The Overall Benefits of Improving Self Esteem

So what are we really talking about when we say: "the overall benefits of improving self esteem"? What are they? It is only when I began to seriously think about it that I could see the real impact self esteem has not only on my state of mind but on how I perceive everything.

I have had days when something would make me fly off the handle and days where the identical event made me smile. So what is the common denominator in this mix of life? I cannot deny that it is indeed, me, myself and I! And what is the key element that colors my perception? How I feel about myself at that moment. So the overall benefits of improving self esteem reach into every aspect of life and how we perceive the world. Every external event is experienced through an internal mental filter. It makes me wonder at the existence of a constant reality. For a long time the thought of no solid “truth” was an un-nerving idea. How could there NOT be one truth? How could it be conceivable that MY truth was not necessarily THE truth? Could the overall benefits of improving self esteem actually extend into altering my perception of reality?

In my continuing search for answers I tested out various forms of classes, self improvement seminars and books. The more I pursued this transformational process, the more I noticed an underlying resistance within to the act of transformation, the little devil on the shoulder that I call my “gremlin.” As I continue to seek out answers my gremlin has become more and more comical and carries less weight. "Bah humbug" I hear it's rattly little voice like a cartoon character "What a bunch of nonsense jabbering on about your thoughts on the overall benefits of improving self esteem! Who wants to hear about that anyhow!" I glance over now at the little gremlin and tell it to go back to playing in its sandbox.

I would like to share a small excerpt from my autobiography “Firewalker” in which I travel to one of the first motivational seminar events that I attended accompanied of course by my gremlin.

Excerpt from Firewalker:

“Even with unpacking left to do, the slow pace of the southern summer relaxed me. I had booked an early morning flight, looking forward to the seminar. Now, a feeling of dread hit me while boarding the plane. I slumped down into the cramped coach seat, pressing my forehead against the window. I felt ill; my stomach churned and my head hurt. Most of all, I felt immensely grouchy. "Are you OK, Miss?" The flight attendant asked. "Yes, thank you." I forced out a smile. No is really what I wanted to say. I don’t feel well at all. And look at this, I’m breaking out. What is wrong with me?

People were still filing in, slowly crowding into the middle aisle as they shuffled to the back of the plane. Everywhere I looked made me feel worse. In every person I found a flaw. An ongoing dialog of rude commentaries ran through my mind. The seat felt uncomfortable and my body ached. I fidgeted with the seatbelt restlessly. Why do I suddenly feel so terrible, after looking forward to this for weeks? What am I afraid of? I closed my eyes and let my mind ramble on.

If this speaker, this man is right, hell, if I am right, then everything I have ever been told is truly wrong. The very things I fought against so desperately, all that I had striven to prove wrong to myself were now on the brink of extinction. Somehow the thought of such massive acknowledgement disturbed me. In my life, allies of this nature have been in short supply. As awful as all those past beliefs were, they still held some strange comfort for me. Now these feelings struggled within me, bringing massive pain.

My mind kept churning. What if he is a fake? The last thing I’m going to waste my time on is some soapbox junkie who professes to know everything. I’d never fall for that. This guy better be for real. If anything, I had become a hard sell these days. If I feel this bad, I must be on the right track…The truth of this made me smile. Every time I came to the edge of a great leap, something that could propel me ahead like nothing else, I seized up inside. That “gremlin,” as I called it, ego to others, lambasted my senses with doubt and fear. An internal scream rang through me. This is how I knew when something interesting beckoned. I wished my little gremlin could just go along for the ride, finally confident that I know what I am doing.”

So what are my last thoughts on the overall benefits of improving self esteem ?

As I continue on this journey I find the overall benefits of improving self esteem are far more encompassing than I could have ever imagined. This is both scary and freeing, if everything is mental, shaped by our perception of ourselves, then it is within our power to change it, after all we are talking about our own inner realities.

So I hope to delve even deeper into as many of the overall benefits of improving self esteem that I can uncover and conquer and share them with you.