Self-Esteem Worksheet 1 - Get to know your enemy

When I was a little girl and I fell over and grazed my knees, my Grandad would suck out all the dirt and spit it on the floor.  I guess some people would think 'yuk' hearing this but it did the trick.  It got all the dirt out so my knees were free to heal.

That's basically the idea behind this work sheet.  If you suffer from low self-esteem, what you are really dealing with is mind dirt - toxic thoughts, if you like.  Low self-esteem is NOT something you have to be stuck with for the rest of your life.  You can change the way you feel about yourself - drastically and really quite easily if you know how.

So the first step is to 'know your enemy'.  Just like when my Grandad used to suck the dirt out of my cuts and grazes, this might hurt a bit, but it won't last for long and it's for a good reason.

Through out your day, and indeed through out your life, your mind is generating automatic thoughts.  These thoughts are shaping your reality - how you see the world, how you see yourself and other people in it.  These thoughts are usually so repetitive that we become familiar with them - so familiar that we don't even know that they are there.  Have you ever had an air freshener in your home and the first time you use it, the smell is really strong but then after a week or two, you can't even smell it anymore?  Well, our thoughts are like that, we become so used to our habitual thoughts that we don't 'smell' them either.  They become the landscape of our mind, familiar to us as our furniture.

Sadly, many of these thoughts can be like enemies - the true cause of low self-esteem and they need to be brought out into the open and challenged.

So I would like to invite you now to take a pad and a pen and write down all the things you hate about yourself, don't like about yourself or even find just plain annoying about yourself.  Include also, the things you believe that other people don't like about you.  Be as nasty and critical as you can possibly bear, really let out your inner critic and let it have its say.  Don't be surprised if you hear the phrase, 'I'm not good enough' as this is something most of us believe about ourselves.

Write down all the hurtful horrible things you say about yourself.  All the things you believe are wrong with you.  Write down all the things you do wrong.  Get that self-hate down onto paper.  Take as long as you need.

Once you have done this, take a while to read over your list.  It may be just a few lines or it may be a few pages long.  Each of us is different.  Just get to know the voice that's in your head, the voice you have been living with for so long.

I will tell you what to do next, in my next post but until then, just notice when the voice - the one you have taken the time to put down on paper - repeats those same phrases, those same thoughts, over and over again.  Give that voice a name if you like - something ridiculous like Cyril or Ermingtrude or Cuthbert or Mable - anything silly because that's about as much respect as that voice deserves.

You'll be surprised at how often it speaks!