From the author: Want to work on your self-esteem? First, buy a notebook. It happens that someone (no matter who) turns to a specialist with a request: I don’t have friends, I want to make them. It is interesting that this unknown person, at this time, seems to be wearing a sign on his chest: I DO NOT CARE ABOUT EVERYONE AND I AM NOT GOING TO FORCE ANYONE TO COMMUNICATE WITH ME. Of course, this sign is hidden and it is metaphorical. Let us not now find out and reflect on the topic that inside this tablet is a request for recognition and significance, through devaluation, and, possibly, the attitude “I am bad (or good), the world is bad (or good). Something else is more important for us. What does all this have to do with self-esteem? And what to do with all this? Adequate self-esteem is formed based on the results of actions. Attention: not based on other people’s assessments of you. Self-esteem based on what others say about you is incorrect, because each person sees the world in his own way. It turns out that there are as many opinions as there are people. And the generalization “everyone thinks, does, says, thinks, and so on” is canceled due to inconsistency. Why? Very simply, due to insufficient sampling (hello to sociologists). How many people did you survey in order to make a statement about “everyone”? That’s it- that’s it. The assessment of the results of your actions should also not be someone else’s, but your own. Why? To understand this most important idea in this article and to effectively work with your self-esteem, you can do the exercise: Take any object that is near you. For example, a toy or a vase. Or draw a picture. After that, take a paper and a pen and describe your object or picture: What is his lifestyle? What is his personality like? dreams? After you write everything, add 1-2 more phrases. Then try to identify yourself with your object. Read the text you wrote using “I” instead of “he”, you will see that most of your descriptions will coincide with your attitude. to yourself, with your feelings. If it seems to you that the text is not about you, then most likely you do not accept yourself so much, you are so alienated from yourself that it is difficult for you to accept it. The exercise illustrates a simple mental mechanism with the help of which we understand the world. The fact is that it is impossible for human perception to imagine something that has never happened to him, that was not in his experience. In order to learn new things, a person puts all his experience on the new, like on a screen, trying to master what is visible on the basis what he already knows. Next, in the process of cognition, a check begins: is this what I see really works? And when we discover differences from what we have seen before, this is where an adequate perception of reality begins. However, if a person has encountered in his personal history the fact that learning new things is dangerous, it becomes difficult for him to carry out this reality check. Then he simply agrees with what he sees: it is so because I think so. We look at people and think, “This person is like that.” And we agree with this. No verification. And we think that this is reality, whereas it is simply a feature of perception. Moreover, everyone sees their own. Thus, everything that other people tell us about us is pure knowledge about themselves, but not about us at all! It is important to remember that we ourselves do the same. Each of us, when describing the other, is actually talking about himself. A person cannot look at others objectively due to this mechanism. The only honest response (and it is also subjective) is when we say: “I feel this way about you.” Our feelings don't lie. Our descriptions always lie. We don't know what the other is like, and others don't know what we are like. They may feel something towards us, and that’s all. To work with your self-esteem, you can do the following exercise: During the week, when communicating with other people, hearing the words addressed to you: “you are such and such”, “you lead behave like this”, “you do this”, “youyou feel this way, you want this, remember that this person is actually saying this about himself. Notice: What do you learn about another when you understand it? Write down everything you discover in your notebook. After a week, check how your attitude towards these people has changed? When communicating with these people, as soon as they tell you this description about you, ask them the question: “How do you see this?” or “How do you know that?” If you receive the answer “I see it in you or in your eyes,” ask him: “What exactly do my eyes and I look like, why are you drawing such conclusions?” - you will be convinced that this person’s words do not have clear, obvious grounds. However, there is another side to this. When you describe other people, you do the same thing. You attribute to other people what happens to you. When you only have a hammer, everything around you looks like a nail. To adequately assess other people, you can do the following exercise: During the week, when communicating with other people, notice your own remarks or thoughts with the following content: “you are such and such,” “you are behaving this way”, “you do this”, “you feel this way”, “you want this”. Since you do not really know the intentions, feelings, desires, or states of another person, be aware of this. If you notice this phrase of yours during a conversation, correct yourself: “I wanted to say that I see (seems) such and such. Is it so? Am I hearing you correctly? Write down in your notebook (get yourself a special notebook) your impressions of such dialogues. If you think the other person is angry, for example, ask yourself, “Am I angry? What am I angry about, who or what is making me angry?” Be very clear with yourself. Record your observations. Turn on your inner observer. Therapist: - I find it difficult to make a diagnosis. It's probably alcoholism! Patient: - Okay, doctor, I'll come when you're sober. Every person has all human qualities, both negative (those that are generally considered negative) and positive. From childhood we were taught “this and this is not good,” some of us were beaten (punished) for something, and we learned by heart that this should not be in us at all and never. This does not mean that some qualities or feelings have disappeared from us, this only means that we carefully hid them many years ago from ourselves, both positive and negative. If you were told in childhood: “How ugly and stupid you are,” - you will look at others and think: “What a beauty! What a smart girl!” Try to take credit for this too. Now you look at others with sympathy and regret, and at yourself with hatred and condemnation. And then your task is to assign to yourself the right to want support, sympathy and attention. Some people, due to the fact that they were not given support, literally became adults. they drive themselves into a corner, sacrificing themselves, because in their heads it still sounds: “others have it worse!” However, there is still a need for support, their unconscious message to society is: “To become worthy of support, I must become the worst. It must be more unbearable for me than for others.” In such situations, it is often enough to ask for support directly, honestly, and then you don’t need to ruin your life. A useful skill for developing adequate self-esteem is to stop “knowing” what others think about you, to discard the illusion that you can know it. A person and his actions - different concepts. While a good deed deserves approval, and a bad deed deserves condemnation, a person, regardless of whether he has committed a good or a bad deed, is always worthy of either respect or compassion. Mahatma Gandhi Another way to be “delusional” in your own assessments and self-esteem is to exaggerate or underestimate the intention of your feelings and actions. You can do the following exercise: Make an action plan for the coming day: conversations, household chores and.