Self-esteem is probably the most crucial aspect of a consent-based, self-directed life. It is also the thing that is most attacked by the receding dominant culture in which we live.

It’s hard to be self-loving in a meaningful way, if you don’t have solid self-esteem. It’s hard to make hard choices for yourself in your best interests, if your self-esteem is wobbly.

It’s easier to compromise yourself, betray yourself, become distanced from yourself, underestimate yourself, if your self-esteem is undermined and weak.

Self-esteem is the place to engage, to get a consent-based, self-directed life on track. To be connected to our self, to express in authentic ways, to care about ourselves enough to walk the tough but extraordinary path of a consent-based and self-directed life – we must engage with our experience of and current status of self-esteem. Solid self-esteem is also what enables us to face accountability, personal responsibility, to own our part of things, to meaningfully be accountable in our lives and relationships. To take personal responsibility for what we are responsible for and our own personal power.

Self-esteem is how much you take yourself seriously, how much you honour and respect yourself.

How’s your self-esteem at the moment?…

Self-Esteem Repair

If your answer is that your self-esteem needs some help, what next?

The steps towards healthy, strong, grounded self-esteem, are the same that you would take in repairing other kinds of relationships.

You have to rebuild trust through care and action.

You need to show your self-esteem, through your words and actions, that you are sorry and are going to build a different type of relationship with it. And you need to build this relationship through how you are, and what you say and do.

Over time, this will result in your self-esteem becoming stronger, more resilient, and more able to be the solid core you need it to be for your experience of self-direction and consensuality.

This can look like:

– being more honest

– being kinder (not necessarily ‘nicer’) to yourself, and others

– exploring and expressing your boundaries in a more explicit and forthcoming way

– engaging with your intuition (different to your triggered or stress reactions) and acting more from that place

– taking more risks by showing more of your self to the outside world

– noticing things in your environment that are directly either damaging to your self esteem or at least obstructing you from meeting your needs, and addressing these things in a direct way

Repairing and rebuilding relationship and trust takes time, persistence, and consistency.