Christ is praying, good self-esteemI spoke of self-esteem and a relation with God ( see “Self-Esteem and Faith” ). Now I wish to speak of what self-esteem means to me and what works.

The world provides a lot of advice about boosting self-esteem, but the main problem with worldly advice that it does not work well for the faithful, those who abide with God and want to keep themselves spiritually healthy. When I spoke of self-esteem and a relationship with God, I spoke against worldly opinions, ideas and thoughts because they work contrary to gospel principles and faith. I understood what self-esteem meant in regards to faith and from that I understood what it meant to myself in life, both spiritually and temporally

Not long ago, I thought I had good self-esteem, until the Lord led me to see I did not. When I spoke of self-esteem to another, I was also seeing myself and when the Lord turned the light bulb on, I realized that my self-esteem was not what it should have been. In this I realized that God does care about self-esteem and he does teach that low or lower self-esteem is bad for faith because it hampers the person from actually giving their best to God. Sure, God loves us either way, but God loves to see that we perceive ourselves rightly and his love cannot work for us when we allow ourselves or give excuse to lower our self-esteem. Simply, when we reject ourselves, we reject God also because we are in his image and the rejection is of his own image. It is the same as a loving parent feeling rejected when their son or daughter, who are born in their image, rejects themselves. Thus, God loves us to learn to love ourselves in the right way.

What then can we do to raise self-esteem and include our faith in it?

Allow me to start with faithful things that maintain faith and raise self-esteem.

  1. Pray to the Father, in the name of Jesus Christ, for the presence and help of the Holy Ghost
    Reason: there is no better support than when the Holy Ghost touches our mind and heart. The peace, inward light and fulfillment experienced is second to none and lasts quite a while when that same light is nourished and maintained by proper faithful actions. Praying must always preclude study and fasting and end those same tasks as well. Please note, when I speak of prayers, I specifically mean you making them, not seeking someone else’s prayers on the Internet to read. God wants to hear your words come from your heart.

  2. Study the Scriptures
    Reason: The word of God has an uplifting effect on self-esteem. When I speak of study, I refer to truly studying the word of God, not picking out favourite passages or reading “Bible mediations” or “devotional thoughts” over the Internet. The reason for this is because a true study, one where your mind and heart seeks truth, the word that is read supports the heart and mind and works like the seed parable in good soil. In addition, self-esteem works solely from your own intentions and works as that is the only thing that can affect it. Believing that self-esteem is the taking in what other people do or say, is actually a form of dependency, and is clearly not independent in any measure. Self-esteem raises when you take independent action because it is from you to you. This is why the Church teaches to seek and develop your own light from God within you.

  3. Fasting
    Reason: this is one of the best ways to boost self-esteem. When fasting, which is to abstain from food and water for at least 2 meals, the body (flesh) is subjugated and you begin to align yourself to the Holy Spirit of God. What fasting especially subjugates is the ego. When fasting in a faithful manner, humbly, prideful tendencies diminish. One of the worst enemies to good self-esteem is the ego, the prideful self. It is so selfish and self-serving, that the ego would rant like a child when it does not get it’s way. Fasting disciplines the mind and heart, placing the ego where it belongs – behind oneself. As Ezra Taft Benson taught, “In the scriptures there is no such thing as righteous pride—it is always considered a sin1“

  4. Self-Control – of choices, urges, unhealthy desires, etc.
    Reason: Low self-esteem depicts someone with low or poor self-control. For example, when you must loose weight, self-control is imperative. Thus, urges or unhealthy desires that works against weight loss, as “chocolate”, need to be controlled and avoided. To give into the urge for chocolate allows the lack of self-esteem to flourish. Why is this? It is because low self-esteem breeds in poor self-control and poor self-control allows “dependencies” to occur. It feeds on itself to perpetuate loss of control of one’s life. Low self-esteem is a negative spiral that perpetuates itself.Self-control gives a rise to self-esteem, placing it higher up. Self-control gives a person a feeling of stability over one’s life and low self-esteem is the loss of or absence of that “stability”. Self-control in things brings balance, direction, stability and resilience to things that attack self-esteem. This is why self-discipline taught in the military gives a sense of personal power and personal success.Note: self-control is synonymous with self-discipline.

  5. Do Faithful Things
    Reason: As God says, we should not loose ourselves in ourselves. Low self-esteem does that at varying degrees. In fact, it does it so subtlety, a person will not easily recognize it. For example, the loss of the desire to go out and serve, or the loss of interest in reading the scriptures, the fear of loss or embarrassment, lack of desire to dress well, the lack of desire to self-groom, etc. There are so many things that low self-esteem can cause, that people are not the wiser to it. As easily as it can affect normal everyday things, it can affect faithful things as well.

  6. Attend Church
    Reason: it is part of doing faithful things. You would be surprised at the many insights and personal revelations I received by attending Church. When I received them, the drab day was picked up. I felt good, encouraged, directed and stable.

  7. Apologize for your wrongs
    Reason: one of the worst things that degrades self-esteem is failure to apologize for your errors or wrongs in life or to others. This is what repentance is about, to correct your errors and shortcomings. For example, when what you did has harmed another, made the relationship worst, divided you from the one you believe you love, then it is time for apologies, because the one thing that God ensures happens, is that we suffer for our wrongs if we do not. That is how he teaches. This is the sow-reap principle that God included in the creation of this world. To self-justify wrongs or errors requires self-dishonesty and that requires a negative emotional state of the heart and a negative state of the mind, hence low self-esteem. A person cannot override this with positive thoughts, it requires instead positive and righteous action. To apologize takes responsibility and this brings blessings from God. What more can one say about it for good self-esteem?

  8. Self-Responsibility
    Reason: the one thing that the lack of self-responsibility does is breed contempt for yourself (first) then for others. Nothing worst than self-contempt. Self-responsibility is part of self-control and it is what brings stability.

  9. Personal Spiritual Development
    Reason: personal spiritual development incorporates everything above into developing good spiritual character and traits. Sometimes this is called personal righteousness, which refers to living righteously in accordance to all gospel principles. As God teaches, righteousness calls in peace into one’s life and peace is a great sustainer of good self-esteem. Low self-esteem shows oneself to be in some manner or form of discord with the self and with your own life, there is no peace in it. Note, please be aware that prideful things or temporary pleasures do not indicate peace and cannot create peace either. Peace depends on personal faith in God and all his gospel principles.

Now for some of the everyday things that can help develop and maintain good self-esteem.

  1. Personal Grooming
    Reason: Maintaining oneself as clean, nicely groomed, and nicely dressed, keeps a good self-image and a self-image is crucial to self-esteem. To let oneself go, to look untidy in appearance in any manner is an indication that low-esteem is working. I do not speak of the occasional down day, to relax in your sweats, but when it carries over a day, that indicates a problem. Self-grooming also presents a good appearance for your partner and tells him or her, that you want to look good for them. That is a really nice gift to your partner. For married couples, that is part of keeping the spark alive as well. For a man to keep himself groomed and good for his wife, pleases her and the reverse is true of the woman to the man. Does that not raise self-esteem?

  2. Do Things to Develop Yourself
    Reason: supporting self-development is crucial to good self-esteem. To do things that support personal growth will always work for good self-esteem and ward off the disease of low self-esteem. Personal change where change is needed or best, changes one’s mind and heart to better things. Personal growth, as learning, studying, exercise, health, etc has always been part of the foundation of good self-esteem. This is why self-help books flourish.

  3. Share your life with others
    Reason: I refer to giving and spending quality time with family, spouse, partner, friends, etc. Again, this is not an ego boosting time, to harp about yourself or your problems with others. This is putting into sharing quality things and it could be a simple as taking your partner for a walk in nature. Sharing one’s life is a giving process and low self-esteem cannot do this, so it has to give way to good self-esteem. See the point?

  4. Never bury yourself in work or past-times
    Reason: this only speaks of obsessions, to hide and take another tangent. This is more attacking oneself and punishing the self than developing good self-esteem.

  5. Avoid anything that has to do with Pride
    Reason: as God teaches, there is always the existence of the opposite. Pride is such a temporary state of mind that once out of pride what is there? Never depend on pride as a means to good self-esteem. There is a distinct difference between pride and personal happiness for oneself or others you care about.

  6. Personal Change
    Reason: when dealing with low self-esteem, there is a clear and definite need for personal change, else there is no moving to good self-esteem. When in good self-esteem, there must be personal development, which requires personal change to move further away and build a solid inner foundation. A person who bucks at personal change is a person whose life is stagnant and cares not about self-esteem.

  7. Self-Honesty
    Reason: no one has perfect self-esteem. If you think you do, then you are fooling yourself. To believe you have good self-esteem, take a personal stock of oneself comparing yourself to the basic principles of the gospel, as temperance, honesty, faith, patience, etc. If you find you lack in any of the gospel principles, then what are you living your life by? Good self-esteem requires gospel principles, because they are eternally good and always stable, they bring peace into one’s life. Outside gospel principles are temporary things and when you base yourself on temporary things, that is when self-esteem is unstable. Be self-honest and make the change where needed. Pray to God for help to pinpoint where you are lacking or short.

  8. Focus on a balanced life
    Reason: taking things to extreme may be (temporarily) exhilarating, but the down-slide is always a bummer. Doing joyful things within reason is always good and to take the low parts of life with self-control, prayer, fasting, etc, will serve better to develop a balanced life than anything.

May you have good self-esteem building.

Blessings.

Footnote:

  1. Benson, Ezra Taft, “Beware of Pride,” Ensign, May 1989, 4
Share|