The Six Pillars of Self-Esteem

by Branden, Nathaniel

  “I’m filled with anger.”

  “Can you accept that fact?”

  “I don’t like it.”

  “Can you accept it?”

  “I can accept it.”

  “Good. Now we can begin to find out what you’re angry about.”

  Two Fallacies

  We typically encounter two fallacious assumptions when people have difficulty with the idea of self-acceptance. One is the belief that if we accept who and what we are, we must approve of everything about us. The other is the belief that if we accept who and what we are, we are indifferent to change or improvement. “I don’t want to accept myself! I want to learn to be different!”

  But of course the question is: If we cannot accept what is, where will we find the motivation to improve? If I deny and disown what is, how will I be inspired to grow?

  There is a paradox here (a paradox, not a contradiction): Acceptance of what is, is the precondition of change. And denial of what is leaves me stuck in it.

  Sentence Completions to Facilitate Self-Acceptance

  What follows is a five-week sentence-completion program designed to facilitate self-acceptance. It is more detailed than the exercises offered for the other pillars because, having taught these ideas for many years, I find that people often have more difficulty fully grasping self-acceptance than any other practice I recommend.

  Notice that I include stems dealing with issues I have not explicitly discussed, such as accepting conflicts or accepting excitement. For example, if I can accept my conflicts, I can deal with them and move toward resolving them; and if not, not. If I can accept my excitement, I can live it, I can look for appropriate outlets; if I am afraid of my excitement and try to extinguish it, I may kill the best part of myself. Fairly complex ideas are embedded in these stems. They bear studying and thinking about, and they entail many more implications than I can explore here.

  WEEK 1. MORNINGS:

  Self-acceptance to me means—

  If I am more accepting of my body—

  When I deny and disown my body—

  If I am more accepting of my conflicts—

  EVENINGS:

  When I deny or disown my conflicts—

  If I am more accepting of my feelings—

  When I deny and disown my feelings—

  If I am more accepting of my thoughts—

  When I deny and disown my thoughts—

  On the weekends, read over you have written and then write six to ten endings for If any of what I have written is true, it would be helpful if I—. Do this each weekend throughout the program.

  WEEK 2. MORNINGS:

  If I am more accepting of my actions—

  When I deny or disown my actions—

  I am becoming aware—

  EVENINGS:

  If I am willing to be realistic about my assets and shortcomings—

  If I am more accepting of my fears—

  When I deny and disown my fears—

  WEEK 3. MORNINGS:

  If I am more accepting of my pain—

  When I deny and disown my pain—

  If I am more accepting of my anger—

  When I deny and disown my anger—

  EVENINGS:

  If I am more accepting of my sexuality—

  When I deny and disown my sexuality—

  If I am more accepting of my excitement—

  When I deny and disown my excitement—

  WEEK 4. MORNINGS:

  If I am more accepting of my joy—

  When I deny and disown my joy—

  If I am willing to see what I see and know what I know—

  EVENINGS:

  If I bring a high level of consciousness to my fears—

  If I bring a high level of consciousness to my pain—

  WEEK 5. MORNINGS:

  If I bring a high level of consciousness to my anger—

  If I bring a high level of consciousness to my sexuality—

  If I bring a high level of consciousness to my excitement—

  If I bring a high level of consciousness to my joy—

  EVENINGS:

  When I think of the consequences of not accepting myself—

  If I accept the fact that what is, is, regardless of whether I admit it—

  I am beginning to see that—

  Other useful sentence stems to explore this territory can be found in How to Raise Your Self-Esteem and The Art of Self-Discovery.

  The Ultimate Crime Against Ourselves: The Disowning of Positives

  Anything we have the possibility of experiencing, we have the possibility of disowning, either immediately or later, in memory. As the philosopher Nietzsche wrote: “‘I did it,’ says memory. ‘I couldn’t have,’ says pride, and remains relentless. Eventually memory yields.”

  I can rebel against my memories, thoughts, emotions, actions. I can reject rather than accept virtually any aspect of my experience and any act of self-expression. I can declare, “Not me. Not mine.”

  * * *

  We can be as frightened of our assets as of our shortcomings.

  * * *

  I can refuse to accept my sensuality; I can refuse to accept my spirituality. I can disown my sorrow; I can disown my joy. I can repress the memory of actions of which I am ashamed; I can repress the memory of actions of which I am proud. I can deny my ignorance; I can deny my intelligence. I can refuse to accept my limitations; I can refuse to accept my potentials. I can conceal my weaknesses; I can conceal my strengths. I can deny my feelings of self-hatred; I can deny my feelings of self-love. I can pretend that I am more than I am; I can pretend that I am less than I am. I can disown my body; I can disown my mind.

  We can be as frightened of our assets as of our shortcomings—as frightened of our genius, ambition, excitement, or beauty as of emptiness, passivity, depression, or unattractiveness. If our liabilities pose the problem of inadequacy, our assets pose the challenge of responsibility.

  We can run not only from our dark side but also from our bright side—from anything that threatens to make us stand out or stand alone, or that calls for the awakening of the hero within us, or that asks that we break through to a higher level of consciousness and reach a higher ground of integrity. The greatest crime we commit against ourselves is not that we may deny and disown our shortcomings but that we deny and disown our greatness—because it frightens us. If a fully realized self-acceptance does not evade the worst within us, neither does it evade the best.

  The practice of self-acceptance is the second pillar of self-esteem.

  8

  The Practice of Self-Responsibility

  To feel competent to live and worthy of happiness, I need to experience a sense of control over my existence. This requires that I be willing to take responsibility for my actions and the attainment of my goals. This means that I take responsibility for my life and well-being.

  Self-responsibility is essential to self-esteem, and it is also a reflection or manifestation of self-esteem. The relationship between self-esteem and its pillars is always reciprocal. The practices that generate self-esteem are also natural expressions and consequences of self-esteem, as we shall discuss in a later chapter.

  The practice of self-responsibility entails these realizations:

  I am responsible for the achievement of my desires.

  I am responsible for my choices and actions.

  I am responsible for the level of consciousness I bring to my work.

  I am responsible for the level of consciousness I bring to my relationships.

  I am responsible for my behavior with other people—coworkers, associates, customers, spouse, children, friends.

  I am responsible for how I prioritize my time.

  I am responsible for the quality of my communications.

  I am responsible for my personal happiness.

  I am responsible for accepting or choosing the values by which I live.

  I am responsible for raising my self-esteem.<
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  What does each of these items imply in terms of behavior?

  The Action Implications of Self-Responsibility

  I am responsible for the achievement of my desires. No one owes me the fulfillment of my wishes. I do not hold a mortgage on anyone else’s life or energy. If I have desires, it is up to me to discover how to satisfy them. I need to take responsibility for developing and implementing an action plan.

  If my goals require the participation of other people, I must be responsible for knowing what they require of me if they are to cooperate and for providing whatever is my rational obligation to provide. I respect their self-interest and know that if I wish their cooperation or assistance, I must be conscious of it and speak to it.

  * * *

  No one owes me the fulfillment of my wishes.

  * * *

  If I am unwilling to take responsibility for the attainment of my desires, they are not really desires—they are merely daydreams. For any professed desire to be taken seriously, I must be prepared to answer, in realistic terms: What am I willing to do to get what I want?

  I am responsible for my choices and actions. To be “responsible” in this context means responsible not as the recipient of moral blame or guilt, but responsible as the chief causal agent in my life and behavior. If my choices and actions are mine, then I am their source. I need to own this fact. I need to stay connected with it when I choose and act. What difference would that make? If you would like to discover the answer for yourself, write six endings, as fast as you can, for the stem If I take full responsibility for my choices and actions—.

  I am responsible for the level of consciousness I bring to my work. This is an example of the point I just made about choice. No one else can possibly be accountable for the level of awareness I bring to my daily activities. I can give my work the best I have to give, or I can seek to get away with as little consciousness as possible, or anywhere in between. If I stay connected with my responsibility in this area, I am more likely to operate at a high level of consciousness.

  I am responsible for the level of consciousness I bring to my relationships. The principle just discussed applies equally to my interactions with others—to my choice of companions and to the awareness I bring or fail to bring to any encounter. Am I fully present in my encounters with others? Am I present to what is being said? Do I think about the implications of my statements? Do I notice how others are affected by what I say and do?

  I am responsible for my behavior with other people—coworkers, associates, customers, spouse, children, friends. I am responsible for how I speak and how I listen. I am responsible for the promises I keep or fail to keep. I am responsible for the rationality or irrationality of my dealings. We evade responsibility when we try to blame others for our actions, as in “She’s driving me crazy,” “He pushes my buttons,” “I would act reasonably if only she would…”

  I am responsible for how I prioritize my time. Whether the choices I make about the disposition of my time and energy reflect my professed values or are incongruous with them is my responsibility. If I insist that I love my family more than anyone yet am rarely alone with them and spend most of my leisure time playing cards or golf, always surrounded by friends, I need to confront my contradiction and think about its implications. If I declare that my most important task at work is finding new clients for the firm but spend 90 percent of my time bogged down in office trivia that produces very little income—I need to reexamine how I am investing my energy.

  In my consulting work, when I give executives the stem If I take responsibility for how I prioritize my time—I get endings such as “I would learn to say no more often”; “I would eliminate about 30 percent of my current activities”; “I’d be much more productive”; “I’d enjoy work more”; “I’d be appalled how out of control I’ve been”; “I’d actualize more of my potential.”

  I am responsible for the quality of my communications. I am responsible for being as clear as I know how to be; for checking to see if the listener has understood me; for speaking loudly and distinctly enough to be heard; for the respect or disrespect with which I convey my thoughts.

  I am responsible for my personal happiness. One of the characteristics of immaturity is the belief that it is someone else’s job to make me happy—much as it was once my parents’ job to keep me alive. If only someone would love me, then I would love myself. If only someone would take care of me, then I would be contented. If only someone would spare me the necessity of making decisions, then I would be carefree. If only someone would make me happy.

  Here’s a simple but powerful stem to wake one up to reality: If I take full responsibility for my personal happiness—.

  Taking responsibility for my happiness is empowering. It places my life back in my own hands. Ahead of taking this responsibility, I may imagine it will be a burden. What I discover is that it sets me free.

  * * *

  Taking responsibility for my happiness is empowering. It places my life back in my own hands.

  * * *

  I am responsible for accepting or choosing the values by which I live. If I live by values I have accepted or adopted passively and unthinkingly, it is easy to imagine that they are just “my nature,” just “who I am,” and to avoid recognizing that choice is involved. If I am willing to recognize that choices and decisions are crucial when values are adopted, then I can take a fresh look at my values, question them, and if necessary revise them. Again, it is taking responsibility that sets me free.

  I am responsible for raising my self-esteem. Self-esteem is not a gift I can receive from someone else. It is generated from within. To wait passively for something to happen that will raise my self-esteem is to sentence myself to a life of frustration.

  Once when I was lecturing to a group of psychotherapists on the six pillars of self-esteem, one of them asked me, “Why do you put your emphasis on what the individual must do to grow in self-esteem? Isn’t the source of self-esteem the fact that we are children of God?” I have encountered this question a number of times.

  Whether one believes in a God, and whether one believes we are God’s children, is irrelevant to the issue of what self-esteem requires. Let us imagine that there is a God and that we are his/her/its children. In this respect, then, we are all equal. Does it follow that everyone is or should be equal in self-esteem, regardless of whether anyone lives consciously or unconsciously, responsibly or irresponsibly, honestly or dishonestly? Earlier in this book we saw that this is impossible. There is no way for our mind to avoid registering the choices we make in the way we operate and no way for our sense of self to remain unaffected. If we are children of God, the questions remain: What are we going to do about it? What are we going to make of it? Will we honor our gifts or betray them? If we betray ourselves and our powers, if we live mindlessly, purposelessly, and without integrity, can we buy our way out, can we acquire self-esteem, by claiming to be God’s relatives? Do we imagine we can thus relieve ourselves of personal responsibility?

  When people lack healthy self-esteem, they often identify self-esteem with being “loved.” If they did not feel loved by their families, sometimes they comfort themselves with the thought that God loves them, and they try to tie their self-esteem to this idea. With the best will in the world, how can we understand this strategy except as a manifestation of passivity?

  I do not believe we are intended to remain dependent children. I believe we are intended to grow into adults, which means to become responsible for ourselves—to become self-supporting psychologically as well as financially. Whatever role a belief in God may play in our lives, surely it is not to justify a default on consciousness, responsibility, and integrity.

  A Clarification

  In stressing that we need to take responsibility for our life and happiness, I am not suggesting that a person never suffers through accident or through the fault of others, or that a person is responsible for everything that may happen to him or her.

&
nbsp; I do not support the grandiose notion that “I am responsible for every aspect of my existence and everything that befalls me.” Some things we have control over; others we do not. If I hold myself responsible for matters beyond my control, I put my self-esteem in jeopardy, since inevitably I will fail my expectations. If I deny responsibility for matters that are within my control, again I jeopardize my self-esteem. I need to know the difference between that which is up to me and that which is not. The only consciousness over which I have volitional control is my own.

  Examples

  It is easy enough in work situations to observe the difference between those who practice self-responsibility and those who do not. Self-responsibility shows up as an active orientation to work (and life) rather than a passive one.

  If there is a problem, men and women who are self-responsible ask, “What can I do about it? What avenues of action are possible to me?” If something goes wrong, they ask, “What did I overlook? Where did I miscalculate? How can I correct the situation?” They do not protest, “But no one told me what to do!” or “But it’s not my job!” They indulge neither in alibis nor in blaming. They are typically solution oriented.

  In every organization we encounter both types: those who wait for someone else to provide a solution and those who take responsibility for finding it. It is only by grace of the second type that organizations are able to operate effectively.