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The road to recovery requires a great deal of your patience, effort and energy. Hard work, persistence, patience, and a sense of faith and hope will pay off in
the end as you begin to feel the glow of healing self–esteem. This process is filled with setbacks and relapses and you must accept this as part of the human
condition. If you fall off the wagon of recovery, get right back up and keep on going. No one but you can keep you from your goal of increased self–esteem.

Techniques for creating self-esteem

We develop energy vibrations such as poise, self-confidence, self-love, self-appreciation, and joy. We develop affirmations regarding our true value and
potential. We visualize ourselves in situations where we have poise, self-confidence, self-love and an ability to interact effectively from a base of our true self.
We act as if we have self-esteem. Self-esteem gives permission for us to grow effectively and happily in the human world. As we examine our values, we
discover that we have full self-esteem only if we are complying with our values. We need to have the values that provide valid feedback on our actions, such
that they trigger alarm bells when we commit an act that is truly destructive or self-destructive. If we value life, we value this alarm mechanism that tells us
that our current actions are diminishing our life.

Where does self-esteem come from ?

As newborn babies, we did not enter this world equipped with a self-concept. Everything you are today, you have learned or experienced since birth. Every
attitude, belief, value behaviour and fear you may have right now has been learned. It therefore follows that if there are elements that no longer serve your best
purposes, you can let them go and replace them with more positive elements that will serve you better.

As we have seen from the Erikson stages of development, from birth throughout the stages of our lives, we grow emotionally as human beings by successfully
passing through the various development phases of life from infancy, through childhood and teenage years, to adulthood and then old age.

Children are born unafraid and without the inhibitions of adults.

They are born with only two fears, the fear of loud noises and the fear of falling. Ask anyone who has raised children about their experiences and they will tell
you of the apparently fearless behaviour of children. They will climb high trees, run out in front of cars, put their fingers in flames and frighten the living
daylights out of their elders with their suicidal tendencies. For their own protection, they are gradually taught what to fear by adults. Other than falling and of
loud noises, all fears children learn are taught to them by adults or by painful experience.

Children are wonderfully uninhibited. They will laugh, cry and wet themselves without any concern of what others might think. They are spontaneous and
naturally expressive, without inhibition. Ever seen a self-conscious baby?

This is our natural state, the way we entered the world, unafraid and uninhibited. Any fears and inhibitions have been learned along the way. The times when
you are your happiest are those when you have felt so comfortable in the company of people you trust, that you can revert back to your inner child, fearless Page118
and spontaneous, relaxed and at ease.