Where did my Self Esteem go and how I got it back!
It was 2 years ago that I left my husband, home and friends and moved up to Norfolk to start a new life; wow! Thank goodness I found the strength to jump off that cliff into the unknown, through my fear to put myself first and build myself up and to create the life that I wanted and was starting to believe that I deserved.
I had been off sick from my social work job for a year with M.E and I was completely stuck in every area of my life living in a very unhappy marriage. My self- esteem was rock bottom as I had given my personal power to my husband without realising it. It was just like the Eat, Pray, Love movie where Julia Roberts was crying and praying on the floor of the bathroom for a sign of what to do, only I did it on the spare room floor! I did not go to Rome, India or Bali to sort myself out but Norfolk was a safe haven for sure!
Self-esteem (how we value ourselves) affects our trust in others, our relationships, our work and all areas of our lives. It can be knocked for many different reasons; it may be a relationship breakdown or divorce, wanting to go back to work after taking time out to have children etc. My self-esteem has grown as I have healed my physical and emotional self which I did with Wellness Coaching and Hypnotherapy; this is why I trained in these therapies to dynamically help others to move forward positively to live the life they want and deserve. This started to boost my self-esteem but when I started my business it was like riding the biggest scariest rollercoaster in the world!! When I was not getting any clients initially or that they did not come back to see me again or that they did not reach their goals, I was allowing their choices or their not feeling ready to work with me to knock my self-esteem and I would feel very rejected and take it as a complete personal failure.
What I learned was that I needed to build strong foundations of self-esteem so that what I built on top of my foundations would be solid and would withhold any knocks that came to me. Otherwise it is like building a house on wobbly foundations and it would collapse easily with any knocks!
What I did was to identify my negative self-limiting beliefs, mine were; ’I am not good enough’ and ‘I don’t deserve to be successful and earn lots of money’. These were in my subconscious mind from childhood; learning this about myself from teachers etc. Then I used Hypnotherapy to change these in my subconscious mind; it is like reprogramming the hard drive of your computer. Once you identify your beliefs that are holding you back and change them you feel liberated and nothing holds you back!
So, have a think, what beliefs hold you back? If you are not sure, watch your thoughts, listen to your negative self-talk and change it to supportive self-talk. I suggest to clients to imagine something on their left shoulder; where the negative self-talk comes from, imagine it as a character, the less you listen to it the smaller it gets, shrinking down to nothing! Then imagine on your right shoulder a positive supportive character or person that is like your life Coach; they totally believe in you and you listen ONLY to their voice, then they get bigger and stronger and support you and give you wise advice, this is your intuition, your wisdom, your self-esteem needs to listen to your Coach! This is life changing and you then have resilience; the ability to bounce back from difficult experiences.
If I can do this, you can too! Wishing you all Fabulous Self-Esteem.