Low Self-Esteem

April 4, 2023

LISA RENEE (Time Shift Blog): “Be a Safe Person”

“When we have low self-esteem, our ego defense mechanisms will act to block our progress moving forward in our spiritual ascension and evolving in our life. One who understands they are a loved and worthy spiritual vessel for the spirit of God Source, will begin to learn that self-love is at the core of self-acceptance which is the quality one must build to truly feel and experience God’s love for all of us. A peaceful and fulfilling life is most possible when one seeks inner truth and self-knowledge while building a relationship with God and the relationship to the self. If we are to begin to recognize the qualities that define Safe People and safe relationships, we need to first understand what a safe person is and why we need that kind of safety to overcome fear. We need people in our life that will be honest with us, telling us where we are creating harm and potentially where we may need to change, in order to improve ourselves. We need friends that walk according to the truth and are accepting of us, yet they are honest about our weaknesses and faults without condemning us. Safe people can be fully present with others, connecting at deep and intimate levels. Safe people can speak truth to one another, without being offended or taking things personally. Safe people give others the opportunity to grow and become their highest expression, for them as God intended. Safe people create loving and positive feelings and inspire good works, such as being in Service to Others. Safe people create relationships that allow people to be as they are, and draw us closer to feel unity and connection with all of life. Inability to forgive is sourced from anger and resentment, two emotions that can wreak havoc with your health and keep one stagnated. Without the ability to forgive and accept circumstances, in relationship to the self and others, not only does one allow themselves to remain stuck in the past, but this takes a huge energetic drain on your emotional and physical health. We must make an effort to identify what choices we do have, and make changes in our environment that can increase our sense of safety and comfort while in our physical space. Assess the physical and emotional safety of your environment, and realize it may be necessary to remove people or situations from your life who are entrenched in destructive and harmful behaviors, in order to make the necessary changes to your lifestyle. The first step is to identify what makes us feel safe and stable and to do those things every day.”

~Lisa Renee

On the spiritual ascension pathway, recognizing the importance of character building as a necessary part of having self-love and self-acceptance is critical to progress through self-deception ego blocks. Self-deception blocks are levels of ego denial, the half-truths we tell ourselves because we are really afraid to see all of the picture that currently blocks our awareness. When we have low self-esteem, our ego defense mechanisms will act to block our progress moving forward in our spiritual ascension and evolving in our life.

One who understands they are a loved and worthy spiritual vessel for the spirit of God Source, will begin to learn that self-love is at the core of self-acceptance which is the quality one must build to truly feel and experience God’s love for all of us.

Once we feel love for ourselves, we build inner confidence which further builds our trust with the process of life. In these chaotic times, it is very important to build trust in our communications and relationship with our higher power to help us navigate the challenges we find now in earthy life. A person who is more confident about himself, feels more stable in their spiritual foundation and will be more focused and determined to achieve a better state of consciousness with all of life, regardless of whether it is for career, spiritual purpose, inspiration, family or personal goals.

A peaceful and fulfilling life is most possible when one seeks inner truth and self-knowledge while building a relationship with God and the relationship to the self.

When building the relationship with the self it may mean we are taken through character building life experiences that we do not prefer. We must push through our fears that live in the Houses of Ego in order to experience the accomplishment of moving past our perceived mental limitations and negative ego habits. If our mental limitations and/or self-entitlement govern our actions, we will become stunted in our emotional-spiritual growth and fall into symptoms of low self-esteem.

If we are to begin to recognize the qualities that define Safe People and safe relationships, we need to first understand what a safe person is and why we need that kind of safety to overcome fear. We need people in our life that will be honest with us, telling us where we are creating harm and potentially where we may need to change, in order to improve ourselves. We need friends that walk according to the truth and are accepting of us, yet they are honest about our weaknesses and faults without condemning us.

Relationships in which people use shame, guilt or condemn us for our actions are ultimately destructive and traumatizing, which does not produce emotional or spiritual growth. These are the Unsafe People that require us to be different than who we are, in order to be accepted and conditionally loved by them. Conditional love that must be earned is useless, it is a made-up projection from the Negative Ego demands and is not real love. If we do not have this kind of safe person around us yet, we can become that person for ourselves and others. As we intend to clear fears and improve our character, we attract similar people.

Safe people can be fully present with others, connecting at deep and intimate levels.

Safe people can speak truth to one another, without being offended or taking things personally.

Safe people give others the opportunity to grow and become their highest expression, for them as God intended.

Safe people create loving and positive feelings and inspire good works, such as being in Service to Others.

Safe people create relationships that allow people to be as they are, and draw us closer to feel unity and connection with all of life.

In order to heal our mental and emotional body to overcome deep fears, we must know how to establish safety within ourselves and recognize what makes us feel unsafe. Taking good care of our body, having a consistent meditation or spiritual practice to become more inner directed, avoiding exposure to self-harming behaviors, and learning how to manage fear or trauma reactions is essential to being safe within yourself.

The first step is to identify what makes us feel safe and stable and to do those things every day.

We must make an effort to identify what choices we do have, and make changes in our environment that can increase our sense of safety and comfort while in our physical space. Assess the physical and emotional safety of your environment, and realize it may be necessary to remove people or situations from your life who are entrenched in destructive and harmful behaviors, in order to make the necessary changes to your lifestyle. When we are more competent in Emotional Self-Regulation our inner safety is enhanced, so that trust can be formed, as we discover that we really do have the resources inside of us for feeling comforted and safe.

To Forgive Others is Forgiving the Self

To forgive another person or circumstances is the most generous thing one can do for yourself. When we forgive others for perceived transgressions it frees us from the bonds, entanglements and cords which manifest painful patterns such as judgments, resentments, and anger.

Forgiving yourself is the most important action one can take to clearing self-sabotaging bonds of victimhood and their painful wounds from past, present and future. A forgiveness technique is to practice self-acceptance. NO person needs forgiveness for just being who they are. The practice of forgiving yourself is about targeting the specific things that make one feel bad about themselves, the things that make one feel inadequate or unworthy and not about the truth of the real person that you are. As a forgiveness technique, self-acceptance allows one to acknowledge that you are a good person, with faults and all.

This does not mean that one ignores the faults or stops making genuine attempts to improve oneself, but it does mean that one values themselves above ALL of those elements. When one recognizes self-worth by acknowledging ones whole self, then the personal power is generated to stop allowing these faults to be used as weaknesses and continually halt ones progression and evolution throughout life.

Love yourself unconditionally and give yourself permission to heal with the necessary time it takes to do so.

Understanding the importance of forgiveness is that it brings you to the current state of now, rather than dwelling on past hurts and pain. Forgiveness allows one to live in the present instead of the past, which means that one can move into the future with a renewed sense of purpose focused on change, improvement, and building on current experiences, rather than being held back by past pain. Some people are afraid to forgive themselves because they fear losing their sense of self that has been built on the foundation of anger, resentment, blame and vulnerability.

In this case, one may ask themselves if feeling victimized and angry, being the easily hurt and reactive person is the identity you want to show the world and live with as your image. Is the familiarity of being in the victim or victimizer role, or the perceived ego security of this mode of thinking, actually worth the energy, effort and harm it is causing you?

Without the ability to forgive and accept circumstances, in relationship to the self and others, not only does one allow themselves to remain stuck in the past, but this takes a huge energetic drain on your emotional and physical health. Inability to forgive is sourced from anger and resentment, two emotions that can wreak havoc with your health and keep one stagnated.

(Source: Krystal Aegis, Ascension Glossary: Overcoming Self Deception and Relationally Safe People)

~via EnergeticSynthesis.com – Time Shift Blog – April 4, 2023

August 27, 2019

JEAN M. TWENGE, PhD: “Is Donald Trump Actually Insecure Underneath?”

I’m often asked how you can spot a narcissist. Here’s my standard list:

  • Brag or show off
  • Name-dropping
  • Name brands or flashy possessions
  • Look at themselves in the mirror a lot
  • Turn the conversation back to him/herself
  • Insults others
  • Declarations about being the “best” or “great” without details
  • Emphasizes his/her status

I wrote that list two years ago — long before Donald Trump started running for president. Yet it could have been written just for him. As others have pointed out, the Donald is a textbook case of narcissistic personality. He is clearly functioning well and thus can’t be classified as having narcissistic personality disorder, the clinical-level form, which by definition only describes someone whose traits are causing them difficulty. Trump, instead, displays narcissism as a personality trait — the type we focus on in The Narcissism Epidemic.

Here’s the question: Is Trump’s narcissism a cover for insecurity? This is known as the “mask model” — the idea that grandiose narcissism is a show to distract people from the deep psychic pain underneath. A recent piece in Time made this claim, arguing that Trump is trying to cover for a “profound insecurity and lack of self-esteem.”

Here’s the problem: At least for grandiose narcissism like Trump’s, there’s no evidence that the mask model is true. Narcissists have high self-esteem on average, not low, and the most aggressive people are those with both high narcissism and high self-esteem. Children who become narcissistic are not those shamed by their parents, but those told they are special.

Perhaps the best evidence comes from studies measuring self-esteem in a subtle way, such as with an implicit self-esteem measure recording people’s reaction time in pairing words like “I” and “me” with words like “bad” and “good.” People who score high on grandiose narcissism also score high on implicit self-esteem. In other words, deep down inside, narcissists think they are awesome.

This is also just plain common sense: Does Trump really seem like he is insecure underneath? Does he seem to be in a state of psychic pain, or even covering for one? No — he’s having the time of his life. So why does he seem to crave all of the attention and adulation? The Time article argues that Trump is trying to fill a deep “psychic hole.”

I have a more straightforward explanation: He likes all of the attention because he thinks he deserves it. It’s never enough not because of psychic pain, but because he thinks everyone should pay attention to him. Attention is fun and gratifying; it has nothing to do with insecurity.

Why the Mask Model of Narcissism Is Dangerous

I will go further: I think it’s dangerous to believe that narcissists are insecure underneath. Not only is it not supported by empirical evidence, but it promotes the idea that the way to deal with narcissists is to boost their self-esteem and heal their “wounds” through more love and affection. This is like suggesting that the way to cure obesity is by giving everyone more doughnuts. The narcissistic person who ruins relationships through his self-centeredness does not need more love or attention — he needs to get kicked to the curb. The young adult who takes advantage of everyone around her does not need her self-esteem boosted — she needs to learn responsibility.

Narcissism is known as the “disease that hurts other people,” and the cure for it is real life — losing a relationship because of selfishness, losing a job because you’ve alienated people. Yes, we should try to understand narcissists and realize that their behavior is explained by this personality trait. But that does not mean we should believe that they are actually insecure — that myth undermines our understanding of narcissism because it presumes that it’s only skin-deep.

Many, many people have been hurt in relationships with narcissists by believing that they can change the person with more love. If only that were true — but sadly, most of the time, it’s not. We can have empathy for people with narcissistic traits, but that does not mean we have to believe they are suffering underneath. Most of the time, they are making other people suffer. They won’t suffer themselves until bad things start happening to them, often as a consequence of their narcissism. It is sad, but it is not due to insecurity.

Trump is not insecure. We should not be looking for the source of his “psychic pain” or expect that someday he will break down and show his true, doubting self. He really does think that he’s that great, and that his ideas are that great. If we believe otherwise — about him or anyone else with these traits — we risk underestimating the true power of the narcissist.

 

~via PsychologyToday.com