Embracing Self-Esteem: Strategies for Success and Fulfillment

What does it mean to truly feel empowered? How does self-esteem shape our lives? These are the questions we tackle in this profound conversation, exploring the intricate difference between self-esteem and self-confidence. Join us, Terri and Amanda, as we share our journeys and insights on these crucial topics. Discover how Terri's corporate job and intensive training transformed her perspective and boosted her confidence, underlining resources' significant role in shaping our self-esteem.

As we navigate this conversation further, we help you pinpoint signs of empowerment from body language to client interactions, giving you the tools to identify and nurture your inner power. We delve into the profound impact of our environment and circumstances on our self-esteem and share strategies for leveraging resources to bolster self-confidence and strive for our goals. Moreover, we explore how elements like our sense of safety can affect our self-esteem drastically, shedding light on the ripple effect this can have on our lives.

In the final segment of our chat, we underscore the importance of cultivating a sense of belonging and inclusivity in any group setting, emphasizing its essential role in shaping an individual's self-esteem. We candidly discuss the challenges of social media and societal pressures on self-esteem and delve into the pitfalls of self-sabotage. As we wrap up, we elaborate on cultivating healthy self-esteem and self-acceptance, exploring the transformative power of self-love, identifying and dealing with feelings of shame, employing self-reflection strategies, and setting boundaries. If boosting your self-esteem is on your agenda, this episode is a must-listen!

RESOURCES MENTIONED IN TODAY'S EPISODE
https://www.betterhealth.vic.gov.au/health/healthyliving/self-esteem#self-esteem-building

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:03

Hello and welcome to What Women Want Today, podcast season three, the Soul Sister series, where we will tackle tough topics straight from our heart to yours. I'm Terri Kellams, your host and coach for women who struggle to find meaning in fulfillment in midlife.

Speaker 2: 0:17

I am Amanda Kieber. I am your new regular contributor. I come straight from the Midwest Rockford Illinois. I'm a public speaking teacher and leadership development professor. I'm also a coach and clinical mental health counselor. I am so thrilled to be here, and let's get started.

Speaker 1: 0:33

Let's do it. Hello, welcome to this week's episode of the What Women Want Today podcast. Hello, my friend Amanda, i'm so excited to be with you today.

Speaker 2: 0:43

Hello, you look fabulous today.

Speaker 1: 0:45

Thank you. I had someone call this my crazy hair.

Speaker 2: 0:48

Well, I like crazy hair.

Speaker 1: 0:49

Yeah, i kind of like crazier once in a while too. Yeah, this is things up a little bit. Very cute, love it. Can I take a few minutes to tell you about a little rant of mine? Sure, okay, i was at the grocery store the other day and I was looking for my favorite jar of sunflower butter. I don't eat peanut butter, i don't know. Midlife has made my stomach a lot more sensitive, so peanuts upset my stomach. So I've switched to almond butter for a little while, and then I found sunflower butter. In fact, i introduced you to the dark chocolate one.

Speaker 2: 1:24

I've had your sunflower butter.

Speaker 1: 1:26

This is just the plain sunflower butter, no chocolate. I was looking for it at my favorite store, my grocery store. They were out of it and I thought I should look for a different brand. So I'm starting to look around and I'm like, okay, there's cashew butter, there's almond butter and there's sunflower butter, and the rice is like $19.99 for natural, raw, healthy alternative to peanut butter. I'm like, huh, look at how much the best jar of peanut butter costs. So I scoot a little bit over on the aisle and there's the peanut butter. The cheap one just jumped out at me with $1.79. So if I want to be healthy, i have to spend $19.99. If I want to eat shit, i can spend $1.79. And it just like I was on a rant for, like the rest of the day, i'm so tired of these grocery prices. I think it was a hundred and no, no, no. I think we're at about 200 bucks for the week for me and my husband to eat. How much do you think you and Gary and Noah spend per week on groceries?

Speaker 2: 2:32

I'm not really sure, but it just reminds me of what power and privilege does in life. And for people to eat healthy, you really have to have access to more resources. I saw a meme it just reminded me this rant. I saw a meme on Facebook that swimming lessons for one child, for this particular person, were $200 a month, and she said so. I guess they want all the poor people to drown. It's just, it's really absolutely ridiculous that in order to have healthy, safe choices in life, you have to have access to more money, power and privilege. So that's what I hear in your example.

Speaker 1: 3:10

Well, yeah Well, and you know. And then, of course you know, i'm diving into some things on the internet and I find that now organic foods are going to be sprayed with some chemical that you can't you can't wash off. And then I read about you know, they're making in California, they're making chicken in factories off of the cells of the animals And I'm like I do not want to eat a cell of an animal, i want to eat real food. I don't want my food to be produced in a factory and I don't want to pay $19.99 for you to not put a bunch of shit in my almond butter.

Speaker 2: 3:41

Yeah, Well, i love it because Terry came on the podcast fired up today, i see. So I want to know if you are fired up about our topic today, which is self esteem.

Speaker 1: 3:52

I'm very fired up about self esteem. I have been diving in. I've got all sorts of notes over here. I went old school John Maxwell and got out some index cards.

Speaker 2: 4:02

I love it. I think it's interesting because could we I want to be so creative with this intro and this rant that you started with could we tie self esteem with power and privilege?

Speaker 1: 4:17

I'll let you do it.

Speaker 2: 4:20

I mean honestly if you have more access to more resources, does that impact your self esteem and your worth or worthiness?

Speaker 1: 4:31

Well, okay, so something does come to mind. So before I and I've talked a lot about my corporate job on here Before I had my corporate job, i worked for an agent and he encouraged me to become like a business owner for the company that we worked for, so you could have your own satellite offices and you had to kind of do things the way that corporate wanted you to. But you had a lot of your own autonomy to run your agency the way you wanted to. And during the 13 weeks of training they really pumped you up. They made you feel like your role in the world was so important, like, without your knowledge, to bring to your friends and family and the people within your circle of influence, like they might make some poor decisions. So you had all of this kind of like power, in a sense, that you're learning something that 99% of the population really doesn't understand.

Speaker 2: 5:30

And so they were empowering you. Empo, you write powerly, yeah. Okay, so you left these trainings and you left these kind of like powwow sessions, pop talk sessions, feeling very empowered, very much so, okay, very much so.

Speaker 1: 5:47

And I think, if I'm going to tie it to self-esteem, i think you know, i think at that point in life things were very compartmentalized for me, like my work life. I felt very much like I had self-esteem, but in my home life and a lot of my personal relationships I didn't feel like that. I didn't feel the value for myself. So let's just take one step back and let's put a definition out there for self-esteem, if you don't mind. Go ahead All right, because I think self-esteem and self-confidence I have them both written down. I think they get confused a lot. Yes, so let's define them. Yes, self-esteem is confidence in one's own worth and abilities. It's your self-love and how much you value yourself. And the Latin root of the word means to appraise, to value, to weigh or to estimate. Yeah, okay, now just compare that now with self-esteem definition, which is how well you can control certain aspects of your life, and the Latin word of that is trust. So how much do you trust yourself in your ability to control the events of your life?

Speaker 2: 6:58

Do you trust yourself to make good decisions for yourself?

Speaker 1: 7:01

Right, yeah. So I think back then, if we're going back to that example of running my own agency, i think external forces were helping me to feel good about myself in the self-esteem area, because if I was looking at the value that I was bringing to my clients, my customers that home, it was so much different because I didn't feel like I was valued as a person. Yes, so very different aspects And I find it just really super fascinating that you could have one part of your life that you feel such high self-esteem and self-confidence and then go home at the end of the day and flip a switch.

Speaker 2: 7:45

So I think fascinating. I love that you jump right into this distinction. So I've been doing emotional intelligence training for the last couple of days, so in this podcast I'm really going to tease this out and let's just have a really good conversation about how these things develop. So what was going on at work that you felt empowered? So I wanted you to put a feeling to being empowered. What feeling was behind the result? The implication, the result was whatever happened in that meeting. You left that meeting feeling extremely empowered. So what confidence? What confidence? Okay, all right, but before confidence, before you felt confident, what did you feel? Because there's things that come before confidence.

Speaker 1: 8:37

Hmm, what did I feel? I'm trying to put myself back. This has been a lot of years ago now, like 16 years.

Speaker 2: 8:45

We're really feeling. Remember you were really feeling worthy and capable. For sure, and so how did you know you were good at what you did?

Speaker 1: 8:57

That's a great question. I just don't know if I can take myself there, but I think I just remember clients coming in and sitting across from my desk and I've had this ability for some time now. I didn't grow up with it, for sure, but I've had this ability for some time now of being able to make people feel comfortable, so having them sit in front of my desk and feeling like I had knowledge to impart that would benefit them and to put them at ease.

Speaker 2: 9:28

Yes, and as you put them at ease, how did you know you were putting them at ease?

Speaker 1: 9:34

Any language, just like people will come in and they'll sit in front of you and they're very stiff and formal And there's a lot of crossing of the arms type thing. Because I was a new agent, i was taking over an agent's book of business, so I was being evaluated for my knowledge at that point from these people. And let's just be real, the insurance world was a lot of old white men And I was taking the place of an older white gentleman And here I was, this younger-ish female. So I had to prove myself. I had to prove myself.

Speaker 2: 10:12

And so one of the things that I'm hearing you say you are somebody who is very attuned with people's emotions through their body, So you were looking at people's emotional reaction to you to affirm that you were capable of what you were doing. So body language was one. What was it another one? How did you know I'm doing a good job other than body language?

Speaker 1: 10:40

Um, because they stopped being defensive and they started asking real, real questions. instead of surface level questions They became real questions And when you know you would show them something on their policy that hadn't been. you know, people hate to have their insurance reviewed. It's worse than going to the dentist. I don't know why people hate it so much, but they do not like having their insurance reviewed.

Speaker 1: 11:04

And so let's say, you know, i know you're in Gary's house very well. Let's say you and Gary decide to put in a swimming pool an in-ground swimming pool, but you don't tell your insurance agent that you have one. And now you're sitting in front of me and I'm reviewing some of the coverages on your policy and you disclose all of a sudden that you have an in-ground swimming pool. Now I know that there are a lot of risks that come with someone having an in-ground swimming pool. So now I have very intelligent questions to ask you about. have you considered this? Have you considered that I recommend this is my recommendation for you going forward? And now they understand that I care about what's going on in their household. Now it's not just me trying to sell them something, it's me caring about what's going on in their household and how to protect it better.

Speaker 2: 11:53

Yeah. So they drop their shoulders, they start becoming less defensive and they start getting more curious and start becoming more open. And when you sign that policy and they become your client, what do they then do? Check my hand, they check your hand and they thank you, they affirm you, they affirm you. So if we're thinking about self-esteem, we have to think about how does it develop? Sure.

Speaker 2: 12:25

Right, like how do we have any sort of assessment or measure? if we're looking at like a barometer? right, if we're looking at like a self-esteem dipstick, like imagine, like checking the oil in your car, what fills up that oil and what depletes that oil.

Speaker 1: 12:46

I mean that's a very great point because self-esteem can change according to your circumstances and your environment. So, conversely to that very positive conversation I had with you and Gary about your in-ground swimming pool which, by the way, i love it, if you did put an in-ground swimming pool it's like come visit you more. But I could have a client come in and rip me a new one. And you know, let's say they got into a serious motorcycle accident and didn't have the proper coverage on their motorcycle and now they're stuck with a lot of physical damage bills and medical bills And they're very angry that they were not offered those. They think in their mind I was never offered those coverages.

Speaker 1: 13:27

I mean, it's up to the agent to document whether or not they offered the coverages, but at that moment in time that customer believes I did not offer him the appropriate coverages and now he has a financial loss that is devastating to him and his family. And even though I didn't write the initial policy, i am ultimately responsible at this point because I am the owner of the agency. Now he's very angry at me and he leaves disgusted, slams my door, yells at me. Whatever he's doing now, my self-esteem could feel very different than it did in my interaction with you and Gary about your pool.

Speaker 2: 14:04

And you bring up another fascinating conversation, which is how do you keep your self-esteem stable regardless of if people are affirming you or disconfirming?

Speaker 1: 14:15

you Absolutely.

Speaker 2: 14:19

So it is a very complex concept and a reality in our lives. So let's talk about for you what are the factors for you that fill your oil, that fill up the self-esteem personally. What are the things that people can do or that you can do for yourself to make sure that your self-esteem is higher?

Speaker 1: 14:47

So I think the external ones would be someone acknowledging the podcast, giving us feedback on our episodes, which has happened quite a bit. The statistics I can look at the statistics of how our shows are doing, our episodes are doing, how our rankings are, and I can feel really good and proud about that. Yesterday I decided to make some homemade French bread and my husband was very he's a big bread lover, so he was very appreciative of how good the French bread was. Or if we've got something really important going on and I've really taken control of the situation and gotten a lot of things done without asking for a lot of input or help from him, because he's working 10 hours a day, five days a week right now. So him acknowledging my role in how smoothly things run in our household, that's a big one for me. A friend acknowledging that I was there for her in a time of need, that's a huge one for me. So, yeah, those are some of the ones that come to mind off the top of my head.

Speaker 2: 15:55

Yeah, so you just mentioned a lot of acknowledgement, like your examples that you just mentioned, where somebody else acknowledges.

Speaker 1: 16:02

Yeah, and a lot of it does come in self-esteem, a lot of it does come from external.

Speaker 2: 16:07

Yes, yes. So what are the things that deplete your self-esteem?

Speaker 1: 16:14

Yeah, they would be the opposite of all that I'm complaining about. you know, like you know, criticizing, complaining. You know, have you ever known someone that you've had a relationship with? or maybe you've heard a friend tell a story about you know, you do 10 things for your child and they will always go back to the one thing you didn't do. Right.

Speaker 1: 16:36

You know, and so that would be a big, huge depleting thing for me because I would feel very unappreciated at that point. You know, to have one thing singled out, you know, amongst the many, many that would be depleting to you know what, and I should knock on some wood because I've never had this happen in three years to have somebody give negative feedback, to stay nasty things on social media about a podcast episode or something. that's never happened, thank goodness. But that would make me feel, yeah, like, oh gosh, what did we do wrong?

Speaker 2: 17:12

Public humiliation Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 1: 17:14

We deleted it, yeah Great, and so go ahead.

Speaker 2: 17:19

Well, i was just going to say like those are all very like human behaviors that we're all affected by, right, right, one of the things that I did to research for our podcast today, and some of this. we're going to kind of like circle back to some of your examples, so we'll put the link in the show notes. but here are five components of self-esteem. So you will have a higher sense of self-esteem or for self-worth if you know that you are safe. Oh So security. security is one of them. I know I'm safe. Identity I know who I am Belonging. I know others accept me. Purpose I know what I want to achieve. I can set a goal and I can take the action to achieve the goal. And then competence I know I am competent in the skill that I'm trying to engage in. Right.

Speaker 2: 18:18

So let's dive into that a little bit. Go ahead.

Speaker 1: 18:21

What's your initial thought? Well, i was just thinking last week on the show we were talking about an accompli one of our proudest accomplishments or something and I had said that, you know, I was very proud of the fact that I didn't graduate from high school but still was able to become a leader in a Fortune 500 company, and the director that I reported to he was so good at letting you know how competent he thought you were. Oh, he's lots of praise, lots of recognition, and I guess, when you said that, my mind immediately went back to that, because I was just, i was listening to that episode today to do some marketing materials and I thought, you know, we talk a lot about stuff on the podcast but we just kind of sometimes we just dip our toe into it. So I'm so glad today that we're kind of going deep on some of this stuff, because that was huge for me at that point in my life to have that validation from somebody, that recognition that you are doing a great job.

Speaker 2: 19:29

From a leader.

Speaker 1: 19:30

From a leader.

Speaker 2: 19:31

So a great lesson in leadership is how understanding and having awareness of how much impact as a leader, as a boss, you have over people's mental wellness. Absolutely So I was thinking. today, since I'm in the creative, spicy mood as well, i wore my yellow, i didn't wear black. So just for all of you, terry always gets on me for wearing black, so I'm challenged this month I'm going to try to wear no black.

Speaker 1: 19:59

I do. I've got her case all the time. I'm like if she sends me a picture or something, i go oh look, you're not wearing black.

Speaker 2: 20:06

What's Schich Creek? They make black and white look really good. So, all y'all, you can just send me a private message if you love black and white, okay. So, terry, how about a little game of ping pong? Okay, okay. So we're going to play ping pong and we're going to start with each of the five components of self-esteem, and then I'm going to share a brief story and then you share a brief story of how this plays out in our own life. Got it.

Speaker 2: 20:31

Okay. So one component of self-esteem, like I said earlier, is I know I am safe. I know I am safe, so what would that look like in real life? How would that impact my self-esteem, my sense of worth or worthiness, if I thought I was not safe? When you think about that for a second like, let that resonate. First of all, you have to think about, well, what situations do you not feel safe in, right? So I'm going to give you an example from work. I had a situation where I spoke up about a process at work that I did not agree with at all, and it was one of those situations where you speak up and then you get your hands smacked for speaking up. Yeah.

Speaker 2: 21:25

It's my clients a lot. I used like the analogy of a turtle. You know we all like. Think about the turtle shell as like the protective behaviors that we learn to use to protect ourselves from being hurt by the world. Right.

Speaker 2: 21:40

And if you have more self-esteem and self-worth, you are putting your head out there and you're keeping your head out there for the world to experience you. And sometimes, when people smack your head because they think you did something wrong and they shame you or publicly humiliate you or whatever it is that you feel they did, what do we do? We take our little turtle head and we put it back into the shell.

Speaker 1: 22:05

Yeah, We would draw retreat.

Speaker 2: 22:08

So here's what's so fascinating When I was in a work situation and I publicly spoke up and questioned the process of how a decision was made, I got publicly shamed and it was like they were smacking my turtle head. I put my head back into the shell and what was the impact? The impact is what it does to your self-esteem. Yeah.

Speaker 2: 22:35

The whole weekend because I care so much and I have so much passion. Yeah, the whole weekend I was totally dysregulated emotionally. I was hurt, i felt angry, i felt humiliated and I felt powerless. So I didn't think I was safe to disagree. Yeah, if you and I work with clients all the time on this, if you are living in a home or working in an environment where you do not feel like you are safe to disagree, you learn to shut off your own internal voice Absolutely, and when you don't listen to your internal voice anymore, your self-worth starts to take a major hit. Yeah.

Speaker 1: 23:25

Here's mine, so one of my marriages that obviously ended in divorce. we saw counseling And in the counseling session with the counselor there I felt safe And I would express myself and tell a story of something that had gone wrong since the last time we had met with our counselor And we would discuss that and how the outcome could have been differently or how in the future we may approach that same thing in a different manner to get a better outcome. And once we got in the car he would berate me for what I said and shame me and make me feel like I was, and he was a narcissist because he had this way of like, making me feel like I made the whole thing up. It wasn't like anything like I described it to be, and so my turtle head was way back in the shell. And so earlier on, when I said I could be at work and feel one way about myself and go home and feel a totally different way, my turtle head withdrawing made me feel like I am not worthy of love.

Speaker 2: 24:35

That was the impact.

Speaker 1: 24:36

That was the impact. I'm not worthy of love because I'm making these things that aren't a big deal into a big deal and letting them impact my marriage. That's how he made me feel. That's what his all of the affirmation and the affirming talk from the counselor spread out the window as soon as he started berating me in the car. And so what did I learn? not to speak up for myself. Correct, That's the impact.

Speaker 2: 25:01

That's the impact. That's the impact. Then you shut down. So listen to the dichotomy in the two stories, terry. You were empowered at work and so you emerged out of your turtles shall more and more and more, and you are living life more fully because you felt safe. You felt safe at work And when your marriage, you felt unsafe to speak your truth because you would be punished for it and be rated.

Speaker 1: 25:29

Absolutely.

Speaker 2: 25:30

It also brings up a great point because I'm a marriage counselor and I'm so glad you said that, because I need to do a better job of setting up ground rules about what the conversations should sound like when you leave this room. What should not sound like.

Speaker 1: 25:44

Someone was telling me that they went to marriage counseling and they had gotten to a point in their marriage counseling where they had to drive separate vehicles because if they didn't on the way home it would undo any progress that they made during the session together.

Speaker 2: 26:00

Yeah, it's so important, and sometimes I know I've found myself asking a couple because I have one couple that they always go on date night afterwards, and so sometimes I would find myself saying so what did you talk about in the car on the way home? Right, they were a really healthy couple, but you're exactly right, that could go very sideways very, very quickly. Okay, number two identity. If you have higher self-esteem, it's because you know who you are. So I'm going to give you an example from counseling, and this really relates directly to midlife. So I have several clients right now who are changing careers at midlife.

Speaker 2: 26:42

It's not by choice, it's by circumstance, businesses and leadership, board decisions. And these people they find themselves in situations where they used to absolutely love being in their position. They used to love going to work, they used to find so much value and joy And because of poor leadership, they're now dreading getting up in the morning every day and going to work, and so they're looking at getting out of education. There's like a huge since COVID. There's a huge shift in people, just like nursing to want to get out of education because there's such backlash and a critical narrative out there about what good teaching looks like, and so some teachers are like I'm throwing my hands up in the air, like I, i don't want to do this anymore, and they're going back into business and industry And they feel like a total loss of identity. They don't, they don't know who they are and what their purpose is. And it's very, very difficult because the feelings are lack of purpose, last, lack of meaning, and then it takes a huge hit on their self-esteem.

Speaker 1: 27:50

You just talked about my coaching clients. You know you just talked about, you know, the kind of things that people come to me for coaching for. Is, you know, that feeling at midlife of who I? I don't know who I am anymore. My kids are grown and out of the house, so I used to be one of my labels, used to be mom, and I don't have that label anymore.

Speaker 1: 28:10

Well, in the sense of they're, they're expecting me to care for them on a daily basis, and the job thing comes up quite frequently. It's not always that they've that they've changed their job. That does happen a lot too. But it can be that technology has gotten so complicated that they feel overwhelmed by it. With the brain fog and a lot of the other changes that are happening to us The insomnia, you know, which causes us to not be as sharp as we normally would be, and then the brain fog and other health concerns they make us feel like we're not as valuable in our role anymore, and so they feel very insecure about their roles. They realize they're aging and they could be replaced very easily by someone much younger than them. So there's a lot of loss of identity in midlife around that. It's a very good example. I'm glad you said you shared that one.

Speaker 2: 29:01

Yeah, And also in my constiped practice. Identity is really relational And so a lot, especially for a lot of women in their twenties and thirties. Their identity is really wrapped up in being the wife or the girlfriend of a person And if that relationship is struggling or falls apart, they feel that they have no identity outside of that relationship. It's well, it's so important to connect identity and self-esteem, Right, Okay, Ping-pong, belonging. I know others accept me. Let me start with you. How does this one impact your self-esteem? I know others accept me. Hmm.

Speaker 1: 29:47

Okay, what Book club sprained my mind pretty quick, mm-hmm.

Speaker 2: 29:53

You always go back to book club Like that was transformative in your life. It was Yeah.

Speaker 1: 29:58

Because none of you knew me, none of you knew my past, none of you knew any stuff about me. You didn't even preconceived notions about who I was. To you all, i was just this insurance lady who dressed up in these business suits and sometimes came to book club in a business suit, right? So yeah, i did. It took me a little bit to navigate that, but I did feel like I belonged there. But I think I would have to go back to my corporate job again, because that was a huge moment in time in my life where we were all coming together. A lot of us were new to this department that was being formulated, and so therefore, we were kind of all on an even playing ground And I think we just bonded. Yeah, and so I just, yeah, i felt like every day when I showed up to work I was part of something that was bigger than me, but I was definitely an important part of it.

Speaker 2: 30:57

So Yeah, and you actually. One of the things I loved about watching you work is that you were really good at training in a way that helped other people feel like they belonged as well. Yeah, so what kind of actions or behaviors can you take as an individual to help other people feel like they belong to a new team?

Speaker 1: 31:20

You know what? Brian compliments me on this quite a bit, and not so much in the work environment, but just like when we get together with his family, i always seem to notice the one that's not talking or the one that is left out of the conversations. Yeah.

Speaker 1: 31:36

And I will pull them into the conversation. I will turn them and ask them a question, get curious about how they feel about what we're talking about, or ask them you know, what were you doing during this time when all this was going on? Or I'll do something to draw. I always want to make sure that everybody's feeling like they're a part of the conversation and not just sitting there being a spectator.

Speaker 2: 31:57

Because that's no fun. Yeah, and that's part of being like a really good, having attunement to other people And like sometimes I will When I teach, for belonging for me is I will do something very similar And I will even say like sometimes I have to direct, to be hitty-beer, but sometimes I will even say my goal by the end of this hour and 20 minutes hour and 15 minutes is that I will hear every voice in this room. I don't want to hear the same voices. I love my extroverts, i love to hear you talk, but I want to hear all the voices in the room.

Speaker 1: 32:31

And if you're getting me to talk, I bet you that surprises you a lot. That's a good point.

Speaker 2: 32:37

But that invitation, just that invitation, sometimes is all an introvert needs. Yeah. So what are the feelings that come along with not belonging? So, Rejection, loneliness.

Speaker 1: 32:55

Again, like that you know I'm not worthy. Um Yeah, like you're just, Like you're being, like you're an outsider and that you just don't have a place And there's no place for you there.

Speaker 2: 33:11

Yeah, it's like you feel invisible on this, invisible, unseen Um. Yeah, yeah, i had many times in my life where I have felt like an outsider, and so the feeling is sadness. Mm-hmm. Sadness. A lot of times, people will go to self-hate. Right, what is it about me? What is it about me that people don't want to be around? Um, so then you start like the self-sabotage. The impact is like the self-sabotage, like stinking thinking, stinking thinking. Yeah, make up stories in your mind about why you're an outsider. Mm-hmm.

Speaker 1: 33:56

So the law, you know, this is a good, this is a very good time to talk about the impact of social media and society in that Because, you know, okay, so one day I was in some Facebook group or something and it was, i think it was like a decorating or something.

Speaker 1: 34:13

I think it was decorating And the woman had posted a picture and asked for, you know, input on what could she do to improve, you know, the look of the room or whatever. And so some you know, women were saying stuff, and this one woman spoke up and she said I don't even want to go on Pinterest anymore, because every time I go on and I see these women with these perfect homes, it makes me feel like I'll never be good enough, like my home will never be good enough. And I thought about it for a long time and I was thinking Is it Pinterest fault? Is it the women who love to make their home look beautiful and have the resources to do it that are sharing that for inspiration for other people? Is that it? Or are we telling ourselves that we can't be good enough because we're comparing ourselves to somebody else And that makes us feel like we don't have a sense of belonging?

Speaker 2: 35:13

Yeah, i can tell you personally, on a personal level and on a clinical level. Personally, if I don't have, if I'm not in a good headspace and my self-esteem is taking a hit for whatever reason, i will get off all social media platforms, because when you're in a negative headspace you see life through a negative lens and social comparison becomes your enemy. I tell clients the same thing. If you find yourself just ruminating about what other people have and what you don't have, take that out of your life. That is not serving you.

Speaker 2: 35:49

The other part of building your self-esteem muscle is making choices that improve your self-esteem, breaking habits that sabotage your self-esteem, knowing that you have the willpower to make choices that respect yourself. When you continually make choices that disrespect yourself, you're being violent to yourself. It's a form of violence. I work with several women right now in relationships with people that treat them like garbage. It's violence to stay in those relationships because the self-hate that comes as a result is so traumatic to the psyche, because you feel like you have no willpower and no agency to make a change in your life, to be treated the way that you should be. But the known is the comfort. So staying in that comfort of all the known is for many, many people, easier than going out into the unknown.

Speaker 1: 36:54

Yeah, absolutely.

Speaker 2: 36:57

Purpose. the next one Five components of self-esteem. Number one security. I know I am safe. Identity I know who I am Belonging. I know others accept me. We're on number four Purpose. I know what I want to achieve.

Speaker 1: 37:11

I love how Purpose comes up in so many of our conversations. You know, i'm all about Purpose. I'm all about helping people, you know, uncover their passions and Purpose, and I was thinking about this yesterday. I you know what paint night is Like. Do you have these places in Rockford where you can go to a location and there'll be like an instructor that helps you paint? Everybody's painting the same thing and some people bring wine and snacks. You guys have those in your area, yes, okay, well, we don't have them in our area. But now this is a byproduct of COVID. You can purchase one of the pre-recorded ones online and do it at home by yourself.

Speaker 1: 37:52

Not as fun, let me just tell you, but I was, you know, just playing around with some paint and I was watching the video and I was thinking about how passionate I am about doing creative things, like just making like a, like making French bread or you know, just doing anything that's creative. I just get so excited, like I got to tell you during my healing from the motorcycle accident. I had some really tough days because I couldn't do anything and I'm not a still person And I finally was like okay, i am a resilient person, i have strategies for resilience. I know how to stamp myself out of this And I thought what? what are some of my tools? And I started going through some of my tools and doing something creative was on my list. And what inspires me more than anything to do something creative is watching HGTV. So I flipped on and I never do I never turn on the TV during the day, i'm not a huge TV watcher but turned on HGTV, started watching them, do all these projects, and I was like, okay, i'm going to go do that painting. So you know, i was able to go over and sit at the table and do some painting and felt really good.

Speaker 1: 39:08

And it's funny how I think people get caught up on this that you you have to be passionate or you have to have your passion has to lead you to your purpose. That's why I'm going with this is I don't agree with that. I think you can have a purpose And you don't necessarily have to start out being super passionate about it. You do have to have passion for it to keep you going. But so many people get hung up like that, as if there's only one purpose for their entire life, and I just don't believe that to be true. I think we have moments in our life where there are things that we're our purpose. You mentioned this on a recent episode where you know you.

Speaker 1: 39:49

Your purpose was to be intentional about being a mom to Noah, so you set your career aspirations aside for a period of time to focus intentionally on all the milestones that Noah was going to go through as he grew. That was your purpose in time, right. But now he's older and now you're able to get back to some of your passions and purpose, and this is one of them helping people. And you never know, i mean in 10 years, your purpose could shift to something else. You and I've talked about other things that we want to do And we're kind of in the back of our mind. We're thinking about some other things that we want to do. It's a project that we want to work on, so I don't want people to get too hung up on this. Passion lead to purpose, and do I have to be super passionate about something to feel like it's my purpose to do it? Yeah, what are your thoughts on?

Speaker 2: 40:41

Well, just, i couldn't agree more. So in this EQ training today we watched this video And if I can find the link I'll post it to the show notes. But the video was about this guy that just followed him around in his day And he would feed this dog, this stray dog, like he would come up, the stray dog would come up to him at lunch every day and he would just feed him a little bit. There was this plant out in the city sidewalk that, like people kept moving. He would move the plant back over and he would water the plant every single day. He saw this homeless woman and her kid and every single day he gave this homeless woman and her child money. Like it wasn't a ton of money but it was money And it was a third world country And I think it was, and it shows the impact at the end of this commercial like the dead flower, like was fully grown and alive. The dog that was skeletal, had meat on its bone And it was like one of his best friends And the woman that he was giving the money to. He looked over and the girl wasn't there one day and he panicked, thinking something bad happened to her And she came around the corner in an outfit because she was able to go to public school. Now, it's not like $5 or $10 a week or whatever it was, was able to put him or that girl in school, rather. And the whole point is that we get so hung up on like social responsibility, thinking that we have to do these grandiose things to have purpose And it doesn't have to be that it's making the world better, in whatever spot. You are Right, yeah, right.

Speaker 2: 42:18

So the last one is competence. I know I am capable And I can tell you, when I work with a lot of young people, they have absolutely no direction because they don't know what they're good at And they feel really, really lost. And they'll end up in my office And they'll say well, i thought I was going to do this, but it's because someone told me to Sure And it was never my, you know my passion And all these other people, my friends to have passions, and why should I go spend money at a school and pay for classes where I have no idea? Or maybe I'd rather be working in a car Like it's?

Speaker 2: 42:58

I either don't know what I'm capable of, or the things I am capable of, like people are telling me it's not worthy. It's not a worthy endeavor. So it's really about, like, finding your own balance. And then, when you do I believe everybody has a sweet spot in life Like it's about figuring out what it is. Yeah Right, if you've spent enough time talking to somebody and it usually doesn't take that long you will find a moment where I call the Christmas tree moment, where their eyes light up like plugging in the Christmas tree for the first time and their eyes will light up and shine like never before. And you've found it. Right.

Speaker 1: 43:36

And like what do you, what can you talk about? What subject comes up, like the peanut butter at the beginning of our talk today, what subject comes up that just lights you up and just you can just go on and on and talk about it because you feel so passionate about it, I guess, or you feel so interested in it, It just is so fascinating to you. That's a really good place to start. You know, what do you find yourself talking about?

Speaker 2: 44:02

Yeah, no, i agree. I couldn't agree more And I think it just takes a non-judgmental person. So, if you look at like feelings about what increases a person's self worth or self-esteem, if you have somebody in your corner or your significant space where they're telling you who to be and what to do and you become an imposter of whatever it is that you think they want you to do, which a lot of people end up doing when they're young, sure, and they're not again. They're not listening to their own voice and or sometimes people don't feel like they're capable because they've been over-parented and their parents' voice is the only voice that they enough, so they don't feel competent or competent to answer quite them Or somebody else in their life. I actually work with a lot of women who are partnered with men who are telling them what to think and how to feel.

Speaker 1: 44:57

Yeah Well, we had a guest on a few weeks back that said that she wanted to do something and her husband disperated her about it I believe it was your friend, cindy when she wanted to do the nearyum and her husband just was not supportive. And if you don't have a good sense of self-esteem and self-worth and self-acceptance which I believe is a friend to all these things we're talking about self-acceptance I don't think you can stand up to a bully like that. Sometimes You got to really know who you are and feel really, and I will fully admit this, when I first got into my relationship with Brian, i wasn't there yet. It took me a while of some really some rocky roads to get to the place I am at now. But now I have no problem speaking up for myself or going against something that he might not want me to do, and I don't mean that in a way that I'm purposely going out and pissing him off by spending a bunch of money or doing something he doesn't want me to do, but it's like if I feel really passionate about it. In fact, you and I were going to do something together in September and it was going to cost some money I was going to have to put some money out for it. And he comes home and I said, oh, you know, hey, amanda and I might be doing this, blah, blah, blah. And he's like, oh well, good, cool, because that he knows who I am and he knows that if I have my mindset to it, i'm going to do it.

Speaker 1: 46:36

I think you know there's a couple of things I wrote down that we didn't really get to today and we're almost done. It's right here. But I think we need to give our listeners a couple of tips on how to build healthy self-esteem. But I think there's some companions to it. So I think one of the companions, i think, to self-esteem and self-confidence is self-acceptance, just really truly learning how to love yourself. And well, self-love is the second one I was going to say is accepting all the parts of you, not just the positive ones, not just you know what I just said, where I've learned to stand up for myself. I've learned that I have value. I am lovable, you know. So I could be competent and feel good about myself in the work environment and feel good about myself at home now, but I still have flaws. I still have things I still need to work on. I'm working on them all the time And you have to accept those things about yourself, love your flaws and love all your positive things.

Speaker 2: 47:42

I want to piggyback on that. and what keeps you from self-acceptance is the feeling of shame. Sure, and so if you are somebody who doesn't accept yourself, the work that you need to do is you need to find a mental health professional and you need to do the work with shame. Shame is I am bad. Yeah, it's a lot, and it is the work. It's reckoning with the shame of our past choices.

Speaker 1: 48:04

So shame is I am bad, whereas guilty is I did something bad. So a couple of things that I wrote down Spend some time in self-reflection. Don't forget about self-care. There was an example I read when I was doing all my research for today's topic where there's the feminine and the masculine when it comes to self-compassion, and the female. The feminine is I've had a rough day at work because I'm overwhelmed with all of the projects I've got going on. So I'm going to give myself some time to take a bath, drink a glass of wine, read a good book, listen to some music, whatever. That's the feminine. The masculine side of that is I go to my boss, i set some boundaries about what I can accept for workload and work-life balance. I take charge, i take action. So those I thought that was a really great distinction of the feminine and the masculine when it comes to self-compassion, self-talk.

Speaker 1: 49:09

You know I'm a huge believer in affirmations. You know, like when I was recovering and healing, i had some things I would say to myself every day, because when you are continually in that much pain, day after day after day, it can really do some stuff to your mindset. And so I started doing some EFT tapping and I had some affirmations I would repeat to myself, and so you don't have to go this alone. So if you're struggling with you know self-esteem issues, if you're struggling with self-heat and self-loathing, seek some help. Me and Amanda, we are always here. If you want to chat with us offline, you can send us messages to the email, to the Facebook group, to the Instagram account, and Amanda, i'm sure, has so many resources that she can give you, possibly even work with you. If you're coaching, if you're being coaching, i'm here to help. I just don't want anyone listening today to go away from this podcast episode and say, well, great, well now, what do I do? Now I see that I need some help. Now what do I do?

Speaker 2: 50:16

And I would say that the listeners can expect to see some follow-up episodes on this conversation. You know we'll do. I think, terri, it would be a great idea for us to do a whole episode on assertiveness.

Speaker 1: 50:29

Oh, i love it, let's do it.

Speaker 2: 50:31

Right. so like, let's start not just saying of what is it, but like how to build it, and so be looking for those episodes to pop up. I think it's a great place to start. How are you? Where is your dipstick If you're? if we're looking at this as a metaphor of oil, are you half full? Are you full? Are you almost empty? What's contributing to you? What's contributing to your low self-regard, and what would you need to change in your life so that your self-regard could go up just a little bit? What changes would you need to make? It's a great first question to ask yourself.

Speaker 1: 51:08

And if there's another topic you would like Amanda Knight to to discuss on the podcast, send us a note and let us know what that is. A couple reminders, yeah, a couple reminders, you know. Go to the Facebook group. Go to Instagram. The links will be in the show notes. Sign up for our private Facebook group. Sign up for on our email list. There's links in the bio on Instagram where we make all that so easy. Just reach out. We're always willing to have some more conversation about it over on one of those platforms. And remember to rate and review and share this episode with a friend.

Speaker 2: 51:43

Yeah, so great to see all of you. Terri, do you want to share your gift with the audience?

Speaker 1: 51:47

I do actually. So if you want to see this, you're going to have to hop over to YouTube, but I got this in the mail from Amanda, let's see if I get some good lighting. It's two Foxy ladies on the beach holding their wet glass of white wine and on the back it says I love you. To the beach and back.

Speaker 2: 52:05

I love to read these podcasts with you to the beach and back.

Speaker 1: 52:08

Yes, i do too. All right, everybody, until next time. Please remember to take good care of you. Bye. Well, that's a wrap for this week. Thank you so much for joining us. We're so glad to be here with you.

Speaker 2: 52:21

And just remember, we're here to serve. Reach out, connect with us on social media platforms and dig in deeper.

Speaker 1: 52:28

All those links will be in the podcast show notes. So join us. We kept made to continue the conversation with you over there.