it poetically, burning yourself on a hot stove gives you a good understanding of where you’re at.

Lastly, before we cover how to actually improve your self esteem, research shows positive affirmations work only for people who already have a positive self image but backfire for those who don’t.

So if you currently have a negative view towards yourself, affirming “I love everything about myself” commits two crimes:

• 1.) It reminds you of all the things you don’t love about yourself
• 2.) It now makes you feel like a liar

So how can you improve your self esteem?

As we’ve mentioned, self esteem is an attitude towards yourself. But what we're going to term 'authentic self esteem' comprises the view that you are capable and worthy.

Capability = your trust in your own mind and judgement.

Worthiness = the belief that you have value and are worthy of respect.

So to cultivate authentic self esteem, I first want to offer a perspective change…

Shift your concept of self esteem away from the present moment and towards the future.

Self esteem is an understanding that on the one hand you might not like yourself or your current life very much, but on the other hand you have the capability within you to change what you don’t like.

As Carol Dweck says, “becoming is better than being.”

Go deeper:

The psychotherapist Nathaniel Branden lays out 6 ways to improve your self esteem (sidenote; these have stood the test of my pessimism, so they’re legit).

Branden posits your self esteem is based on 6 pillars.

Live with awareness.

Accept yourself.

Take responsibility.

Assert yourself.

Live intentionally.

Act with integrity.

And by practicing these pillars you begin a virtuous cycle of spiralling upwards.

Here’s how to do so…

1.) Live with awareness.

Look for all the realities that affect your life, accept them and act accordingly.

The opposite of doing this is living in ignorance; ignoring what affects your life. So too you are living in ignorance if you gather the relevant information but don’t act appropriately.

Think about it this way…

The decisions you make reflect your level of awareness.

For example:

• Buying shit you can’t afford = living in ignorance (low awareness)
• Avoiding tough conversations = living in ignorance (low awareness)

So the more you face the harsh truths in your life, those things you don’t want to look at because they’re ugly, the more you improve your self esteem because it means you can act accordingly to your reality, meaning you’ll make better decisions.

Secondly, allow yourself to feel negative emotions.

The reason you avoid feeling your negative emotions is because you tend to blame yourself for them.

For example:

• Your relationship ends and your grief causes you to blame yourself for not being attentive enough
• Your back hurts and the pain makes you blame yourself for not moving enough

All of which lowers your self esteem as the awareness of your emotions comes coupled with self attack.

But the more you train yourself to observe your emotions without self attack, you gift yourself the opportunity to address the underlying cause that emotion is trying to make you aware of.

For example:

• The more you become aware of your loneliness, the more you’re able to recognise “oh, I have a social need that’s not being met. Let me work to change that.”

2.) Accept yourself.

Branden says you must choose to not live in conflict with yourself.

But I also want to add; acceptance does not mean approval.

You can accept where you’re at in life, but that doesn’t mean you approve of it.

Branden then highlights there are 3 things you can do to foster more acceptance…

1.) Realise you’re on your own side.

• Thought experiment; you’re still here. On this earth.
• Which means; every morning, no matter how low you feel, you’ve gotten yourself out of bed.
• So despite how much you might not like yourself right now, there's still a positive force within you aimed at your wellbeing.

2.) Accept all of your emotions and behaviours.

• You can only change what you first accept.
• Remember, to accept doesn’t mean to approve.

3.) Treat yourself with kindness.

• I define kindness as giving yourself the benefit of the doubt.
• Don’t judge your actions, question them:
• Why did I behave this way?
• What unmet need was I trying to serve?
• Kindness = you avoid self-attacks that spiral you downwards
• Questioning = you address the root cause

The main roadblock you’ll face when trying to accept yourself is your perfectionism. But your perfectionism is nothing more than an attempt to alter other people’s perceptions of you, fuelled by your need to gain approval and avoid being shamed.

But think about it this way…

Have you ever seen a wrongly formed cloud?

Have you ever seen a badly made wave?

Your imperfection doesn’t mean there’s something wrong with you.

To take this one step further, here’s a harsh truth that will help you accept yourself more…

You’re average.

And that’s fine.

So am I.

Here’s a visualisation technique you can use to foster more acceptance…

Imagine a potent gas is released in nature and what you want to change about yourself can't happen. Now that you know you will always ________, how will you choose to live your life? Would you do anything differently? Will you continue to berate yourself for it?

Remember, it's not your fault this gas was released - preventing any change.

- Will you find a way to handle the situation? to tolerate it?

- How can you cope more effectively? How can you take better care of yourself?

- If you weren't worrying so much about your voice, how else would you expend your energy?

3.) Take responsibility

Branden argues you need to take an active rather than passive approach to life.

To elaborate, there are three reasons why responsibility is important:

1.) No responsibility = no control

• If you don’t feel responsible for something, you won’t feel capable or worthy

2.) No responsibility = no action

• If you don’t realise it’s your responsibility to raise your self esteem, you won’t act to raise it
• Additionally, if you catch yourself using these statements:
• “If only…”
• “It’s their fault…”
• You’re not taking responsibility

3.) No responsibility = no improvement

• Without taking responsibility for something, you’ll wait for someone to come and save you
• But, of course, no one is coming
• You’ll be waiting forever
• And even if someone does come to save you, you’ll then become dependent on them, again shirking your responsibility

So analyse the areas in your life where you've handed over responsibility to someone else and reclaim that power.

As Jordan Peterson says "opportunity lurks where responsibility has been abdicated."

4.) Assert yourself

People who assert themselves through respectful communication like themselves. Because if you don’t like yourself, why speak up to defend yourself and your needs?

Start turning up the volume of your voice in your relationships by clearly communicating what you want, need and value in appropriate ways.

Also, you can raise your self esteem by decreasing your desire to receive validation from others.

So don’t aim for appreciation from others, aim to be useful. Aim to help others without expecting any appreciation in return.  

Last tip…

Engage your creativity to reduce your need for validation.

Because truly creative acts are done for their own sake. Not for approval.

Dance, write, draw, make music, design, play. Whatever creative task you like.

5.) Live intentionally

Again, don’t just react to life.

Proactively decide what your long term goals and values are and work towards upholding them.

In the words of James Clear who wrote Atomic Habits, decide on the type of person you want to become, then do the work to become them.

By living intentionally, you improve your confidence in your ability by giving yourself evidence that you’ve done hard things before.

For example, learning one language gives you the confidence to now learn any language - because you’ve nailed the process.

Lastly, note the definitions between a strength and a weakness.

A strength is anything you do which makes you stronger.

A weakness is anything you do which makes you weaker.

For example:

• You can be great at math, but you hate it, so that’s a weakness
• You can be an awesome at swimming, but you hate it, so that’s a weakness
• You’re great at speaking to people in conversation, and you love it, so that’s a strength

Cultivate your strengths.

6.) Act with integrity

Finally, no life without values guiding you is worth living.

So examine with precision why you have certain beliefs.

Unhook yourself from the beliefs that don’t serve you, then replace them with the values which spark a feeling of resonance within you.

Note: it's not enough to just know your values, you must rank them in order of importance.

Why?

So you can make better decisions.

For example:

• If I value my mental health and family to the same degree and my family want me to do something which compromises my mental health, what value do I choose to uphold?
• But if I value my mental health above my family, I'll be able to easily make the above decision.

There’s no easier way to ruin your relationship with yourself than to act in ways that contradict your values.

Choose virtue.

I have a 40+ minute video coming out this week all about self esteem, so we’ll go into a lot more detail.

Moving on...

Now let’s cover this week’s social skills tip…

(Because this week's mental health tip was longer than usual, I've kept the last two parts of this newsletter succinct.)

2.) Shared vulnerability

Often in my conversations I adopt the role of the therapist.

I focus on listening to people for 90% of the conversation.

But I’ve noticed this compromises the connection between me and the person I’m listening to.

And the reason why is because of shared vulnerability.

In most interactions, you stand a better chance at building a deeper connection with someone if you both match each other’s levels of vulnerability.

For example:

• If I ask you a deeply personal question about your childhood but don’t offer anything from my experience in return, you’ll likely feel over exposed

So one thing I am going to practice more, in the spirit of going first and going positive, is to permit myself to expose myself more. So that my counterpart can do the same.

In the words of Alain De Botton…

"To be a good companion, it isn't enough simply to be polite or to commiserate. We need to take a risk. We need to give our friends something they could use against us - so that they can feel safe in giving us something we might use against them. Under the umbrella of mutually assured destruction, real trust and friendship can flourish."

Now let’s finalise with this week’s personal realisation.

3.) Why I stopped meditating

I started meditating everyday when I was 16.

It was awesome.

But over the past 2 years I’ve probably meditated a handful of times.

Not to worry though…

Because this week Naval Ravikant, once again, articulated why I stopped meditating for me.

In his most recent podcast he was questioned on whether he meditates, to which he responded with something along the lines of:

“Experiences come and go. What you want is a state. Which is stillness.

I don’t want peace for 1 hour a day. I want it throughout everything I do.

When it’s 5pm and you’re walking down the street, how do you feel? Are you calm?

When it’s 8:23am and you’re sat working, how do you feel? Are you calm? Are there things inside you that are unresolved?

Hence meditation became boring for me.”

And it clicked.

I stopped meditating because what I want is to cultivate stillness into everything I do.

I don’t want to convince myself I can only have peace for 10 minutes a day when I sit down to close my eyes.

But don’t worry.

I’m not arguing against meditation. I will still do it from time to time and the evidence behind how it positively impacts your brain is phenomenal.

I just wanted to understand why a years long habit suddenly disappeared at the drop of a hat (or a cushion depending on what you sit on when you meditate).

Stillness is always the answer.

Thank you for reading.

Until next week!

Lew

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