As the New Year reminds us of our gradually advancing age, let’s just consider the not inconsiderable, brighter side (with gratitude to Anthony):
How you feel about yourself is a major factor in the quality of your intimate relationships. Trouble in a relationship almost always involves a problem with self-esteem.
Self-worth is a natural product of receiving appropriate validation, attention and approval as we are growing up. You need to be confident about your competence, your mastery of the world. Beyond that, you need to feel that you are loveable, someone that others would want to be close to – competent or not – just by virtue of existing.


When you don’t have a lot of self-confidence you tend to be so preoccupied with questions of self-worth that when you interact with someone else, especially someone who is important to you, you may not perceive what is going on very accurately. Questions like:
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Am I good enough?
Will he like me?
Will she want me?
Do my feelings matter?
Am I safe?
Will I be attacked?
Will I be hurt?
Will I be laughed at or humiliated?
Is it safe to ask?
One of the things we have to do to develop our sense of self and greater self-esteem is to accept who we actually are, as opposed to who we are trying to fool ourselves or other people into thinking we are. This means experimenting, trying on different hats and finding out which one feels comfortable, exploring new activities to see which we enjoy and are suited to, taking chances, opening ourselves up a step at a time, allowing ourselves successes as well as failures, seeing mistakes and crises as opportunities to learn and grow. For many of us it means abandoning the belief that the alternative to being perfect is being awful.
This is from Marianne Williamson’s A Return To Love. There’s a myth around that Nelson Mandela quoted this passage during his inaugural presidential speech. Just a myth. No matter – I don’t think it needs anything to add to its lustre!
Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate.
Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.
It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us.
We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?
Actually, who are you not to be?
You are a child of God.
Your playing small does not serve the world.
There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you.
We are all meant to shine, as children do.
We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us.
It’s not just in some of us; it’s in everyone.
And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same.
As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.
The following exercise (adapted from ‘Feelings First’ by Dr John Gray) can help you detect layers of feelings that are present with respect to some ‘hot’ issue for you in your relationship. Though Gray calls it ‘The Love Letter’ it may seem anything but! It’s a process of peeling away the nastier layer of feelings that often prevent us experiencing our caring, compassionate self ‘buried’ underneath, the more tender, forgiving self that we probably prefer to be.
The process can be used in minutes as a ‘quick fix’ or you can take some hours or days to work with it.
[Read more…] about letting grudges go
Becoming a mature, autonomous adult is a lot about taking responsibility for our feelings, and as a first step we need to get clearer about what our feelings are. This is a good tool. Start a diary, write in it these sentence stems, be as honest as you can and just see what emerges. A diary is a fantastic place to have a heart-to-heart conversation with yourself, a great chance to get burdens off your chest. And where the sentence or sentiment is addressed to another person, pick whoever seems appropriate. The sentence stems are adapted from Nathaniel Branden’s ‘If You Could Hear What I Cannot Say’.
Allowing Others To See Me
If I were willing to be vulnerable I might tell you…
If I weren’t afraid of being condemned I might tell you…
If I weren’t so scared I might tell you…
Everything except language
knows the meaning of existence.
Trees, plants, rivers, time
know nothing else. They express it
moment by moment as the universe.
Even this fool of a body lives it in part
and would have full dignity
within it but for the
ignorant freedom of my
talking mind.
with affectionate thanks to Jo Harvey
I WALK DOWN THE STREET.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I fall in.
I am lost.
I am helpless.
It isn’t my fault.
It takes forever to find a way out.
I WALK DOWN THE SAME STREET.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I pretend I don’t see it.
I fall in, again.
I can’t believe I am in this same place.
But it isn’t my fault.
It still takes a long time to get out.
I WALK DOWN THE SAME STREET.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I see it is there.
I still fall in.
It’s a habit.
But, my eyes are open.
I know where I am.
It is my fault.
I get out immediately.
I WALK DOWN THE SAME STREET.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I walk around it.
I WALK DOWN ANOTHER STREET.