Category Archives: Self Esteem

The Dream I Never Knew I Had

Dear Miriam,
I love my new self! Spring, dreams, relationships – everything is different. It has meaning I never knew.
Yours,
April

Dear April,

We dream, we all do. There are dreams we know we can realize, there are some we are quite sure we cannot. And … there are dreams that await us in the space and time beyond our consciousness. These are dreams that cannot be conceived ahead of time. These are dreams that meet us on “the path with the heart”, on our road of self-discovery, of becoming the selves we are born to be – the realization of our identity.

Some of the most cherished dreams in our culture are relationships, marriage and family.  

The relational aspects receive a lot of attention: What we want and seek is intimacy. We seek intimacy… and we often find ourselves in troubled relationships. . . Intimacy is a process, but we expect it right away. We want “instant intimacy”. Sex becomes “instant gratification” for intimacy hunger. Sex, courtship, infatuation “romantic love”, all have elements of intimacy… But they are not intimacy (yet!).

The joy of shared intimacy begins with and builds on our identity, the dream we never knew we had – the self-concept that based on self acceptance, self esteem and self awareness. Many of us get in troubled relationships by seeking intimacy before identity. These are two “common struggles” in our culture: identity (who am l?) and intimacy (with whom am I sharing the journey of life?).

Often we try to find our identity through our intimacy…

Well, the problem is: We reverse the order. Identity is the foundation for intimacy, intimacy is built on identity. What are women taught about being women? Women are taught that meaning of their lives comes through their husbands and children. Women are taught that love is romance. The fairy tales – Sleeping Beauty, Cinderella, Beauty and The Beast – tell us wait for our Prince Charming; “sleep”, don’t act, and when (and if!) you’ll wake up, you’ll find yourself riding off into the sunrise taken by your Prince … (maybe to live with his mother?). We are taught to be beauty objects and sex symbols.

Men are taught very different about being men. They are taught to be warriors, protectors, providers and taking it to the extreme: the power objects and economic symbols. Men are taught that intimacy is sex: you work hard and be a success and “it” will find you. Men become addicted to success, work, money, sex. Women become romance and love addicts. We often become addicted to men who are addicted to work, money, sex, alcohol and drugs. We closed the circle – this is how we live together in our insane world.

I believe we all (women and men) desire and seek intimacy. We are just unsure what it is. In our search of intimacy first (and before identity) we often did things that kept us from getting it.

It is all a part of the journey: dreams of failing in love, finding that significant other and living happily ever after. The one thing I wish we would all do in this journey: find ourselves and love what we find.

Love

Miriam

We Live The Life We Choose

Dear Miriam, 
You have no idea what a poor opinion I have of myself – and how little I deserve it.
W.S. Gilbert

Dear W.S.,

Can this be changed? Here’s what I think: We are living the life that we choose to live. The choices are made, moment by moment, each moment of our lives. Do we do what is comfortable and safe for us, or do we pursue what has meaning to us, what is our real ‘heart’s desire’? Most of us often choose to feel comfortable and safe. We have the life we have, as an exact result of what we choose to do – often choosing comfort over risk, convenience over daring, conventional over what we believe and really want. But, where does it come from? Why are we that way? Well… in a nutshell, life is pretty simple. “What we dish out, we get back.” We all create our experiences by our choices; our thoughts, our words, our feelings, and our actions – all of which we choose (consciously or unconsciously). What we believe about life and about ourselves will determine our choices.

We create our experiences, and then we give our power away by blaming somebody or something for our frustrations and downfalls. But, if we do not own our experiences, how can we correct or even change the future ones? We get in life not what we want, but what we expect. Put another way, our subconscious mind accepts and acts on our choice of beliefs. What we believe about ourselves and our lives will be true for us, because our beliefs will be reflected by the outside world. Where are these beliefs coming from? Why do so many of us have such a poor self-concept and so many self-imposed limitations? Well, we learn how to feel about ourselves and about life while we are still little (basically, up to age 5-6) by the reactions of primary and important adults in our lives. And very many of us were surrounded by angry, guilty, depressed, and negative people. However, it would be neither wise, nor fair to blame them: they did the best they knew how to, with the knowledge and awareness they had at the time.

It is my belief also, that all of us do our best: if we knew how to live better, most of us would probably do it. The next important thing to know is; In our adult life, we have the tendency to recreate the familiar – the ’emotional environment’ of our primary family. How many of us had a lover, a husband, or a boss who was, in many ways, our mother or father, or a sibling (whether it be in the way they treated us, or the ‘vibe’ they gave off)? To make matters even more complicated, we treat ourselves in the same way we were treated in our primary family. Now you realize where your self-esteem is coming from. In spite of all that I would choose to blame, neither our families, nor our culture is the right scapegoat: how could anyone teach us something they didn’t know themselves? Those of us who are parents now will probably agree with me, wholeheartedly.

Now, after all this, what is our way out of the misery of this ‘victimization circle’? How can we change our lives? How can we parent our children differently? We are all here to transcend our limitations, to overcome our (conscious and unconscious) negative beliefs. We are all here to recognize that the power of change is in the present, right here and now. You might want take notice of your thinking process right now, at this very moment. Do you want those thoughts to create your tomorrow?

Love,
Miriam

P.S – One of the most powerful techniques for inducing a positive change in these areas is hypnotherapy.

How To Release Your Weight – And Suffering – And Keep It Off

Dear Miriam, 
I have been on so many diets… I’ve lost and found my extra pounds so many times. I’m starting to realize that there may be more to my situation than meets the eye. Any suggestions?
Sincerely,
Rita F.

Dear Rita,

If you’ve been on many diets and have found yourself returning to your old eating habits, there’s most probably an emotional cause which requires release. One that comes with many pounds of pain. Some of us constantly struggle with our weight, feeling hopeless when it comes to overcoming our craving for food. If this is how you feel, then most probably, there are some areas of your life that are toxic or unresolved. Here are a few of the most probable ones:

Current issues; love and/or work relationships, finances, and money issues, motherhood guilt, and adult sexual traumas

Childhood and/or adolescence; unresolved (and unexpressed) pain and suffering, psychological abuse, physical abuse, sexual abuse

I would like to stress the link between traumatic sexual experiences (past, recent, or current) and decreasing self-esteem and chronic overeating. Every weight over-conscious woman I’ve ever worked with has searched for a sense of self-acceptance and relief in her relationship with food. Another way to say it is: Many of us have an unhealthy coping mechanism that involves emotional hunger, which manifests as a physical necessity to eat. The whole issue of being ’emotionally overweight’ can be summarized easily.

If we were not so emotionally hungry, we would not be eating as much. If we didn’t eat as much, we wouldn’t have so much extra weight. The primary feelings that lead to that emotionally fueled hunger are unresolved and under-expressed (sometimes even unremembered) anger, fear, and shame. Only after you release the pain and suffering of stress and abuse, can you come to redefining your self-worth and begin accepting yourself and rebuilding your self-esteem. When we are ready to release the past with all of the attached pain, the weight is no longer needed; it will be released, and our chronic unhappiness will be lifted. My newer clients often ask me, “Why should I go through the pain of my past? How long will it take? Why can’t you just hypnotize me to lose weight?” I urge my clients to uncover that buried pain from the past that deprives them from today’s happiness, joy, and aliveness.

It takes as long as it has to. Obviously, your desire and readiness to release the past are major factors.

Love,
Miriam

P.S – In case you don’t catch why people ask about hypnotism, I use hypno-counselling for habit-modification, stress reduction, discovering family patterns, weight releasing goals, sources of anxiety, depression, and compulsive eating, among other things.

Moving On From Melodrama

Dear Miriam,
I keep finding myself in quite strange relationships. It is not love… it feels like obsession. Quite often, it feels awful! I never know what will happen next and I’m getting more and more unhappy with myself. Why do I do this to myself, and what is this all about?
Kelly H., 27

Dear Kelly,

Why would some women continuously get themselves into relationships that don’t bring anything but pain? Why are some of us habitual drama-seekers, consciously or unconsciously creating melodramatic experiences that are so plainly detrimental to our lives? Yes, it feels awful… but, it’s never dull. Let’s consider the nature of these dramatic experiences. First of all, many real life experiences are painfully dramatic:

Illness

Accidents

Loss of employment

Divorce

Many other experiences are joyfully dramatic:

Major professional achievements

The birth of a child

Weddings

All of these contain heightened emotions and feelings of increased aliveness. Unlike these dramatic events of our lives, the kind of drama we concern ourselves with here are MELODRAMATIC. The best example of melodrama out there is soap operas: exaggerated reactions, constant crisis, excessive emotions, constant frustration, and thrill. Some dramas, whether deliberately or unconsciously created, are extreme and self-destructive, while others are more subtle. The cumulative effects of either are equally destructive.

One of the most tragic aspects of dramatic living is that we are often unconscious of our part in creating it. It feels that our troubles and problems are out of control. We find ourselves as the helpless victim. If you suspect that living in drama is part of your life, you would probably like to know the origin of all of this drama. First, we must understand that the drive to seek various novel and complex sensations, emotions, and experiences through reasonable risk is healthy. However, for cultural reasons, many of us (especially women) learn to get involved in particular destructive “thrill” – a self-defeating drama that exhausts our energy, decreases our self-esteem and personal power, and keeps us disconnected from our deepest feelings. Instead of dealing with the pain that lays at the root of our poor self-concept, or our current life situations (deteriorating intimacy, unfulfilling relationships, meaningless jobs, etc.), we create melodrama, which conceals any possible insight. Not only this, but one of the most damaging consequences of this drama is that the conflicts and crisis prevent us from lasting intimacy in relationships. So the problem is two-fold! Another issue, the gradual decline in self-concept, affects all areas of our lives, including our careers.

In a nutshell, a life of drama is painful and self-defeating. It brings us excitement, but eventually leads to a greater agony. Do we have to choose? Does life have to be “good, but boring” OR “bad, but exciting”? Not at all. To reiterate, we all have needs for excitement. The question is: can we have it in a way that increases our self-esteem, leads to empowerment and self-actualization? When we learn to transform drama into healthy excitement, our whole image changes; our energy will increase, our self-concept and personal power will be strengthened, our ‘care’ feelings will be accessible, the intimacy in our relationships will have space to develop. You’re probably asking, “how do I get that?”

As usual, you probably already know the main steps: take responsibility for your life and actions, learn about your past and own it, forgive yourself and everyone else in your life, regardless of whether or not they deserve it, live in the moment, be aware and be grateful that you’re here!

Love,
Miriam