Self-esteem Archives | Genius Recovery

“You gain strength, courage, and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You are able to say to yourself, ‘I have lived through this horror. I can take the next thing that comes along.’ You must do the thing you think you cannot do.”

― Eleanor Roosevelt

Belief is an Anglo-Saxon word that means “to live in accordance with”. People of religious faith tout that belief is the action word that puts arms and legs to the exercise of their faith practice. Believing in something, someone or yourself requires more than words, it engages action. Belief is powerful. It is the stuff that makes up miracles. People have overcome overwhelming terminal medical conditions, crediting their capacity to believe. Incredible feats and accomplishments in political movements, business, sports, and treks of outdoor pursuit have been achieved stoked with the fuel of belief.

Many have endured hardship, struggle, incarceration and so much more simply because of a deep belief that something would change or be worth dying for. Dreams are not realized without this important action step.

You can believe in God without believing, or with a minimal belief, in yourself. An addict can stop acting out with minimal belief in self. The secret to seeing your future self is contingent upon your capacity to believe in yourself. Believing is an action word that must be exercised in order to expand.

There are varying degrees of self-belief. An addict would never experience a single day of sobriety without believing that they can go to a meeting, say no to the junkie worm, call a support person, or reach out rather than act out, etc. These steps require a certain level of belief in oneself that I am worthy of this basic action toward sobriety.

Addicts and others must tear down and remodel their false belief in self. False belief in oneself denies limitations and ignores personal boundaries. People with misplaced beliefs operate their lives from a blind spot. They fail to recognize constraints and controls and the need to resource the energy of wisdom outside themselves. They are blind to the power of humility. True belief in oneself recognizes personal boundaries and realizes the need to go deep within to unearth the limitless power of belief that exists within the depths of the self. When personal energy is focused deep within, personal transformation becomes reality. It culminates from the reserve of brilliance given by the universe that lies immeasurably within.

Methods toward excavating your own brilliance of personal belief are countless.

Here are a few considerations:

Face your mistaken beliefs: Misbeliefs must be rooted out. It requires confrontation. You cannot ignore mistaken beliefs. You must face them. When I awaken every day I am confronted by a chatterbox of over 26 mistaken beliefs that I have inventoried through the years. The beliefs chirp at me daily, not all of them, but many. Over the years some have disappeared. I have learned that by facing debilitating beliefs, I can practice ignoring them and focus on inspiring intimacy, acquiring beliefs that fulfill my destiny. Activating these inspiring beliefs demand training and action. You will need to practice your inspiring beliefs every day. The world outside won’t see your work. They will only observe it by the way you live. Face your misbeliefs.

Cultivate deep abiding hope and confidence with the conviction of self-believing affirmations. Do you believe that you are “an unrepeatable miracle of the universe”? Really believe it? Then the way you treat yourself must be congruent with this belief. Self-degradation must stop! It is inconsistent with self-affirming belief. Cultivating self-believing affirmation requires commitment, not perfection. When your behavior and attitude stray from a deep belief in self, gently make amends and bring yourself back to center. You must act on the conviction of self-belief regardless of feelings notwithstanding your critical voice. This requires a daily commitment to rolling up your sleeves and doing the blue-collar work of acting on self-belief even when the outside results tell you it is not working. Remember, you are affirming your being, not the results. Ultimate results you do not control. Your response to them is where you cultivate unconditional confidence and belief in yourself.

Self-belief is creative. Craft your own path. Ultimately, belief is personal. Listen to the storyline of others who have deepened belief in self. There is no one way to believe. Self-belief becomes the way. My personal pathway has involved physically going back to locations of personal hurt and abuse, giving back the shame that stifled self-belief, and reclaiming my own self-empowerment.

For example, I attended my 50th college class reunion. I graduated from a small conservative church-sponsored university. My advisor at the business school who was the chair of the department, would regularly chide me with negative beliefs. He told me that I would never amount to anything special and that I would simply be a “nine to fiver”. He told me to be average and just go home and make a living. At the time I was vulnerable and didn’t know how to believe in myself. I allowed his negative messages to dominate me for many years. But then I became determined to prove him wrong. What I proved was that I could be a workaholic and that my workaholism fueled my sexual addiction. I learned to self-sabotage self-belief.

Through the years I learned to detach from the shame of misbelief. I learned to affirm my sense of being and not to allow my performance to determine my worth. Part of my recovery journey was to give back the shame to the department head. He has been deceased for several years. Creatively, I went to the school of business and went to the room named after him. I did a kind of “seance” and invited him into the room named after him. I envisioned him as I recalled 50 years ago. Once seated, I read him an emotion-focused letter and gave him back the shame that I had carried for so many years. I then read to him selected poems that I have authored about shame, personal uniqueness, and empowered living. I celebrated my sense of being rather than my accomplishments. I shared feelings of anger, sadness, relief, and joy. Though I had addressed the mistaken beliefs years before, the ceremony of giving back the shame was powerful and deeply meaningful.

I then walked over to the religion department. Even though I was a business major and not a religion major, I sat in an empty room and invited a man named C. Paul Gray into the room in the same way. During my first year of college, I confided in Dr. Gray about the physical, sexual, and religious abuse that I endured throughout my childhood. He listened and admitted that he did not have any answers for me. What he did do is validate me and treated me with dignity, respect, and compassion. He looked me in the eyes and told me that he believed in me. He believed in me when I did not know how to believe in myself.

On my trip, I shared an emotion-focused letter with him. I thanked him for his support and deep belief in me. After reading the emotion-focused letter, I read to him inspired poems that I have authored that anchored self-belief. I left the empty room filled with inspiration that affirmed my deepest belief that I am an unrepeatable miracle of the universe!

You will need to create your own way. You may want to cobble together bits and pieces of other people’s journeys. Just make it your own. A deep belief in self paves the way to self-acceptance regardless of gender, race, religion, or economic status. You will need to practice being who you are and saying what you feel. Fulfilling your destiny will help transform our world. Thoreau is right when he emphasized that when you advance confidently in the direction of your dreams, and endeavor to live the life which you imagined, you will meet with a transformation unexpected in common hours. It all hinges on deep belief in yourself.

“There’s a lion and when he roars he’s telling me I ain’t no good–It’s not just what I could, but he’s bitching what I should.” (Stalking the Lion King—Kw)

Shame is like a sticky music song syndrome that works its way into your mind and quickly forms a noose around your neck with the design of choking the authentic reality out of you. It all begins when you are very young.

I grew up in a very religious household. The clergy of the church I grew up in during my lifetime were servants from hell. The first pastor was in my life from birth to the 8th grade. He was a very abusive man. I have a lot of memories that were not pleasant. There were times he would challenge resistors to his leadership to a physical fight out in the parking lot of the church. Once he attempted to undress me when I was a second grader in front of the congregation. He said he wanted to use me, as an illustration, to describe “a gutter drunk” he was trying to save from hell.

When I was a kid, I wet the bed and was embarrassed that others would know. Once, this “saintly” pastor coaxed me into going to summer church camp and vowed to prevent others from knowing that I struggled with wetting the bed. In turn, he suddenly announced to the entire camp that I wet the bed and was a “pee-baby” during a morning flag-raising ceremony. There’s a long list of abuse and antics that this clergy person did and no one held him accountable. My parents would only say “Had it not been for this pastor, we wouldn’t have a church today”! He ran out all of the incorrigibles and the troublemakers so that he would be the only thug left to save souls. Well, it took a long time but thank God, or someone, that particular church is now defunct and out of business. Upon reflection, it’s settings like this during early formative years that shape and mold young minds with the earworm of shame-driven messages that dominate in later years. James Baldwin was right when he wrote “It’s not the world that was my oppressor, because what the world does to you, if the world does it to you long enough and effectively enough, you begin to do to yourself.” Shameful earworm messages work this way in your life.

After the preacher from hell finally retired, we got another one. Our new pastor was young and he related much better to the youth of the church. As a matter of fact, he related too well. He molested at least three of us and I am convinced there were many more. He disfigured the lives of so many kids that required more than a “born again” experience to ever restore. For many, it scarred and marred for life. Sexual exploitation is the abuse that keeps on giving, not just in the victim’s life but in generations to come because of the shroud of secrecy around the shameful behavior. Do you have experiences of exploitation that you have never talked to anyone about? Then you know the earworm of shameful messages that eat away at you and silently become transplanted into your next generation.

Shame that was ever present with my parents was transferred to every one of us kids. I experienced it around my inability to perform in sports. I was a great practice player but during actual games was dismal. Shameful earworm messages like “You can’t do this, who do you think you are” dominated and created miserable results.

I also experienced it around my sexuality. The only girl I ever dated as a teenager was in the church I attended. When it came to sex, shame pretty much dominated my thoughts and actions. Of course, there was no one to talk things out regarding healthy sexual experience or the crazy sexual abuse I had known previously. Under the cloak of shame, the earworm message would say that masturbation would send you to hell and that sex would be something you would automatically know what to do on that magical honeymoon night. Any other thought about it was considered dirty, disgusting, and to be condemned.

The earworm of shame would constantly ring “You must be more to keep from being less”. With the ring of shame, there is never a moment when who you are and what you have achieved is enough. No time to sit back and enjoy except for the rush you might experience while seeking more.

When I was little, my brother, Steve, and I used to mow very large lawns, 2 to 3 acres, with a power hand mower. We would take a pasture-size section and divide it in half. Then each of us would see who could mow their section the fastest. As we got closer to the finish we would mow faster and faster in an attempt to win. Eventually, each of us would be running. I remember how tortuous it felt toward the end. But, when it was finally finished, there was such a relief and adrenaline rush that felt great, win or lose! I would later try to addictively construct that adrenaline rush throughout my adult life. Truth is that the earworm of shame is often transformed into the adrenaline that comes from conquest and accomplished performance. It is a formative piece toward the development of addictive behavior.

I was often told that I would not succeed or be special in any way. It would always make me mad. I remember my business teacher in high school telling me that I would fail and be least likely to go to college. In college, my academic advisor told me that I would be a traditional “9 to 5” kind of guy and nothing special. To his point, I only wish I was a “9 to 5” kind of guy. It would have helped me live a more healthy life.

I have always had a burning desire to succeed in my life. I must admit that it became distorted in ministry in such a way that I lost myself and my way. Upon graduation from Seminary, my wife Eileen and I moved to Denver Colorado to work in a large evangelical church.

I was determined to learn to be the very best pastor I could be. I did a 2-year internship with absolutely no compensation. We lived off the 9 thousand dollar salary Eileen made working for an insurance company. I worked crazy hours. I would begin at 7 am and work until 10 pm. Then I would help clean the church from 10 pm till 2 am. During those days, Eileen and I would sleep in a gathering room at the church that was identified as “the Parlor”. I have always been embarrassed to tell people I did all of that for no pay. I wanted to be the best. There is this unrelenting subconscious need to correct the message from the earworm of shame that “I am not deserving” and that if I would keep driving myself that somehow in the end I would be enough. But, when I got to the end of the accomplishment, it was never a big deal and the approval I sought was elusive.

The dynamic of shame is all-inclusive. I have been working on this for 33 years of recovery and still must do recovery work simply to accept that what I am is enough. As a professional, I have noticed that I am not alone. Most recovery “gurus’ I know struggle with the earworm of shame in a similar way. The drive for notoriety, power, and possessions shelter this need to be more to keep from being less. There are times that this struggle becomes blatantly obvious through arrogant and socially unacceptable behaviors by some gurus. Sometimes, I have actually encountered folks who have never written a recovery book or even read one who have best exemplified managing the earworms of shame in their lives.
Earworms are common phenomenon to everybody. Shame has a way of sticking earworm messages in our hearts for a lifetime.

I am wondering if you are aware of shameful earworm messages that incessantly dominate and drive you toward addictive behavior? What shameful experiences did you have while growing up that set the foundation for the earworm of shame to drive you to your addiction later in your life? Can you identify the coping strategies that you have created in an attempt to avoid the shameful earworms that ring down deep in your heart?

Gestalt theorist Fritz Perls once said that “nothing ever changes until it becomes real”. Identifying the painful earworm messages of shame is the beginning of interrupting the pattern and creating a pathway that leads to serenity.

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