Very often I hear from clients a request for healthy self-esteem. Like, I have low self-esteem, I want to work with her. Girls, my dears, I understand you! There is so much information and offers on the Internet to increase your self-esteem in just a few steps, quickly and painlessly! Do you really think that self-esteem is a separate part of the psyche that can be worked on? What is self-esteem? What is self-esteem? And this is your own sense of yourself. Someone has high self-esteem. Expectations from everything are too high - a person, work, the world. The very appearance seems to shout “I deserve better!” Someone has low self-esteem: “I have no right to anything. I'm content with little." And for some it jumps from low to high. Usually both self-esteem are present in the psyche. But the predominant one depends on the degree of repression and the style of education in childhood. Self-esteem is formed only in the process of upbringing. I would even say that if parents had not raised, then the child would have grown up with normal self-esteem, in the golden mean. But parental expectations force the child to unconsciously hide what is not accepted by the parents - to hide from the whole world. So much for low self-esteem. After all, this part was not accepted, and therefore not loved. But the part that the parents wanted to see was formed. Here she is with high self-esteem, because she was formed as compensation. And when we become adults, these two parts with different self-esteem remain with us. How to equalize the balance? The part with low self-esteem lives in the unconscious most of the time. It was she who, as a child, experienced the pain of uselessness, rejection, and constantly lived with the feeling that something was wrong with her. That she's somehow different. How can self-esteem change in this case, if not through acquaintance, contact with this part and experiencing all those feelings that have been repressed? We cannot work with self-esteem separately from the whole “I”. This is a complex process. Self-esteem changes as a result of psychological maturation, during which the structure of the “I” changes. Therefore, do not listen to those who promise to increase your self-esteem quickly. If only through resource techniques, the effect of which lasts for a maximum of 2 months. And then a splash - and they returned to their native and familiar state! What is the very first step to take on the path to the birth of healthy self-esteem? Make a promise to yourself - not to scold yourself. Don’t judge. After all, low self-esteem was formed with constant dissatisfaction and criticism from parents. And our parents are our internal introjects. We, without realizing it, mentally reproduce parental dialogues, but in relation to ourselves. This is what you need to stop doing. Not a word of criticism addressed to you! No matter what we do, we cannot scold ourselves! We must not only see the actions, but try to look deeper: what is behind this behavior? What feelings? And here, most likely, there will be a place not for criticism, but for pity in the good sense of the word, sympathy and love! Only by accepting and loving yourself can you increase your self-esteem. You need to track the parental figure within yourself and stop its educational process in your inner world. Childhood is over, and you are no longer 5 years old. “Mom, stop!” I no longer obey you or listen to you! Now I will listen to myself!” This is the very first thing we can do to increase self-esteem. Well, then - into pain... We descend into the unconscious to experience everything that has been repressed for years. And this is serious and deep work. And this is exactly what we go through in the long-term “Road Home” program. We cannot separately work with self-esteem, “work through” - I don’t like this word, it is very incorrect. We cannot work separately with relationships with mom, dad, children, and man. There are no topics that are separate from each other. Another thing is relevance and layering. Yes! But our entire psyche changes, and with this approach, changes occur everywhere. Because in general you yourself change. I’m always happy to help you become happier! With love, Irina Gavrilova Dempsey