Is your self-esteem good , broken, healing or healed?

As we scoot through life we seldom make it ‘all-the-way’ with a good self-esteem. Just look around, or better yet, look in the mirror.

Many of us go through stages of ‘self-esteem’, because life will pull us down somewhere along the line. But if you start off with a low self-esteem as a child, anything that happens after that might tear you down even more.

Did you ever try to be helpful in school to a child that obviously had a lower self-esteem than yourself? Only to find out that this child was USING YOU to climb that pedestal to feel better? Stepping all over you to get there?

When I was a child, my parents were very concerned that we might think we were BETTER than others. I have no idea why, but we were told over and over," You are not better than anybody else."

We were expected to know our place and be respectful. Children that seemed spoiled were called ‘over het paard getild’ which translates into ‘carried OVER the horse'. Only royalty and very rich people have horses in the Netherlands, so that meant you were spoiled rotten.

The biggest compliment my parents could get, was if people said, "Your kids were so good, we didn’t even know they were there." They would glow with pride!

The part they forgot though, is compliment us ... I can’t recall EVER to get a compliment ... directly ... but I had a way ...

I remember sitting on the steps after sneaking out of bed, listening to them bragging about us, when they had company. I could stay awake all night long for that feeling.

 LOVED IT!!

So basically I didn’t start of as ‘miss popularity’.

My ex took down the rest of that self-esteem. His was low (I finally see that now) so he had to put me down to feel better and bigger! The divorce didn’t help much at first, I felt like a failure.

And I got a bit cocky after that ... just for show ... it was all pretense, but I started to believe it myself after a while.

Just the other day I read a blog about obnoxious people, healing from a low self-esteem. The blogger hit the nail on the head ... a healing self-esteem is often not very pretty.

He also mentioned that he had become more understanding and forgiving, when he saw this behavior. Because he knows more now ... about people getting hurt ... and healing.
So I wonder if anyone, has always had a good self-esteem.

Are you hurting, healing or healed?

And please remember, the best gift you can give your child is a good self-esteem. All you need to do is show them, that they are worthy of your time. Be patient at different levels of development, but allow them to ‘do it themselves’! When a young child yells, "I do it!" don’t take it away from them, but show them how.

Compliment them on their achievement, leave harsh criticism behind. Don’t say anything to your child, you would say to your friends!

Starting with a good self-esteem is so much easier than having to fix it.