lindagraceonline.com

You may have heard the funny little adage: I wish I were the person my dog believes I am.

Dog owners read that and smile. Ah, yes—unconditional love lavished upon us regardless of our faults. It doesn’t matter if we’re fat or old or forgot to make snacks for our children’s youth function. We are perfect in the eyes of our dog.

A person struggling with self-esteem issues often spends her whole life listening to what other’s think about her. And it’s never as glamorous as the dog’s opinion! How well we ‘measure up’ to expectations of others (and ourselves) often becomes our measurement of success.

Our self-esteem is, essentially, a measuring stick of how we view ourselves. It’s my evaluation of me; you’re evaluation of you. It’s a self-appraisal based on what we feel (and what we imagine other people must think) about our life performance—how capable, lovely, worthy, successful, appreciated, beautiful and flawless we are.

The problem with this is that we have a wacky set of measuring tools that tell us what the standard is. We are constantly bombarded by our culture, media, relationships, work, friends, commercials, newspaper, Internet, our feelings at any given moment, and our health. Much of what we hear (or sometimes perceive we hear) is not realistic. Yet, we embrace it as TRUTH and feverishly try to live this impossible standard. And when we fail, we use it as ammunition against our value as a person.

Having healthy self-esteem requires turning a deaf ear to the stuff flying at us that’s out of balance. It’s learning to rest in the truth that we are lovable, regardless of how we look, what kind of mood we’re in, how we clean our house, or how much money we make.

You are valuable. You are important. Period. There are NO qualifiers to this. There are no performance tests. You can set the ruler down. You measure up.

One of the first steps in boosting your self-esteem is to give yourself permission to be you: Unique, wonderful, interesting, glorious YOU. There is no one exactly like YOU. (And, believe it or not, it’s meant to be that way!)

Another crucial step is giving yourself permission to set realistic standards for yourself. Not the perceived standards of Hollywood, family, friends or co-workers. The key here is REALISTIC standards—ones that fit YOU.

And if you have a dog, you just might want to thank him. Maybe he’s smarter than you’ve given him credit for. He loves you just for you. He doesn’t have anything he’s measuring you against. And just YOU is enough.