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.