Summary: <p>This week I’m answering a listener question and I think it’s a topic that will be so fun to dive into. Let me start by reading what she wrote:</p> <p>Could you discuss “the importance of self-esteem: how both poor and healthy self-esteem can influence our relationships, and how to strengthen it. I realise that this is absolutely a backbone of all your material, but maybe it's worth revisiting a basic.”</p> <p>Self-esteem is definitely a hot topic, and it’s one of those things that we talk about so much that we actually can lose touch with SPECIFICALLY what it means.</p> <p>So let’s start by defining our terms.</p> <p>Miriam-Webster defines self-esteem as: “a confidence and satisfaction in oneself : SELF-RESPECT”</p> <p>So essentially, self-esteem is nothing but the thoughts we have about ourselves.</p> <p>But that’s not how we talk about self-esteem. The way we talk about self-esteem, if someone didn’t have a clue what it was, it sounds more like a physical condition you have or don’t have. She doesn’t have self-esteem. That will hurt her self-esteem.</p> <p>And since we discuss self-esteem in this way so consistently, we start to act like it’s a physical thing we can control and grow and hurt and effect.</p> <p>Not a series of thoughts.</p> <p>We all have the thoughts we go back to the most. The way our brain is wired, the more we think a thought the easier and more automatic it becomes to think it --or sometimes a specific major event will just give us one really deeply embedded thought right away.</p> <p>And the reason I want to break it down for you is this:</p> <p>If I think I need to work on my self-esteem, or I think I don’t have good self-esteem, those are also thoughts. And neither one is terribly empowering.</p> <p>So I want to offer to you that self-esteem isn’t really a thing. It’s not. You can’t touch it or measure it. No two people will exactly agree on it. It’s totally subjective. Can you see that?</p> <p>And when you don’t have a thing called “self-esteem” that is causing you to act a certain way or that you need to work on or that he has a problem with (I’ve coached on all of those, multiple times), what are you left with?</p> <p>What you’re left with is a question: why did I act that way?</p> <p>And it always comes back to a thought.</p> <p>I don’t know what I’m doing.</p> <p>I don’t know how to be married.</p> <p>I’m no good at this.<br> I can’t learn.</p> <p>The commuter train you always took before you hop on without even noticing.</p> <p>The train that goes downtown to the dangerous neighborhood you let fly by.</p> <p>And you can just sit in the station and watch them all go by.</p> <p>I’m more interested in the person you can be than how accurately you’ve described all your shortcomings.</p> <p>I still have negative thoughts about myself. But I just don’t spend so much time there unless I feel I need to do some major soul searching. Which sometimes I do. And I make changes.</p> <p>So the most motivating thing, I think, is to remember: how do I want to show up?</p> <p>How do you want to show up in your marriage?</p> <p>Are you willing to skip some of your comfortable, recognizable trains to get there?</p> <p>Are you able to focus on HIM and what you’re BUILDING and not on you?</p> <p>Stop riding those trains. Let them get old and rusty.</p> <p>Get clear on where you want to go. Then you’ll have a better idea of how to get there.</p> <p>To take this work deeper and learn the critical research that will help you understand and support your husband and your marriage better, check out the First Year Married course at <a href="http://www.firstyearmarried.com/"><u>www.firstyearmarried.com</u></a>. Join in March and be part of our March challenge!</p>
