We are not born with low self-esteem. Look at any child during the first 18 months of their life. They are giggly, they respond to smiles, to their name and other words that are now a part of their life; they learn to walk, to drink out of a bottle, eat with a spoon, burst into laughter, and a dozen other behaviors. We couldn\u2019t learn to do all of this if we had low self-esteem. The young baby has great confidence and satisfaction in themselves. Low self-esteem is created. It is not something that we bring with us when we enter the world.<\/p>\n
Low self-esteem is created by abuse, by negativity, by admonishments for being and doing exactly what you are supposed to. A baby cries because he is hungry. If his parent screams at him to shut up, it is the beginning of eroding the baby\u2019s self-esteem. A baby crying\u00a0 when he\u2019s hungry is normal. A parent screaming at him erodes his confidence. In your growing up years every time you cry, every time you stub your toe, you need a parent to pick you up and speak soothing words to you, to hug you, to tell you they love you and they are sorry you are hurting. These actions create confidence in a baby as well as in a young child.<\/p>\n
For those of us whose abuse started when we were very little, low self-esteem is deeply rooted. Any kind of abuse, emotional, sexual, physical or mental creates low self-esteem. My abuse started when I was 13. Until then I had a high opinion of myself. Since I was my father\u2019s favorite (he had delivered me when I was born and spoke of this frequently as if he\u2019d won World War II single handed) I was even a bit arrogant. I had a strong sense of my own importance. After the abuse began I toppled downward into a painful world of not only low self-esteem but a complete lack of confidence. When you are abused depression, loneliness, despair, suicidal tendencies, addictions, shame based low self-esteem, and fear of abandonment await you if you do not Repair the damage. How do we overcome this once we are grown up and are aware of what happened and what we have become because of it?<\/p>\n
A lot of lies were told to us as a child. We were told we were ugly, no good, lazy, stupid etc. Even the unspoken words are abuse. The first thing a child learns when he has been struck is that he has no worth. This is not true, just another lie. No words were spoken, only a harsh physical violation. As you move through life it is necessary to not only rid yourself of the lies that kept you violated, but to learn new truths and new behaviors. Abuse makes us feel\u201d less than\u201d. The more painful the abuse the more \u201cless than\u201d we feel. It is as if we were torn apart, broken into pieces. Someone took that true self we were born with and destroyed it. In its place was left a child who is now broken and must be Repaired.<\/p>\n
When you work the program REPAIR you will literally go back in time and rid yourself of all of the lies. You will replace them with truth. You will validate the qualities that are the truth in you. You will pick up all the pieces of your life that were broken and learn how to reassemble them so that you are once again a confident human. You will go back in time and comfort that innocent child, help her to be stronger, show her how to set boundaries, tell her how she can recognize the good guys from the bad. Most important, you will rid her of that shame she has carried for so long. You will literally bring her back to that place she had when she was born, someone with a healthy self-esteem.<\/p>\n
Before I started recovery I wanted to find a doll with no face. I didn\u2019t know why. I finally found one. She stood two feet tall, wore an apron, carried a bouquet of flowers, had flowers in her hair, but she had no face. After I completed recovery I wanted to find a doll with a face. I searched and searched. At an Arts and Craft Festival I found the perfect one. She was very small, just large enough to sit next to my bed pillow. She had a happy face with a big smile. I turned her around and found a key. When I wound the key she began to sing, \u201cWe\u2019ve only just begun, to live\u2026..\u201dI began crying. I had found the real me. .<\/p>\n