Self-Esteem Trap
Just finished the book titled “Self-esteem trap.” It is a very interesting and practical book as far as I’ve learned. It is natural that people are trapped into their self- esteem, manifesting as high expectation, intolerance to failures and adversities. As parents, people usually set up high goals for their children, either for fulfilling their own dreams, or idealizing their children. Unfortunately, the consequences are usually just the opposite of their wishes. The children usually demonstrate fear, anxiety, restlessness and shame in their young adulthood, especially when facing something unexpected. The key points in the book as I’ve learned are to get rid of the idea of idealization, appreciate being ordinary and realistic, and enjoy being happy in a community. The followings are some excerpts from the book.
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What is self-esteem trap?
Obsessive self-focus, restless dissatisfaction, pressures to be exceptional, unreadiness to take on adult responsibilities, feelings of superiority (or inferiority), and excessive fears of being humiliated are pervasive symptoms of the self-esteem trap.
A realistic view from our balcony and a healthy conscience foster the inner voice that allows us to navigate our own course, to know our own strengths and weaknesses, and to know how to respond carefully to others’ criticisms of us. This is the voice of conscience, intuition, and wisdom, as well as self-knowledge. Learning to hear it and tune into it takes training and practice. Cut off from this voice, young adults are susceptible to feelings of shame and failure when they should be feeling something else --- curiosity, at least, about whatever is happening.
Self-compassion includes three components: being kind and understanding toward oneself, rather than self-critical; viewing one’s negative experiences as a normal part of the human condition (being ordinary); and having mindful equanimity rather than over-identifying with painful thoughts and feelings (mindful acceptance). Self-compassion allows people to work through obstacles and accepts limitations that might otherwise prevent their ongoing commitment to an endeavor or relationship. Cultivating emotional intelligence and self-compassion in children includes helping them appreciate the variety of abilities and skills that support a human community.
Six practice for being emotional intelligent:
Generosity
Discipline
Patience
Diligence
Concentration
Wisdom
Love’s near enemy --- idealization
The special self is the creation of idealization. Exceptional, extraordinary, perfect: these are not descriptions of any real human beings, a person with weaknesses as well as strengths. If we have heard repeatedly how talented, beautiful, smart, or promising we are, we may grow up with an intolerance for weakness and difficulty in others, and a greater intolerance for imperfections in ourselves. “Love is the point of intersection between desire and reality. Love … reveals reality to desire.”
The truth about happiness is that we can’t pursue it directly nor can we give it to the others. Like self-esteem, happiness is a by-product of how we think, what we believe and how we act. Yet, there are ways of thinking, believing and acting that make happiness more likely than not.
Human life always includes discontent and adversity. Whoever you are, bad things happen to you, no matter how hard you try to keep them away. It’s not a personal problem of yours that meet up with obstacles and failures. Human beings do not have a lot of control over their lives, even though they have responsibility for their actions and decisions. Because things inevitably fail to go as we’d like --- and besides, we all get ill eventually and die --- we just learn how to respond realistically and compassionately to pain, loss, and difficulty. Being ordinary, we recognize that we cannot escape difficulty but we can learn from it. Learning from difficulty and loss becomes the basis of a fundamental wisdom about transforming our suffering into insight and compassion for ourselves and others.
Where does wisdom come from, and how does one acquire it? Surprisingly, a good deal of evidence, both anecdotal and empirical, suggests that the seeds of wisdom are planted earlier in life --- certainly earlier than old age, often earlier than middle age and possibly even earlier than young adulthood. And there are strong hints that wisdom us associated with an earlier exposure to adversity or failure.
Adversity can strengthen us and even open doors to our sense of purpose and deeper happiness in helping others. And so we need repeatedly to acknowledge to ourselves that dissatisfaction is part of life. No one escapes it, and no amount of material things or status can protect us from it. The sooner children learn this, the earlier it is for them to accept that failures, stresses, and losses are to be expected --- and not to blame themselves or others for them.
