The way you feel is influenced by what you think. If you think that something is dangerous you will feel scared. If you think that something is fun you will feel happy. Similarly, if you think that you are a wonderful person you will feel like a wonderful person. Thoughts of high self-esteem lead to feelings of high self-esteem.

Training your mind to think more positive thoughts about yourself is therefore great, but it is not enough. You don’t necessarily have high self-esteem just because you have learnt to think positively about yourself. You need to know that you are wonderful not only in your head, but also in your heart. You need to FEEL that you are valuable. True self-esteem is a feeling.

So how do you move from thinking high self-esteem thoughts to feeling high self-esteem feelings? Training your feelings is perhaps more difficult than training your mind because the exercises you can do are more vague. Sitting quietly and focusing on your feelings is a great start. You need to become aware of your emotions before you can try to manipulate them. Once you can truly feel your feelings you can also learn to choose your feelings. Use your positive thoughts to help you (think about how wonderful you are) and try to feel how it feels like to think in this way. Remember that feeling so that you can pick it up later. The more often you practise feeling the feeling of high self-esteem, the quicker and more easily you can induce it. The aim is to eventually make it so easy and natural so that you carry the feeling of high self-esteem with you all the time. At that point you will truly have high self-esteem.

When you carry with you a feeling of high self-esteem most things in life will get easier. Because you already feel great, you will not feel a need to push others down in order to make yourself feel better, and you will not interpret other’s actions and words in a threatening way. A high self-esteem feeling is the best defense you can have against being affected by critical people and negative events.

One of the subscribers to the Self-esteem Ezine recently wrote to me about his discovery of how important it is for his self-esteem to spend time together with other people.

He wrote:

For the last couple of months I had been engrossed in work and not very social. In fact, I think I had become cranky, grumpy and probably losing control of my self regard, which is not so high to begin with. I live in Canada and I am originally from South Africa. My self-esteem is influenced by a staunch Catholic background and hence I tend to be humble, modest and highly self-critical. Also, my parents were exceptionally critically and so the raised a shy anxious boy. So, I have known this for about 12 years that my self-esteem is something I have to continually work on. I use affirmations and meditative practices to help me.
 
While I was driving through to this social event held by former South Africans, which I had met recently online, I felt a sense of self that affirmations and meditation etc does not do. I felt excited. As I got closer to the event the more anxious I got but the excitement was strong and willed me to my destination. I met former country men and we had such a great time. This lifted my spirit so high that it is still in my system two days later..
 
The lesson I learned is that I need to socialize more. Socializing lifts me and helps me to feel accepted and a belonging. It lifts the spirit.

People have a tremendous effect on us (for good AND for bad). As you grow up your parents, friends, teachers and other important people influence your self-esteem. Whether you have a low or a high self-esteem right now is therefore probably due to how others have treated you in the past. Because people have such huge impact on us, they can of course also help you to raise your self-esteem. Spending time with people who make you feel good is a great boost for your self-esteem. You didn’t choose your parents, but now that you are an adult you can actually choose who you spend your time with.

Perhaps socialising more is the best trick to raise YOUR self-esteem, just like this man discovered. Try it!

I was recently reminded of the difficulty of feeling good enough for being rather than doing when my daughter was born. Although I meditate, practise mindfulness and other practices that develops my ability to “just be”, I was surprised when the days passed so quickly without me having done anything. Life with my newborn was all about breastfeeding, comforting her when she was crying and trying to get some sleep whenever possible. I was used to setting and accomplishing goals in each category of my life (work, family, friends, health etc.) every day. This did not fit into my new life with my young daughter. I had to learn to feel great about myself even though I was “only” taking care of my child (and what could be more important?!).

Most of us probably know that we are good enough, but we don’t feel it. We need to practise it to learn to know it not just in our heads but also in our hearts.

The skin is the body’s largest organ. Touch affects the development in both children and adults. (Think about the vast amount of studies that have pointed at the positive consequences of skin-to-skin contact between infants and their parents during the first few hours or days after birth for example!). Being touched increases our social competence, creativity, and ability to concentrate. It also strengthens the immune system and enhances physical growth.

Touch also improves your self-esteem. Through massage, hugs or other forms of touch you develop body awareness which in turn leads to an improved body image. In other words, the more you are touched the better-looking you feel! Touch stimulates the release of the hormone oxytocin (which activates the body’s relaxation and “feeling good”-system) and you naturally get into a better mood. Touch simply makes you happier. Some researchers suggest that being touched makes us develop our ability to feel, understand and accept our emotions. In other words, touch makes us develop self-awareness, and this in turn is very important for building self-esteem.

You can give yourself a massage to raise your self-esteem. Oxytocin is released also when you touch yourself, although in smaller amounts compared to when you are touched by somebody else. However, I think that the greatest potential of the power of touch lies in that you can use touch to help others to raise their self-esteem and feel good about themselves. Think about the power that a short hug can have! The person that you hug may not have received a hug for the whole day (or even weeks, months, years….). If that is the case this person will have a huge “hug deficit” and your loving touch will have an enormous impact.

Touching another person helps him/her to build self-esteem in several different ways. (1) The person will feel acknowledged (i.e. you show that you notice him/her). (2) The person will feel cared about, and (3) the person will feel worthy of your touch. These are three important human needs that are essential for self-esteem. As I mentioned earlier, you also help the person you touch to an improved body image, higher well-being, social competence and much more. Touching others is therefore a simple, quick and extremely effective way of helping others to raise their self-esteem.

High emotional intelligence cannot be unaccompanied by high self-awareness. Thus, if you have a high EQ you also know yourself well. It is easier to build a high self-esteem (i.e. to develop a good relationship with yourself) when you know yourself. How can you accept and love someone you don’t know? For this reason, self-esteem and emotional intelligence go hand in hand. As you raise your emotional intelligence you also learn to understand yourself better, accept yourself (including both negative and positive emotions), satisfy your personal needs and value yourself more. Everything gets easier when you improve the relationship with yourself.

Emotional intelligence is not only about understanding oneself, but also about understanding other people. With a high EQ you can enter a room full of people and immediately get a sense of how the people in that room are feeling at that moment. You can understand other people’s needs better, and this makes it easier for you to help them to satisfy those needs. This makes it easier to handle all different kinds of people because you know how to make them feel good. We all have a social need, and as we raise our emotional intelligence we become better at building and keeping relationships that help us satisfy that need. We make ourselves feel better and we raise our self-esteem by helping others feel good.

Don’t be afraid to fail. Everybody fails some times, even people who seem really successful. Actually the more successful you are the more likely it is that you have failed many, many times. Big goals often require many failures along the way to their actualisation.

If you have set a goal for yourself and fail, see it as an opportunity to learn something about yourself. You may for example decide to cut down on sugar but then eat a whole box of chocolate at your friend’s party. What does this tell you about yourself? How can you learn from this experience? In some cases you may have to adapt your goals. In other cases you may have to take different precautions or try a completely different strategy.

One failure on the path towards a goal does not mean that you will not be able to achieve your goal. Accept your failure and get back on track. Do not ignore your failure but don’t beat yourself up for it either. If you become angry with yourself you are less likely to get back on track towards your goal.

Take a moment right now to listen to your body. What is it trying to tell you? Can you feel any tension or pain anywhere? Is there any part of your body that begs for your attention? What does your body need right now? Is it rest, relaxation, food, exercise, massage, sunshine, a hug, lotion or oil?

In today’s fast-moving society many people do not take the time to listen to themselves. They go to work even when they have a cold or they drink coffee even though their stomachs are protesting. The result of not listening to your body is both bad health and low self-awareness. Both of these lead to low self-esteem. When you do no listen to yourself you cannot get to know your needs (physical, social etc). When you do not know what your needs are you cannot satisfy these. When you do not take care of yourself in this fundamental way – by taking care of your basic needs – you cannot develop high self-esteem. When you have high self-esteem you respect yourself and care about yourself.

How do you get addicted to something? By doing it over and over again. In other words, you can choose to become addicted to good things by doing them over and over again.

Choose to become addicted to a healthy life style!

Healthy life style -> feel good physically -> high self-esteem!

People with high self-esteem on the other hand dare to dream big. They dare to set big goals for themselves, and they believe that they CAN and DESERVE to achieve them. Belief in oneself triggers motivation which is needed to work towards the accomplishment of these goals. Because they dare to dream big and are motivated to take active steps to make their dreams reality, people with high self-esteem often reach their goals and live very successful lives.

To raise your self-esteem you can train yourself to dream big. Take a piece of paper and write down everything that you would like to have, do, and be. Nothing is too big, too silly or too unrealistic. If you want to become a pop star, own a private island or travel to the moon, write it down! Visualise yourself having, doing or being those things that you wish for. The clearer you learn to see yourself living your dreams, the more likely it is that they will come true.