There are the 5 top activities to build self esteem. They are practical and powerful lifestyle habits to adopt if you're invested in achieving health and longevity. Remember - healthy self-esteem is one of the greatest gifts you can give yourself, your immune system and others around you.
When it comes to building self esteem, remember that how we feel in front of other people has a lot to do with the story we tell ourselves (the story our culture tells) about our body size and shape. In fact, Thomas Cash (who is reknown for his body image research) reveals that about 2/3 of our self image is made up of our body image. That should come as no surprise in this body-obsessed society we live in.
But I once had an experience where I was conned into going to a nudist beach. With my body image issues, going naked wasn’t something I'd ever put on my bucket list. Are you kidding? In those days my body shame was so bad, my confidence was so low, I even changed in the dark both because I couldn't bear to look at myself and I desperately wanted to prevent my hubby from seeing me, that's how bad my body image was.
But ironically, it turned out to be a life-changing event for me because of an extremely large women I met there. Here she was happy nude weighing probably double what I did, and when she got up, she walked with such confidence that it was noticeable. SHE HONORED HERSELF even when her culture said she shouldn't be allowed to. She stood up for herself, she believed in herself without trying to fit in. Her message was dare to be different and be yourself. In honoring rather than shaming herself, regardless of her body size, she would always be healthier than if she hated herself because of how she was changing at a biochemical level.
Her reasoning was that she'd never come across a holy text that told her her worth in her Maker's eyes was any less than if she weighed half of what she did. Her reasoning was that if God could love her as she was, then she could love herself too.
One of the greatest activities to improve your self esteem is to remember that you're a Sacred Being and that has nothing to do with the size of your hips or thighs but a lot to do with the size of your spirit and heart.
Print out and read this by Marianne Williamson on waking and on retiring
Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate,
Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.
It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us.
We ask ourselves,
“Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented and fabulous?”
Actually, who are you not to be? Your playing small doesn’t serve the world.
There’s nothing enlightening about shrinking so that
Other people won’t feel insecure around you.
(And, I’d like to add: Be all you are purposed to be: let the world see it and benefit from it.)
The activities to built self-esteem turn out to be an internal job. That's why one of the ways to improve your self esteem is to undergo a mental makeover. One of the activities to improve self esteem that I've used extensively with clients is the the 'Act as if' principle.... or 'fake it til you make it'. This entails asking yourself and then visualizing the answers to: "How would I act if I could always remember that I'm an amazing wondering being exactly as I am"
Mentally rehearse this way of building self esteem, then rehearse it in front of a mirror as you rearrange your body to reflect this because when you do, you're sending a powerful signal to your cells that enhances your health and 'Act as if it's true.' And start dressing and walking and talking 'as if' you already are that amazing person. You'll literally be creating new neural networks and creating better health. One of pioneers in showing how our brains literally change when visualizing was Dr. Alvaro Pascual-Leone who found that regardless of whether people actually practiced the piano or whether they merely visualized it, their brains changed in the same way (1).
One Harvard study on aging, found that simply 'acting as if' and thus signaling their biology that they were 20 years younger for one week, participants looked and felt younger, and their biological age markers like blood pressure, skin thickness and mental acuity had all improved. (2)
1. DOI: 10.1111/j.1749-6632.2001.tb05741.x
2. Langer, E. Counterclockwise.
For 3 more activities to build self esteem - follow this link....
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