Self-esteem and the spiralling effect

Each time we allow ourselves to do something that makes us feel bad we lower our opinion of ourselves.  Continued involvement in such activities can lead us to form destructive beliefs about ourselves.  The more we engage in destructive activities and encourage these negative thoughts and feelings the stronger our destructive beliefs grow, the less we like ourselves and the lower our self-esteem becomes.  

When we know that we have done something good we feel better about ourselves and our self-image improves. Continued involvement in such activities can lead us to form constructive beliefs about ourselves.  The more we engage in constructive activities and encourage these positive thoughts and feelings the stronger our constructive beliefs grow, the more we like ourselves and the better our self-image becomes.  

We believe that one of the most important things every person can do to help build their own self-esteem is to think about their own behaviours and actions and the resulting thoughts and feelings and ask themselves:

“Is this a destructive or constructive behaviour, thought or feeling for me?”

As outlined in the above examples the spiralling effect can work in either direction.  Our collective actions and behaviours join together over time to create a consolidated sub-conscious self-opinion.  This combined self-image causes us to develop strong beliefs about ourselves and our behaviour MUST mirror our beliefs, therefore it becomes almost impossible to behave in a way that is not aligned with our belief and so is born the spiralling effect.

For example the more we do bad things, experience the destructive thoughts and feelings and don’t do anything to change our ways the more we begin to build an “I’m a bad person” self-image.  The stronger this self-image becomes the stronger our belief is, the more we are likely to think that we ARE a bad person and the more we behave in a way that matches our belief.  We enter into a downward spiral of bad behaviour and actions that can result in self-destruction.

Everyone is capable of changing their self-image, even those who others might consider are past the point of redemption.  Of course the more deeply entrenched the behaviours, thoughts, feelings and beliefs are, the more will power and desire are required by the individual to cause positive change to occur. 

An excellent example of this is the individual who has a belief about him or herself that they are a 40-a-day cigarette smoker.  They know that their behaviour and actions are self-destructive and until something happens in their life that sufficiently disturbs them enough about their smoking habit they will do nothing about it.  However, there are countless cases where people have found a big enough reason, creating the desire and will power to quit.

Developing positive self-esteem is not something that we achieve in a few days or a week; it's more like an ongoing journey of self-realisation that we apply to every aspect of our life.