Change and Self-Esteem
Roleen Kaplan
(MA Psychology)
RoKap International Global Perfomance Solutions
Psychologist, Speaker and Facilitator.
Landline: +27 11 656 6008 or email: r.k.rokapi.co.za
I watched the colours taking on different tones as the enormous beauty of the sunset streamed across the early evening sky. My heart stirred with memories of what I thought was then and was going to become.
Gently the magnificence of light over the ocean began fading into darker shades and the orchestral tones of a new song were becoming more apparent.
I heard the echo of the stark difference between the beauty of the sunset and the darkness of the night sky.
I knew there was more and that I had to see through it all.
I closed my eyes.
No longer could I legitimize words devoid of action and meaning with my own sincerity and truths.
I knew I had to let go.
No part of me wanted to.
An important and difficult choice was visiting my soul and asking recognition.
I could continue to walk through shadows not my own or,
I could hold onto me and walk away…
So I walked away and towards myself.
Roleen Kaplan, 2007
Change is sometimes very painful.
Almost always, it is necessary.
We live in a world where change is a given. It is there, facing us daily. Fast paced global changes and the heightened need to keep up, is seducing us into being not only employees, but human beings we were not designed to be. Many are fast being pulled into the trap of becoming removed from themselves, people devoid of the emotion of regard for others’ emotions, removing themselves knowingly from emotional connectedness and taking leaps into new ways of relating and living like never before.
With the increasing need for better financial outcomes people are sacrificing themselves to such a degree that they are losing sight of realizing that it is not only others’ love and loyalty they are losing, but themselves. These expensive personal losses are part of the attempt to become proclaimed self-made machines who allege brilliance in their capacity to be successful and genius enough to be calculative in their ability to get what they want.
Yes, we need to keep up. But, not at the expense of others’ and not by abandoning our emotional self.
It’s not about making more money. It’s about making more You.
Who is it that you are?
To know this in your heart requires a Change.
A change in perception.
For the majority the search for meaning in these moments of change is through material excellence and the belief that more money will make you happier. Money is not going to clear up a gnawing personal void deepened by continued unresolved life crisees. An awakened relationship with yourself and how you relate to others is the better option. And this type of emotional fulfillment finds its root in self-esteem. As discussed by Carolyn Myss, self-esteem is made up of two elements namely, love and choice.
Indeed, Love needs to be pure and choice needs to come from self-acceptance rather than through seeking anothers’ approval of who you are or who you should be. Personal voids are filled at this level where deeply ingrained patterns of relating, more challenging to modify, are demanding our attention.
Although financial security has its place, it is not the answer towards emotional fulfillment. The monetary trappings are all mere emotional seductions to pull us away from ourselves and making the personal emotional changes that world consciousness, organizational endurance and individual survival is desperate for.
The defense mechanisms built into human nature and the human psyche are many and complicated says John Powell. I tend to agree. Most people have a tremendous fear of making the emotional changes required because of what has happened to them in their past, and how they have, as a consequence, carefully structured their defenses over the years to avoid much of the same happening all over again. The irony is, because the defenses are structured within that and for that particular painful situation/s, anything new becomes a scary place to be. In the attempt to remove ourselves from the same uncomfortable situation (albeit new), we go back and seek out much of the same kind of relating as before because of the comfort in its familiarity. In so doing, we land up repeating the very pattern we were wanting to avoid. So instead of changing the pattern, we delude ourselves into believing we are changing, when in fact we are simply attempting to find ways to cope in same type of pain masked perhaps by a different relationship. This is where we abandon ourselves and the belief that we are worth more. It is at this point where our self esteem or lack of, resides.
If you look through the seduction, the truth becomes apparent.
Fear of change is caused by the following:
- Fear of loss (losing a familiar way of relating to yourself and others),
- Feeling vulnerable and hence unsafe emotionally (because I don’t know this way, I don’t know me in this way and you may hurt me because I don’t know how to protect myself your way or a different way other than the old way) and
- Being out of control (this is unfamiliar to me and I don’t feel safe emotionally not knowing me in this new space).
No one is saying that emotional change is always easy. It requires a recognition of your own truth, and truth has boundaries. Boundaries may appear limiting to our desire for what we think is independence. It is our perception that when we are independent we have control and choice. This is not entirely true . It is in interdependence that we find our power and freedom to choose.
The lie is that we are striving for independence. We are not.
The Truth is that we are striving for interdependence.
There is a difference.
Steven Covey puts it succinctly. ‘If you want to work on making a quantum change, then work on your perceptions, assumptions, frame of reference and lens through which you view yourself and hence the world around you’.
If our perceptions are based on false emotional frames of reference, no matter how positively we think we’re thinking, nothing substantial will change. If we want change to become apparent in our lives, we have to look inwards and know sincerely that our answers do not lie allowing ourselves to be other peoples’ emotional puppets. Rather our answers lie in knowing that we are worth ourselves.
In the last article on change, I will offer you some important questions and answers that will serve as a guideline towards knowing you more intimately, so that you can afford yourself the opportunity of positive self-esteem and emotional change.
Until next time.
