Self-Esteem is the frame of mind which you have about yourself and your life. Regardless of the how or why, self esteem is essentially an attitude you have, a fixed frame of mind.

Someone with high self esteem could be said to have a confident and positive frame of mind toward themselves and their life. Whereas one with low self esteem finds it more difficult to maintain that positive frame of mind and is apt to look upon themselves and their life in a poor light.

Surveys carried out in America and Canada show that the “reasons” for low self esteem are many and very diverse.

Some people have a poor body image, some feel inadequate in social situations; others think that things are stacked against them.

Looking further we find that sex and relationships play a part in ones self esteem, it can be linked to family situations, work, world affairs, financial situations, and sometimes it is just a feeling with no specific or identifiable cause. The list could go on and on, but the one thing that all of these apparent reasons have in common is the fact that it is your own perception of these things and how they relate to you which is actually behind the level of self esteem that you have.

It is your view of yourself in relation to these things which is behind your level of self esteem.

Self esteem is essentially a “frame of mind.”

Yes, I know the first thing one is apt to say is that the frame of mind is brought on by the situation out in the real world. “If the situation were different my self esteem would be higher.”

It can sure look that way, but that is a limiting view, and one which does not offer a solution. We would have to change the world in order to raise our self esteem, and with low self esteem we do not stand a chance of changing the world.

You have been told all of your life that being overweight is a bad thing, you are overweight and it has effect on your self esteem.

You know that the opportunities for a successful and exciting career are shut off to you and that is why your self esteem is low.

You know that others are smarter, better looking, wittier and more successful than you are, and that is the reason for your low self esteem.

The “reasons” stated above “look like” the roots of low self esteem. You notice something about yourself or your life that you see as bad or poor, and your self esteem take a dive because of that.

But stop for a minute……………..

Is it possible that we have it the wrong way around?

Instead of having low self esteem because of any of the above situation, is it possible that one feels low first and then latches that feeling onto something like one of the above situations?

What came first?

Look at it like this, there are other people who are in the same situation as you and who do not have low self esteem or a poor self image.

There are people in the same situation as you who do not even give it a second thought. This one fact shows us that it is not the situation which makes us feel the way we do. It is our perception of the situation, and that is a different thing altogether.

I say this in order to get you to start looking at what is “actually” behind your low self esteem.

If we are going to sort it out, we must get to the truth of the matter.

The cause.

Most people, when asked what the causes of their troubles are, will give you something in reply.

I put it to you that what we give up as a “reason” is often not the actual reason. Therefore looking down the avenue presented by that “reason” will not be very fruitful or lead to a solution.

Let me give you some examples of this:

Someone who is over weight has low self esteem; they say that this is because they are too fat. We ask another person who is overweight about self esteem and we find no problem.

So we can say that having low self esteem and being overweight is not an automatic or global response. It is an individual response.

Do you see how this situation could sidetrack you and lead you down a path with no solution at the bottom of it?

You could try every diet under the sun moon and stars and still have no positive effect upon your self esteem.

So what if the low self esteem came first and the apparent “reason” for it is actually a secondary factor?

This is a very important point, if you say you have low self esteem because of X Y or Z, and then try to solve it through addressing X Y and Z. If it does not solve, it is not the reason.

Someone says, “I have low self esteem because other people are smarter than I am.”

This person then goes off on a big study number in an attempt to “get smart” to “solve” their low self esteem.

It will not work, the person has already decided that they are not smart, so the study will not go very well, this will then compound the low self esteem. The “solution” has the opposite effect.

That is because it is not the real reason or the right solution.

This attempted solution actually goes to reinforce the apparent “reason” for their low self esteem.

Having failed at the study program they now “know” they are not smart, and are further convinced that the “reason” for their low self esteem is because “other people are smarter than them.”

The person has sort of proved the wrong reason to themselves.

We could go one further and say that they have made themselves right for being wrong. It is a self fulfilling situation.

The person now becomes super concentrated on the apparent “reason” and no matter what they do about it; it does not solve the problem of low self esteem.

It all gets very complex and complicated, and that is because it is not true.

The truth is always very simple. We can gauge the amount of truth in a situation by the lack of complexity.

The person in our above example is now in a very difficult situation. They have convinced themselves of the “reason” for their low self esteem, and now see no solution to it.

Let’s try to step out of that box for a while.

Let’s say that low self esteem is essentially a fixed frame of mind that you have about yourself.

The “reasons” you hold up as the cause, may or may not be true, and it actually does not matter all that much. The point is that you have a fixed frame of mind about them.

If we look at it from that perspective, all of the “reasons” and “causes” become less important. We simply bypass all of that confusion and guess work and say that low self esteem is a fixed frame of mind.

What that frame of mind is fixated upon is not the point; the point is that it is fixed.

So we can also say that what we really need to do to solve the problem of low self esteem is solve the problem of fixed frames of mind.

Although the “reason” for your low self esteem looks very persuasive and although you “know” that the “reason” must change before your self esteem will, try to get above that and see that you have a fixed frame of mind about the aspect of yourself or your life which troubles you.

If you could change that frame of mind, the focus of it and the “reason” for it would fall away as an important factor.

That is what this course is going to do for you; it is going to allow you to actually change your frame of mind, and with that, allow you to move on with your life.

Fixed Frames of Mind.

When we say a fixed frame of mind we are talking about something which seems quite impenetrable.

How could you change a fixed frame of mind with any sincerity?

Changing your mind is something which you have been told to do many times, and it is also something which you might have tried to do many times.

It works for a while but then you fall back into the old pattern of behaviour and thoughts.

The reason for that fall back is that a frame of mind is actually held in place by many thoughts and it takes more than one new thought to change it.

Self hypnosis tries to tackle this through taking the subconscious route. This is to some degree workable, but the subconscious mind is a very complex aspect of our makeup and can not be fooled so easily.

Positive thinking and affirmation take a similar route, attempting to place many positive thoughts on top of the negative ones, again the process has some workability but is not the full solution.

A fixed frame of mind is a very stubborn aspect of our makeup; it takes a little more than a bunch of positive thoughts to change it for good.

Personal Revelation.

The breaking out of a fixed frame of mind is actually a personal revelation.

It takes a personal revelation to change one, and in that we have the door and the key.

To really change a fixed frame of mind it takes more than simply trying to thing about things in a more positive light.

One could say “today I will not think about my problems.”

The first thing that happens is that you start thinking about your problems. This approach seems to have the opposite effect.

A simple example of this is to ask someone to not think about cats. They must think about cats in order to not think about them, so that approach is never going to work.

It you have something “on your mind” trying to remove it or change it in that way can not work.

It takes a personal revelation, a personal realization about yourself and deep within yourself which is fundamental and true. That is what it takes to actually change a fixed frame of mind.

The positive thinking, affirmation and self hypnosis route do not supply that revelation, they assume it has already happened and then try to rebuild, but in order to build something new, the thing which was there before has to be removed. It is the same with a fixed frame of mind, we can not use that old fixed frame of mind as a foundation for a new way of life, it has to go.

Do you recall the feeling you had when “the penny dropped,” you might have been trying to do something, or understand something and then suddenly you got it.

At the moment you got it, all of the frustration, confusion, false notions and difficulty went out of the situation and you could see clearly the truth of the matter.

At that point we could say that you had a realization, a little personal revelation.

When that happened, the old considerations and thoughts that you had about the subject or thing you were working with vanished for good. Even if you wanted to, you could not bring those old feelings back with any sincerity.

That is what we are going to do with your feelings of low self esteem, poor self image and lack of confidence.

We are not going to explain it away, we are not going to learn a trick of self hypnosis to control it and we are not going to tell ourselves that it does not exist.

We are going to bring you to a point of personal revelation about it, and at that point, as in our example above, it is gone for good.

In summary and in no uncertain terms, I am saying that low self esteem is a fixed frame of mind that you have about yourself and your life. That fixed frame of mind might or might not have a “reason” behind it but the solution to it does not rely upon finding that reason and rationalizing it.

We need to break that fixed frame of mind and the only way we can do that is through bringing about, what I would call “a personal revelation”. With that fundamental realization the fixed frame of mind shatters and with that you are free from it.

Bringing about that revelation is not as difficult as you might first think, but the method involved must be followed right the way through.

This is a new approach to the problem of low self esteem and to may other situations in life. It is very workable and equates to a total solution.