“….so many people judge the value of their actions not on the basis of the action itself but on the basis of how the action is accepted It is as though one had always to postpone his judgment until he looked at his audience.” Rollo May, Man’s Search For Himself (page 39)
Dear Friends:
In the last blog entry, we explored the role of low self-esteem, and in its extreme, shame, as a form of a psychological and spiritual autoimmune disease. Hopefully, you have been able to identify this in your own life and are able to catch yourself in order to make changes in your thinking that are helping you be kinder and more uplifting in your relationship within you. As you work on this, you should have more of a sense of satisfaction and peace as you go through your days!
In this blog, we are going to explore how low self-esteem and shame impact your relationship with others. Last week’s blog identified a painful internal experience much like someone with an autoimmune disease would experience internal pain and suffering. A person with a physical autoimmune disease is susceptible to outside forces that increase their suffering and pain, such as temperature fluctuations or foods ingested. The same is true for the psychological and spiritual autoimmune disease of low self-esteem as it is impacted by the opinions of others.
Years ago I was reading about addiction with stories one might imagine of people who were lying in the gutter drunk, others losing all they had to supply their drug addictions or to a gambling addiction. As I was reading, I realized that I didn’t see much of these addictions in my office, but I did see a pervasive, common addiction in many of my clients through them needing the approval of others or in them working hard to avoid disapproval. (This used to be my addiction of choice and it ruled my life!) Approval seeking and/or avoiding disapproval are often paired to people/clients who do not believe in themselves. This makes them vulnerable to working to get others to reflect their value and worth back to them as the client’s chosen audience (whoever that might be) judges how they think the client has performed or has made decisions. Any sense of satisfaction that is achieved by gaining approval or avoiding disapproval is short-lived at best and is never enough to heal the internal war and injury against the self. (Once in a great while I have met people who have this addiction to approval seeking and/or avoiding disapproval who have a fairly healthy self-esteem. These people most likely were modeled this addiction and are driven out of familiarity and habit.)
Below is a chart I developed to help others see the presence of the addiction of approval seeking and/or avoiding disapproval in their lives. And just as a person experiences even more pain from outside conditions when that person has an autoimmune disease, so too do those who are addicted to approval seeking and/or avoiding disapproval! The first section is a description of approval seeking and avoiding disapproval. You might have one or the other or both, The second section labeled “Problems” talks about the problems we cause ourselves when we operate in either mode. The last section is a statement to help you replace this addiction with the ability to own your own value and worth internally.
I love how Rollo May puts this new freedom we can have in getting over our addictions to approval seeking and/or avoiding disapproval in his book “Man’s Search For Himself” (page 179):
“It means accepting responsibility for one’s own standards and judgments, even though one knows how limited and imperfect they are….It is the courage to be and trust one’s self despite the fact that one if finite; it means acting, loving, thinking, creating, even though one knows he does not have the final answers, and he may well be wrong.”
As we each take this courageous step to own our value and worth and act in accordance with that, we can each gain the freedom to break our bonds of addiction in thinking we can live off of others’ opinions and instead, embrace our own!
Blessings to you as you move toward freedom!
Shari