by Dr. Heléna Kate | Mar 6, 2014 | Dr. Heléna Kate's Blog
Self-Esteem vs. Self-Acceptance
Though related, self-acceptance is not the same as self-esteem. Whereas self-esteem refers specifically to how valuable, or worthwhile, we see ourselves, self-acceptance alludes to a far more global affirmation of self. When we\’re self-accepting, we\’re able to embrace all facets of ourselves–not just the positive, more \”esteem-able\” parts. As such, self-acceptance is unconditional, free of any qualification. We can recognize our weaknesses, limitations, and foibles, but this awareness in no way interferes with our ability to fully accept ourselves.
I regularly tell my therapy clients that if they genuinely want to improve their self-esteem, they need to explore what parts of themselves they\’re not yet able to accept. For, ultimately, liking ourselves more (or getting on better terms with ourselves) has mostly to do with self-acceptance. And it\’s only when we stop judging ourselves that we can secure a more positive sense of who we are. Which is why I believe self-esteem rises naturally as soon as we cease being so hard on ourselves. And it\’s precisely because self-acceptance involves far more than self-esteem that I see it as crucial to our happiness and state of well-being.
What Determines Our Self-Acceptance (or Lack of Shame) in the First Place?
In general, similar to self-esteem, as children we\’re able to accept ourselves only to the degree we feel accepted by our parents. Research has demonstrated that before the age of eight, we lack the ability to formulate a clear, separate sense of self–that is, other than that which has been transmitted to us by our caretakers. So if our parents were unable, or unwilling, to communicate the message that we were totally okay and acceptable–independent, that is, of our hard-to-control, sometimes errant behaviors–we were primed to view ourselves ambivalently. The positive regard we received from our parents may have depended almost totally on how we acted, and unfortunately we learned that many of our behaviors weren\’t acceptable to them. So, identifying ourselves with these objectionable behaviors, we inevitably came to see ourselves as in many ways inadequate.
Additionally, adverse parental evaluation can, and frequently does, go far beyond disapproving specific behaviors. For example, parents may transmit to us the overall message that we\’re selfish–or not attractive enough, smart enough, good or \”nice\” enough . . . and so on. As a result of what most mental health professionals would agree reflects a subtle form of emotional abuse, almost all of us come to regard ourselves as only conditionally acceptable. In consequence, we learn to regard many aspects of our self negatively, painfully internalizing feelings of rejection we too often experienced at the hands of overly critical parents. And this tendency toward self-criticism is at the heart of most of the problems that, as adults, we unwittingly create for ourselves.
In other words, given how the human psyche operates, it\’s almost impossible not to parent ourselves similarly to how we were parented originally. If our caretakers dealt with us in a hurtful manner, as adults we\’ll find all kinds of ways to perpetuate that unresolved pain onto ourselves. If we were frequently ignored, berated, blamed, chastised, or physically punished, we\’ll somehow contrive to continue this self-indignity. So when (figuratively, at least) we \”beat ourselves up,\” we\’re typically just following our parents\’ lead. Having to depend so much on them when we were young–and thus experiencing little authority to actually question their mixed verdict on us–we felt pretty much obliged to accept their negative appraisals as valid. This is hardly to say that they constantly put us down. But, historically, it\’s well-known that parents are far more likely to let us know when we do something that bothers them than to acknowledge us for our more positive, pro-social behaviors.
In fully comprehending our current reservations about ourselves, we also need to add the disapproval and criticism we may have been received from siblings, other relatives, teachers–and, especially, our peers, who (struggling with their own self-doubts) could hardly resist making fun of our frailties whenever we innocently \”exposed\” them. At any rate, it\’s safe to assume that almost all of us enter adulthood afflicted with a certain negative bias. We share a common tendency to blame ourselves, or to see ourselves as in some way defective. It\’s as though we all, to whatever degree, suffer from the same chronic \”virus\” of self-doubt.
. . . So How Do We Become More Self-Accepting?
Accepting ourselves unconditionally (despite our deficiencies) would have been almost automatic had our parents conveyed a predominantly positive message about us–and, additionally, we grew up in a generally supportive environment. But if that really wasn\’t the case, we need on our own to learn how to \”certify\” ourselves, to validate our essential ok-ness. And I\’m hardly suggesting that independently confirming ourselves has anything to do with becoming complacent–only that we get over our habit of constantly judging ourselves. If deep within us we\’re ever to experience, as our normal state of being, personal fulfillment and peace of mind, we must first rise to the challenge of complete, unqualified self-acceptance.
As Robert Holden puts it in his book Happiness Now!\”Happiness and self-acceptance go hand in hand. In fact, your level of self-acceptance determines your level of happiness. The more self-acceptance you have, the more happiness you\’ll allow yourself to accept, receive and enjoy. In other words, you enjoy as much happiness as you believe you\’re worthy of.\”
Perhaps more than anything else, cultivating self-acceptance requires that we develop more self-compassion. Only when we can better understand and pardon ourselves for things that earlier we assumed must be all our fault can we secure the relationship to self that till now has eluded us.
To adopt a more loving stance toward ourselves–the key prerequisite for self-acceptance–we must come to realize that till now we\’ve pretty much felt obliged to demonstrate our worth to others, just as initially we concluded that we had to submit to the judgmental authority of our caretakers. Our approval-seeking behaviors since then (misguided or not) have simply reflected the legacy of our parents\’ conditional love.
Undertaking such a heartfelt exploration of what I\’d call our well-nigh \”universal plight\” almost inevitably generates increased self-compassion. And it\’s through this compassion that we can learn to like ourselves more, and to view ourselves as deserving of love and respect by very \”virtue\” of our willingness to confront (and struggle against) what previously we\’ve found so difficult to accept about ourselves.
In a sense, we all bear \”conditional-love scars\” from the past. We\’re all among the ranks of the \”walking wounded.\” And this recognition of our common humanity can help inspire in us not only feelings of habitually-withheld kindness and goodwill toward ourselves but toward others as well.
To become more self-accepting, we must start by telling ourselves (repeatedly and– hopefully–with ever-increasing conviction) that given all of our negatively biased self-referencing beliefs, we\’ve done the best we possibly could. In this light, we need to re-examine residual feelings of guilt, as well as our many self-criticisms and put-downs. We must ask ourselves specifically what it is we don\’t accept about ourselves and, as agents of our own healing, bring compassion and understanding to each aspect of self-rejection or -denial. By doing so, we can begin to dissolve exaggerated feelings of guilt and shame based on standards that simply didn\’t mirror what could realistically be expected of us at the time.
The famous French expression, \”Tout comprendre, c\’est tout excuser\” (literally, \”to understand all is to pardon all\”) is a dictum that we ought to apply at least as much to ourselves as to others. For the more we can grasp just why in the past we were compelled to act in a particular way, the more likely we\’ll be able both to excuse ourselves for this behavior and avoid repeating it in the future.
Becoming more self-accepting necessitates that we begin to appreciate that, ultimately, we\’re not really to blame for anything–whether it\’s our looks, intelligence, or any of our more questionable behaviors. Our actions have all been compelled by some combination of background and biology. Going forward, we certainly can–and in most cases, should–take responsibility for ways we\’ve hurt or mistreated others. But if we\’re to productively work on becoming more self-accepting, we must do so with compassion and forgiveness in our hearts. We need to realize that, given our internal programming up to that point, we could hardly have behaved differently.
To take ourselves off the hook and gradually evolve to a state of unconditional self-acceptance, it\’s crucial that we adopt an attitude of \”self-pardon\” for our transgressions (whether actual or perceived). In the end, we may even come to realize that there\’s nothing to forgive. For regardless of what we may have concluded earlier, we were, in a sense, always innocent–doing the best we could, given (1) what was innate (or hard-wired) in us, (2) how compelling our needs (and feelings) were at the time, and (3) what, back then, we believed about ourselves.
That which, finally, determines most problematic behavior is linked to common psychological defenses. And it almost borders on the cruel for us to blame ourselves–or hold ourselves in contempt–for acting in ways that at the time we thought we had to in order to protect ourselves from anxiety, shame, or emotional distress generally.
reblogged from http://www.psychologytoday.com
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by Dr. Heléna Kate | Mar 4, 2014 | Dr. Heléna Kate's Blog
\”But, that is just who i am!\” is one of the most limiting statements ever uttered!
If someone would like to ensure that nothing ever changes, then this is definitely the way they want to go. What if you never needed to utter those words? What if, instead, you were able to say, \”THIS is who I am.\”, claiming your own excellence and ability to be the person you know you are deep inside.
Think of it this way. What if every great hero from the stories you love decided they were their smaller rather than larger selves? They would be pretty short, pretty uninspiring stories, right? I am not saying the hero doesn\’t face an internal conflict as he or she sets out on his or her journey. I am just saying that, if they sat down and said, \”This is just who I am,\” and never got back up, then… that\’s a pretty short story.
But we do this to ourselves all the time. We identify with our limited selves. We believe the story that this is just who we are. So we stop growing, learning, transforming and — one way or another — we fall prey to the dark side. Apathy, depression, and despair swallow us up.
Fulfillment relies on our willingness to believe we can be more — and that others might be more, too. It requires us to take a journey from our limited selves and face the doubts and fears that are in the way of our brilliance. It is truly the most fabulous journey we can take.
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by Dr. Heléna Kate | Feb 28, 2014 | Dr. Heléna Kate's Blog
I\’m currently trying to make some changes in my career—and travel a lot less—so I can spend more time with my family and explore new creative endeavors. I have no idea how this will work—and I hate that! Which means I\’m now compulsively polling my friends: What do you think? Is this crazy? But there\’s a fine line between asking for suggestions and desperately grasping for answers nobody else can offer.
Uncertainty makes us feel vulnerable, so we try to escape it any way we can. Sometimes we even settle for misinformation or bad news over not knowing. Have you ever ended up in an Internet rabbit hole of terror while waiting for test results?
Yet it really is possible to thrive amid uncertainty. It\’s not about getting advice you can trust; it\’s about faith and self-trust—believing that whatever happens, you\’ll find a way through it. Without uncertainty, we\’d never start a business or risk loving someone new. There are no guarantees when we step into the unknown. But these periods of discomfort can give rise to life\’s most important adventures.
The Dare
Pay attention to what makes you feel better (and worse).
The unknown can bring out the worst in us. When I\’m deep in uncertainty about work, I can get impatient and snappy with the people who mean the most to me—and that feels terrible. I\’ve learned that sleep, exercise and eating healthy make me more patient and calm.
Create an emotional clearing.
Fear tends to drown out our intuition, so it\’s essential to carve out moments of quiet—time for meditation, prayer or just a long walk—to reconnect with our gut. I\’m still learning to meditate (and it\’s not going well), but you can bet that when I have a big talk coming up, I\’m out walking near my house, rain or shine, listening for the sound of my inner voice.
Get support.
Instead of begging everyone in your address book for answers, ask one or two loved ones to remind you that it\’s normal to feel vulnerable when you\’re in a period of change. As my husband often tells me, \”It\’s supposed to suck right now. Go walk!\” Uncertainty is a necessary part of getting where we want to go.
Brené Brown, PhD, the author of Daring Greatly, researches vulnerability, shame and courage at the University of Houston Graduate College of Social Work. Article reblogged from www.oprah.com
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by Dr. Heléna Kate | Feb 26, 2014 | Dr. Heléna Kate's Blog
In his book The Art of Uncertainty, Dennis Merritt Jones writes:
“Between a shaky world economy, increasing unemployment, and related issues, many today are being forced to come to the edge of uncertainty. Just like the baby sparrows, they find themselves leaning into the mystery that change brings, because they have no choice: It’s fly or die.”
For persons struggling with depression and anxiety — and for those of us who are highly sensitive — uncertainty is especially difficult. Forget about learning to fly. The uncertainty itself feels like death and can cripple our efforts to do anything during a time of transition.
I have been living in uncertainty, like many people, ever since December of 2008 when the economy plummeted and the creative fields — like architecture and publishing — took a hard blow, making it extremely difficult to feed a family. In that time, I think I have worked a total of 10 jobs — becoming everything from a defense contractor to a depression “expert.” I even thought about teaching high school morality. Now that’s desperate.
I don’t think I’ll ever be comfortable with uncertainty, but having lived in that terrain for almost five years now, I’m qualified to offer a few tips of how not to lose it when things are constantly changing.
1. Pay attention to your intention
I’m not a new-age guru. I don’t believe that you can visualize a check for $20,000 and find one in your mailbox the next day. Nor can you get on Oprah by believing you’ll be her next guest. (I tried both of those.) But I do recognize the wisdom in tuning into your intention because therein exists powerful energy that you can tap.
Awhile back I did Deepak Choprah’s exercise of recording my intentions and seeing how many of them actualized. I was surprised at the synchronicity between intention and events. Psychologist Elisha Goldstein writes in his book, The Now Effect: “Our intention is at the root of why we do anything and plays a fundamental role in helping us cultivate a life of happiness or unhappiness. If we set an intention for well-being and place it at the center of our life, we are more likely to be guided toward it.”
2. Tune into the body.
Psychologist Tamar Chansky, Ph.D. reminds us to listen to the body when we get anxious. If you understand why certain symptoms occur in the body – racing heart, dizziness, sweating, stomachaches – and repeat to yourself, “This is a false alarm,” you are less afraid, less panicked by the situation. Knowing that these symptoms are part of the sympathetic nervous system (SNS) trying to protect you from danger – part of the primitive regions of the brain mobilizing the “flight-or-fight” response –the reaction becomes less about the situation and more about talking to your body about why it’s freaking out so that you can use the parasympathetic nervous system (PNS) to restore the body to normalcy, which, in my case, is still pretty panicky.
3. Imagine the worst.
I’m not sure you will find a psychologist to agree with me on this exercise, but it has always worked for me every time I do it. I simply envision what it would look like if my worst nightmare happened. What if my husband and I could not get any architecture gigs or writing assignments? What if we can’t pay for health care insurance and my heart malfunctions (I have a heart disorder)? What if we both come to a bone fide professional dead end? Then I move to my actions. I think about selling our house, moving into a small apartment, and working as a waitress somewhere or maybe as a barista at Starbucks. (If you work more than 20 hours, you get health care insurance.) I research health care insurance options for persons who make minimum wage. Under ObamaCare, my kids, at least, would be covered. I invariably come to the conclusion that we will be okay. All is okay. A huge adjustment. Yes. But we are getting to be pros at that. This exercise makes me fret less about the things that I think I must have and get back to the essentials—literally a warm meal on the table, even if it’s one a day.
I am comforted by the words of Charles Caleb Colton: “Times of general calamity and confusion have ever been productive of the greatest minds. The purest ore is produced from the hottest fire.”
4. Describe, don’t judge.
In his book Get Out of Your Mind and Into Your Life, Steven Hayes, Ph.D. dedicates a few chapters to learning the language of your thoughts and feelings. Especially helpful to me is learning how to distinguish descriptions from evaluations.
Descriptions are “verbalizations linked to the directly observable aspects or features of objects or events.” Example: “I am feeling anxiety, and my heart is beating fast.” Descriptions are the primary attributes of an object or event. They don’t depend on a unique history. In other words, as Hayes, explain, they remain aspects of the event or object regardless of our interaction with them. Evaluations, on the other hand are secondary attributes that revolve around our interactions with objects, events, thoughts, feelings, and bodily sensations. They are our reactions to events or their aspects. Example: “This anxiety is unbearable.”
If we are feeling anxious about the uncertainty of our job, for example, we can tease apart the language of our thoughts and try to transform an evaluation, “I will be destroyed if I am fired,” to a description, “I am feeling anxious and my job is unstable.” By naming the emotion and the situation, we don’t necessarily have to assign an opinion. Without the opinion, we can process the object, event, etc. without hyperventilation.
5. Learn from fear.
Eleanor Roosevelt wrote, “You gain strength, courage, and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face … You must do the thing you think you cannot do.” My body usually protests against that statement, but theoretically I concur with Eleanor. I sincerely believe the good stuff happens when we are afraid. If we go a lifetime without being scared, as Julia Sorel said, it means we aren’t taking enough chances.
Fear is rather benign in itself. It’s the emotions we attach to it that disable us. If we can confront our fear, or rather approach it as an important messenger, then we can benefit from its presence in our life. What is the fear saying to us? Why is it here? Did it bring roses or chocolate? According to Jones, this is an exercise of getting comfortable with being out of control, of learning to let go of the illusion of control — because we never really had it in the first place — and developing an inner knowing that everything will be okay.
reblogged from http://psychcentral.com/
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by Dr. Heléna Kate | Feb 23, 2014 | Dr. Heléna Kate's Blog
I don’t know about you but the saying \”The more you learn the less you know\” feels pretty accurate. The more I learn the more I feel like things are a mystery to me. But, this doesn\’t mean I feel less happy or secure.
As I learn to love the mystery of life I feel it is less necessary to come up with answers and more necessary to live the questions. The more I don\’t need answers, the more my life becomes rich and beautiful and the more my gratitude for life increases.
It can be easy to think that if we have the answers then our life will change dramatically. We know this is not true though. We know that we have gotten all sorts of answers and still never seen changes in areas of our lives. So, it can’t just be about the answers, right?
Part of what makes life enjoyable and inspirational is being willing to be in the wonder of it all -the uncertainty—the fact that we will never be able to know for certain why things are the way they are.
Why do we make certain choices and not others? Why, just when we think we have it figured out, does the game yet again?
Somewhere along the line we pick up the false belief that things are supposed to be predictable and controllable and so we start to believe that. Then when things are not we feel frustrated, cheated, overwhelmed and even angry.
What if instead we adopted the belief that things are supposed to be just as they are –when they are good they are good when they are not they are not. What if we didn’t try to figure it out but instead tried to experience it? What would our lives be like then?
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by Dr. Heléna Kate | Feb 21, 2014 | Dr. Heléna Kate's Blog
According to Adapt, “success comes through rapidly fixing our mistakes rather than getting things right first time.” To prove his point, Harford cites compelling examples innovation by trial-and-error from visionaries as varied as choreographer Twyla Tharp and US Forces Commander David Petraeus.
I interviewed Harford over email to dig deeper into the counter-intuitive lessons of Adapt. What follows is a series of key takeaways on the psychology of failure and adaptation, combining insights from our conversation and the book itself.
The Wrong Way To React To Failure
When it comes to failing, our egos are our own worst enemies. As soon as things start going wrong, our defense mechanisms kick in, tempting us to do what we can to save face. Yet, these very normal reactions — denial, chasing your losses, and hedonic editing — wreak havoc on our ability to adapt.
Denial.
“It seems to be the hardest thing in the world to admit we’ve made a mistake and try to put it right. It requires you to challenge a status quo of your own making.”
Chasing your losses.
We’re so anxious not to “draw a line under a decision we regret” that we end up causing still more damage while trying to erase it. For example, poker players who’ve just lost some money are primed to make riskier bets than they’d normally take, in a hasty attempt to win the lost money back and “erase” the mistake.
Hedonic editing.
When we engage in “hedonic editing,” we try to convince ourselves that the mistake doesn’t matter, bundling our losses with our gains or finding some way to reinterpret our failures as successes. We’re so anxious not to “draw a line under a decision we regret” that we end up causing still more damage while trying to erase it.
The Recipe for Successful Adaptation
At the crux of Adapt lies this conviction: In a complex world, we must use an adaptive, experimental approach to succeed. Harford argues, “the more complex and elusive our problems are, the more effective trial and error becomes.” We can’t begin to predict whether our “great idea” will actually sink or swim once it’s out there.Harford outlines three principles for failing productively: You have to cast a wide net, “practice failing” in a safe space, and be primed to let go of your idea if you’ve missed the mark.
Try new things.
“Expose yourself to lots of different ideas and try lots of different approaches, on the grounds that failure is common.”
Experiment where failure is survivable.
“Look for experimental approaches where there’s lots to learn – projects with small downsides but bigger upsides. Too often we take on projects where the cost of failure is prohibitive, and just hope for the best.”
Recognize when you haven’t succeeded.
“The third principle is the easiest to state and the hardest to stick to: know when you’ve failed.” The more complex and elusive our problems are, the more effective trial and error becomes.
How To Recognize Failure
This is the hard part. We’ve been trained that “persistence pays off,” so it feels wrong to cut our losses and label an idea a failure. But if you’re truly self-aware and listening closely after a “release” of your idea, you can’t go wrong. Being able to recognize a failure just means that you’ll be able to re-cast it into something more likely to succeed.
Gather feedback.
“Above all, feedback is essential for determining which experiments have succeeded and which have failed. Get advice, not just from one person, but from several.” Some professions have build-in feedback: reviews if you’re in the arts, sales and analytics if you release a web product, comments if you’re a blogger. If the feedback is harsh, be objective, “take the venom out,” and dig out the real advice.
Remove emotions from the equation.
“It’s important to be dispassionate: forget whether you’re ahead or behind, and try to look at the likely costs and benefits of continuing from when you are.” Don’t get too attached to your plan.
“There’s nothing wrong with a plan, but remember Von Moltke’s famous dictum that no plan survives first contact with the enemy. The danger is a plan that seduces us into thinking failure is impossible and adaptation is unnecessary – a kind of ‘Titanic’ plan, unsinkable (until it hits the iceberg).” Being able to recognize a failure just means that you’ll be able to re-cast it into something more likely to succeed.
Creating Safe Spaces to Fail
Twyla Tharp says, “The best failures are the private ones you commit in the confines of your own room, with no strangers watching.” She rises as 5:30 AM and videotapes herself freestyling for 3 hours each morning, happy if she extracts just 30 seconds of usable material from the whole tape. This is a great example of a “safe space to fail.” But many of us don’t have this luxury of time or freedom. So how do we create this space?
Practice disciplined pluralism.
Markets work by this process, encouraging the exploration of many new ideas as well as the ruthless weeding out of the ones that fall short. “Pluralism works because life is not worth living without new experiences.” Try a lot of things, and commit only to what’s working. Finding “a safe space to fail is a state of mind.”
Assuming that you don’t operate a nuclear power plant for a living, you can probably infuse a bit more freedom and flexibility into your workday. Give yourself permission to test out a few off-the-wall ideas mixed in with the by-the-book ideas.
Imitate the college experience.
“College is an amazing safe space to fail. We are experimenting with new friends, a new city, new hobbies and new ideas – and we’ll often mess up academically and socially as a result. But we know that as long as we don’t screw up too dramatically, we’ll finish college, graduate, and move on – that mix of risk and safety is intoxicating. Yet somehow as we grow older we lose it.”
Sarah Rapp writes for 99u, a creative resource for making ideas happen.
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