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Self-esteem – that seemingly elusive or intangible quality that makes us either feel great about ourselves at one extreme, or rubbish about ourselves at the other. On a scale of 1-10, consider where you might be?
This week, 15-21 June in Australia, was men’s mental health week. As men, we are often taught since we were boys, that when bad things happen, we need ‘grin and bear it’, ‘suck it up’ and get on with it, or something like that. Whatever you do, do not show weakness, and certainly do not cry over it or show too much emotion.
For those of us who have struggled with poor self-esteem, let me tell you what happens when the pressure is on. You crumble, you reach for a crutch, or you pretend that everything is ok, all the while, slowly falling apart on the inside.
I’d like to offer you a definition of self-esteem – the ability to keep believing in yourself, no matter what.
The result of low self-esteem is a hit on your emotional, physical and mental health. And the result of that is depression, anxiety, mental and emotional health problems.
Men are expected to be strong. Men are expected to be reliable. Men are expected to be a rock, and not falter. Men are expected to have strong self-esteem, yet we are rarely taught how.
In Australia, 1 in 8 men will experience depression, and 1 in 5 will experience anxiety. Now, I can hear you almost say, “so what, we all experience these things at times, that’s life”. The problem is this – also in Australia, 6 out of every 8 suicides are men, and the number of men who die by suicide is nearly double that of the national road toll.
So where have we gone wrong, and what needs to change?
Why is our self-esteem in the toilet?
We have listened too much for too long, to the false beliefs and bs, passed down to us from the world around us, and the formative people in our lives as boys.
Poor self-esteem is both caused by and leads to shame. Brené Brown defines shame as the sense that “there’s something fundamentally wrong with me, that I’m unworthy of love.” She points out that shame decimates self-esteem, and, if deep enough, shame turns into self-contempt.
She is spot on. Let me repeat those words – Shame decimates self-esteem.
Shame is toxic to self-esteem
When a man has a healthy dose of self-esteem, he can face pretty much anything. But when the toxicity of shame sets in, self-esteem, the glue that holds us together, is flushed down the toilet.
So, when a man has poor self-esteem, shame results in all kinds of ways:
- When a man fails, he feels shame.
- When a man loses his cool, he feels shame.
- When a man is rejected, he feels shame.
- When a man shows too much emotion, he feels shame.
- When a man loses his job, he feels shame.
- When a man breaks a promise, he feels shame.
- When a man knows what he should do but doesn’t do it, he feels shame.
- When a man is mocked, he feels shame.
- When a man can’t perform, he feels shame.
- When a man can’t deal with the pain he feels, he feels shame.
When a man has a healthy dose of self-esteem, he can experience all of these same things, but not feel shame.
The obvious remedy to this malaise, is to build healthy levels of self-esteem. Because when you can start to do that, you might just find that your shame heals itself.
Accept who you are
When you accept who you are, and stop trying to be like someone else, you are well on your way to building healthy self-esteem. Self-acceptance is the first step in building healthy self-esteem. When you accept who you are, you know you are enough.
Your worth is not tied to your achievements, possessions, or your ability to give your partner multiple orgasms. Still with me. I just threw that in to check you’re still reading, though it’s also true.
Your worth is a gift that was given to you at birth. You cannot earn it. You cannot buy it. You cannot make it up. And no one can take it from you. When you can accept that the very fact you are here on the planet, is enough, then nothing anyone else says or thinks or believes about you, compares.
“A man cannot be comfortable without his own approval.” – Mark Twain
Stop comparing yourself with others or some imaginary ideal
One of the worst ways you can destroy your own self-esteem is to compare yourself with other men, or some illusion about what you think a real man should be. More often than not, what we end up doing, is comparing our worst with someone else’s best. For example, if you are comparing your body with Liam Hemsworth, guess what, you’re probably going to come off second best.
Comparison is the killer of joy. We are not in a competition for top dog. Though it can certainly feel that way at times. When you are constantly looking around to compare yourself with other men, or ideals that you heard in a podcast or read in a book, or expectations you picked up from others along the way, you are not focusing on your own lane.
Louise L Hay says this: “You have been criticizing yourself for years, and it hasn’t worked. Try approving of yourself and see what happens.” We are all our best critic. Stop it. Enjoy who you are. Laugh a little, and don’t take yourself so seriously.
Stop playing the blame game
I like Seth Rogan’s analogy of a monopoly game. When you land on Mayfair on the monopoly board and you have to pay thousands of dollars to another player who has 5 hotels on it, who cares. It’s annoying at the time, but it’s just a board game right. You’re not going to lose your life over it. You don’t need to have a tantrum or react out of anger and tip the board upside down. Life is like that.
Stop playing the blame game and thinking that everyone else and everything thing else is the enemy. Stop even blaming yourself. This only leads to more shame. Step up, take responsibility, and take the way you ‘show up’ into your own hands.
Believe in yourself enough to know, that no matter what square you land on, you will be ok.
When you live your life trying to avoid every pitfall, play the perfect game, and not land on the wrong square, it just sucks all the fun out of playing the game.
We are not here to win at monopoly. We are not here to get rich. We are not here to stomp over everyone else to get to the top. We are here to learn. We are here to grow. We are here to have the best experience life we can, and to get a little better at the game, one day at a time.
I’ll leave you with these words from Rumi: “Your task is not to seek for Love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it.”
If low self-esteem has been a barrier for you, and shame has been your reminder, isn’t it time to start to remove that barrier, and be the man you were put here on this earth to be?
Because there’s no shame in having a healthy self-esteem.
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