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You will need practice in expressing feelings and listening to others expressing their feelings.

To change any unhealthy behaviours you will need to begin to act only on rational thinking and
true feelings, sincerely felt by you. Accept personal responsibility for your own actions and stop
blaming others. You will need to identify your self defeating behaviours and change them.
As a result of improved thinking, healed feelings, and healthy behaviours, your compulsively
driven behavioural pattern can change. This will occur by rewriting the old behavioural self talk,
taming your inner voice. Keep the positive elements of your personality and replace the
unhealthy aspects. You can change your old pattern by getting in touch with the feelings you
have for too long ignored. You can "let go'' of the compulsive nature of your old unhealthy
personality traits and work at thinking before you act. You can redefine yourself by letting go of
self defeating behaviours with their negative consequences.

As you work at rewriting and changing your old personality trait's self-talk, you also need to work
at addressing the problem areas identified in the earlier paragraphs on low self esteem.

The steps for recovery for each problem area is as follows:

· Let go of the unresolved grief over losses you have experienced in your life.
· Eliminate self destructive behaviours and gain outside support if necessary to ensure your
continued progress.

· Let go of the things you can’t control or change personally in life and accept self control
over your own behaviours and feelings.

· Release any unresolved anger appropriately - recognize that anger is a healthy feeling with
an appropriate place in your life.
· Learn how to focus more on feelings than on content to improve your communication skills,
by active listening, reflecting of feelings and problem solving based on the expression of
honest feelings.
· Let go of self–defeating behaviours and to adopt new, healthy behaviours by accepting
personal responsibility for self. Learn to embrace and welcome change.
· Work on improving personal behaviours so as to improve personal, work, and social
relationships.

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 situ-
ations 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.