First Pillar of Self Worth

Conscious life

Living consciously sounds pretty easy at first. However, our psychology is putting a spanner in the works. Because the majority of the processes, such as thinking, acting, and feeling, run unconsciously. Especially under stress, we tend to have a reduced focus of attention, the famous tunnel vision. And even without stress, we often switch to autopilot. 

It is a natural reflex to not always be 100% attentive everywhere, that would be too exhausting for your own brain. For greater awareness, it is enough to stop in certain and important situations and reflect on what you are doing.

With awareness to more awareness

Mindfulness is an important factor for a conscious life and, therefore, for higher self-worth. There are two good questions to raise mindfulness:

- What percentage am I currently mentally present?

- Where and when am I still in my thoughts?

In our thoughts, we can be somewhere else, both spatially and temporally. Who hasn't been mentally at home having dinner or shopping while at work? For more awareness, it is worth questioning such thoughts and bringing yourself back into the here and now.

With self-awareness to more awareness

Self-awareness is an important practice of resilience and is an excellent way to raise awareness. Experience is created by focusing on attention. This sentence sounds abstract at first, but holds a lot of truth. To perceive yourself means to draw attention to yourself. As a result, we notice how we experience ourselves - and also notice how we deal with ourselves. In order to strengthen self-esteem, it is important to perceive and experience yourself.

Of course, it is still important to compare your own subjective perception with the environment. This enables us to check whether the self-assessment is not too low but also not too high.

These questions help you perceive yourself better:

What is going well?

What shouldn't change right now?

How am I doing right now - on a scale of 1-10?

What can I do to make it better?

What can others do?

It helps to answer the questions in writing and in a quiet minute. Repeat this, and you will find that it is easier to concentrate on yourself.

With emotional competence to more awareness

Emotional competence means knowing your own emotions and their corresponding triggers. Emotions are a central part of our everyday life. Two emotions are particularly present in stress: fear and anger. It is important to recognize and understand these feelings. In addition to these two emotions, which are crucial for the stress reaction of flight or struggle, there are the so-called basic emotions of disgust, contempt, surprise, sadness, joy, and interest.

It is not only helpful to recognize your own emotions but also to see their expressions in other people and to classify them correctly.

We often differentiate between positive and negative emotions. However, this distinction is not useful and certainly not appreciative, because every emotion has a benefit for us. Due to the subjective experience and the social environment, we rate anger and fear as negative and undesirable. So if we feel these emotions, we are devaluing ourselves. Accepting feelings is part of strong self-worth.

It makes sense to understand the benefits of your own emotions:

Fear as guardian of security:

We feel fear when we see ourselves threatened. From an evolutionary biological perspective, fear has ensured our survival. Because in times of great, almost omnipresent danger, healthy caution was very important. Even today, fear is an indication of the need for security—one reason why changes cause stress for us.

Anger as guardian of values ​​and promoter of goal achievement:

Anger as a guardian of values ​​can sometimes be quite a challenge.

Values ​​determine what is important to us and make up a large part of our identity. The body has a clever mechanism that protects this very important part of us, namely anger. However, anger is not just an indication of a violation of values but also an obstacle. The question of who the anger is directed at is relevant. Against yourself as self-reproach or against others as reproach where forms are a hindrance to high self-esteem.

The following questions make sense to sense the emotions:

• How do I recognize fear/anger?

• How does my body react?

• Is the emotion more noticeable in the chest or abdomen?

• How do I have to think so that I feel fear or anger?

• How likely is the situation I'm scared of?

• Which of my conscious or unconscious goals is blocked in case of anger?

• What value is violated in case of anger?

Contempt as guardian of self-worth:

Emotional contempt is also important for self-worth. Because resource-oriented one can say that contempt is an indication of the need for status and appreciation. There are two problems with contempt:

Devalue others to subjectively elevate themselves. In fact, however, this does not increase self-esteem but only makes others less aware.

It does not remain with contempt for others, because the points of view that are despised in others then apply to themselves and also despise themselves.