Female self-esteem: How women achieve greater self-worth
by Christina | Sep 11, 2018 | Blog |
Image source: pixabay.com/ErikaWittlieb
I have finished writing my second book. You know my first book - "Chi statt Botox" is now 4 years old and fortunately the 5th edition is currently being printed. I also had this problem back then - recognising when I was finished. I wrote on Facebook: "Can someone please snatch this thing out of my hand and tell me it's enough, it's good enough?" How do we recognise that we are good enough? Good enough to trust ourselves with a project, good enough to demand something, or just like that - good enough as a person? And why is female self-worth another special story?
Self-esteem and the killer voice
So my second book is finished and I'm in the process of sending it out to publishers, as it doesn't fit in thematically with my current publisher. Since then, I've been tormented by a voice with which I have such unpleasant inner conversations as this one:
"The book is rubbish, no publisher is coming forward."
Me: "I only sent it away three days ago!"
"You should have proofread it again."
Me: "I corrected it twice, very carefully."
"That might not be enough!"
I open the file with beads of sweat on my forehead, expecting to find the most rubbish I've ever written. But no, it's entertaining and actually cleverly written. I don't understand where that voice is coming from. How many emails from enthusiastic book or blog readers do I actually have to get to feel like I'm good enough?
Image source: 123rf.com/ra2studio
I know you know that voice too. It's the voice that silences you even though you have something to say. The voice that makes sure you don't raise your hand even though you want to shout "Me!". The voice that ensures that most of our dreams remain just that - dreams. The voice that constantly makes us feel guilty because we are not sure whether what we have said, done or given is good enough.
The questions behind the question
The question that arises is - who actually determines what is good enough? What do we actually need to have the feeling that "yes, that was great!" No, just kidding, I mean, we at least want to have the feeling that it's enough. But how do we get there?
I find this question very important, as there are a lot of crucial questions behind it. Because the answer to the question "When am I good enough?" is also the answer to many other questions such as: When can I show myself? When can I get started? When is it my turn? When can I feel appreciation for myself? When can I demand respect? When can I be satisfied with myself? When can I feel free?
Then let's take a look at the ways in which we might feel that we are good enough or have done something well enough.
1. recognition from outside
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As someone who fortunately gets a lot of recognition from the outside, I can tell you: it's pleasant, but it's not the answer. Because as long as that nagging voice IN you doesn't fall silent, it doesn't really matter what happens out there. It only listens when someone criticises you. Then it immediately says: "I told you, you're not good enough!". When she recognises you, she tries to convince you that your success was just a coincidence. Which happens to everyone from time to time. According to the motto "Even a blind hen finds a grain of corn." Boom.
2. achieve our goals
That's what we secretly believe anyway, isn't it? I'll be good enough when I've been promoted. When I've lost five kilos. When I've got rid of my wrinkles. When a publisher takes my book. When if if... But that's just the carrot in front of my nose. As soon as I've achieved one thing, I raise the bar a little higher. So that this feeling always remains out of my reach. Because the voice inside us is never satisfied. It is a hungry monster that is never satisfied, no matter how impressive the goals we have already achieved. Sorry, that's not it either.
3. have more than others
Neighbours, colleagues, friends - they excite us when they get promoted, are lucky, achieve a masterpiece in some area, accomplish something, and the fun ends when something falls into their lap, for example an inheritance. How unfair life is! Envy is a useful driver of our motivation. But if you're hoping that you'll finally be able to make peace with yourself when you achieve more than the others, then I have to disappoint you. Because at some point, someone else will come along who has something you don't have. Unless you're Madonna.
Out of the dead end
All these paths are dead ends. You are never alone there, because most people spend their whole lives there. But you won't reach your destination that way. The solution lies where the problem lies. The only person who can free you is the one holding you down - and that's you. I recently did a constellation for a client that dealt with this issue. I don't do traditional constellations, I like to constellate the client's current environment to help her reflect more deeply. After an hour, she looked much more relaxed and said: "What I understand now is that it's all in my head."
Image source: pixabay.com/geralt
And that is the solution to the riddle. We ourselves produce the feeling of not being good enough. So the cure can only lie within ourselves. Of course, an unhealthy environment can also put you under a lot of pressure in this respect. For us women, this society is an unhealthy environment in itself. Three horses together cannot achieve what is expected of one woman. But I have the freedom to decide whether I make the expectations of the environment my own. So my number 1 piece of advice is this:
Be careful what you let into your head
Even the Fanta 4 sang:
To shift your feeling at the touch of a button
you have to ask yourself what you are putting in your head.
The song was about drugs, but it's the same with energetic and psychological drugs. We want to belong, we want to be "right" and far too often we fail to establish our own value system. We ask ourselves too often what others think of us and too rarely what we think of others. We often try to win over people who we don't actually like. Instead of saying "You don't like me? My dear, if you only knew how much I can't stand you!", we try to do our best. And act according to the other person's ideas. We abandon ourselves and our own value system.
Watch out, women's trap!
Image source: pixabay.com/geralt
It is extremely important for women to question the images of how a woman should be, act and look. These images are not real. Not a single woman can fulfil these requirements. At least not without breaking down. Society has crazy ideas about what a woman should be able to fit into her life. As long as we try to be a jack-of-all-trades in order to gain validation as a woman, the situation gets worse. Every woman who pretends to be able to fulfil all of these requirements is undermining the self-esteem of other women.
It's time to give society the middle finger. To stop taking on tasks for which there is neither respect nor payment. To stop feeling responsible for harmony and the happiness of others. And to allow ourselves to feel what we really feel, even if it doesn't fit the image of the patient, loving, smiling woman. The truth is acceptable to society. If you take a problem seriously, you will find a solution. We have to make sure that our problems are taken seriously!
Recognise how hard you are on yourself
Who else do you have so many expectations of and set such a high bar for? One client summarised it like this: "If I treated a friend the way I treat myself, she would no longer want to be friends with me."
How do you talk to yourself? Do you also have a caring voice that says: "Come on, give it a rest. You should eat something and rest." Or is there just one that says: "Well. You could have given more. Then eat something quickly, but hurry up, there's still a lot to do!" Be careful how you talk to yourself, because you're listening to yourself the whole time.
Because of this strictness that women in particular show towards themselves, we often become unhealthily dependent. We cling to a partner who is not good for us because he reflects our inner conviction that we are not good enough anyway. Because we don't have a kind word for ourselves, we do a lot to hear it from someone out there. Make ourselves small. Serve the needs of others while we ourselves are starving inside. We jeopardise our dignity. There is only one remedy for this: loving self-care!
Respect boundaries
Many women act as if their energy will never run out. I have to disappoint you, your energy is finite. The Chinese say we are born with a reservoir of power, they call it Jing. Unlike chi, a power that can be replenished, jing is limited. If you don't use it wisely, it will eventually run out. Ask someone who has experienced a real burn out. Zack, energy out.
Not respecting these boundaries means acting in a way that is hostile to life. You think it's "only" about you, it's your energy, so it's none of anyone else's business? Firstly, it still remains hostile to life. You are not respecting nature, you are not respecting the gift of life that you have been given. And secondly, we are all connected and someone will have to pay for your burnout, even if it's just the health insurance we all share. Believe me, doing something 80%ig well is more than enough.
Humour
Image source: pixabay.com/ludi
When we were building our house, I, the handywoman, wanted to lay a few tiles too. I was told how difficult it was to get them straight. I didn't find that tragic, I also like Hundertwasser houses and nothing is straight there. Nobody found that funny. At least I took the liberty of decoratively sticking a few broken tiles on the wall. And thought wistfully of my grandparents' old house, where the tiles were laid just as casually as the crooked walls.
What a humourless society we have become. Everyone is afraid of making a mistake. Nobody wants to risk anything any more. And yet we know that everything not created by God is just a botch-up. We are all just bunglers, living every moment for the first and at the same time for the last time, so we could slowly stop taking everything so deadly seriously. Because this deadly seriousness is costing us too much. It costs us too many talented women who don't dare to show themselves. It costs us too many great works and projects that are never completed for fear of imperfection. It costs us too many great ideas that people don't want to release into the world unfinished, so they keep them to themselves. It costs us too much!
When did we forget that all living things are subject to a living cycle of creation and decay? Every perfection that you have produced with all your strength (and loss of your lifetime) will eventually fade away. Perish and be forgotten. When people talk about their lives, which stories make them likeable, where do you like to listen with your heart? When they talk about their perfect successes, houses, relationships or when they tell us about funny hoppalas and reveal their human insecurities and misfortunes? Showing that you are not perfect opens hearts.
Image source: pixabay.com/geralt
Perhaps we should think about what our lives should look like in the end. Like a perfectly laid floor where no tile is out of line? Or like an interestingly uneven floor where every tile tells its own story. You are your own tiler, life only lays the tiles for you, you decide what you do with them. You can waste your life striving for perfection or you can become Hundertwasser and have fun. Perfection is yawningly uncreative.
I recently tried to teach my 13-year-old son how to fold T-shirts. His reaction: "I'm certainly not doing that! It's so unnecessarily complicated that I'm thinking about whether you might be autistic!" He continues to fold them in half and then in half again, full stop. My way is nicer, his is quicker. Neither is right. We each have our own. Just as each of us produces our own kind of "good" for this world. As long as we allow ourselves our own kind, the world remains colourful and alive. As soon as we approach perfection together, a great emptiness will spread.
