Tag: self esteem

Who Am I Supposed to Be? Overcoming Self-Doubt (Week 4-Blackened)

Posted on October 31, 2019May 30, 2023 by Brook Thornley

If we were to break down the components of self-doubt we would quickly start to see it is the opposite of self love, self-esteem, and the ability to support oneself. If we are functioning in self-doubt it can be very difficult to be planted securely in self-approval. Making small decisions as we go through life can add up and over time to become a critical piece of self-respect. When we make decisions that support our personal rights and healthy choices, we are immediately in a place that we start to experience an enhanced feeling of self-respect. We feel proud of our decisions and it grows our self-esteem. If we do the opposite of what is healthy for our person, we can instantly be flooded with self-doubt. It can be a small decision, or it can be a large dynamic that we find ourselves needing to make choices for; regardless, it is so important to move away from anything or anyone that would support self-doubt.

Some of us might not always look at each decision we make in life (large or small) with such a deep or complex lens. We might be the type of person that thinks of it as a casual thing, but then seem confused as to why, a few hours or possibly days later, we start experiencing feelings of doubt and don’t know exactly what to attach those feelings to. It seems to come on as a generalized feeling of self-doubt, and then our brain starts to survey to find what task or dynamic to attach it to.

In early childhood development we see this dynamic show up when the child is learning initiative. If the child is trying to accomplish a task, he or she needs to feel efficacy and a sense of accomplishment. If they do it in a way that they feel they were reasonably directing the process with the support and influence of a healthy adult they leave with a self-esteem boost. On the other hand, if they are managing the adult or caretaker and doing it to follow or overly please the adult, they are left with self-doubt.

An example of this is when a small child is asked to make their own bed for the first time. They do the best that they can and they feel a since of accomplishment and self-esteem because they did it. It doesn’t matter that the corners were not lined up and part of the bedspread were falling to one side, they think they did great. If the adult or caretaker comes in and remakes the bed in a way that is satisfactory to the adult, that can take away the sense of accomplishment for the child and leave them in self-doubt.

Some parents won’t let the child even attempt a job because they want it done to their own standard; possibly leaving the child arrested, or stuck, in the initiative developmental stage.

We can also experience this as adults. It might not show up in exactly the same way, but anytime we use our healthy initiative and it is shot down, we can experience this same sense of self-doubt.

Here is an example:

One of our clients at Human Art recently was excited to go to an event with a friend. They went to great lengths to plan the outing and were getting more excited with each task that they marked off their combined list to get them ready for the event. They would call each other and collaborate as to who was to do each task, and they would also talk and exchange excitement when the tasks were completed. It would make them feel as if each check mark of completion was getting them closer and closer to the event.

The day that they were to leave, one of the friends was not in the meeting place at the designated time. A few minutes after the designated time, the missing friend called the one that was at the appointed meeting spot to tell her that she was delayed hours and that she had decided to put off the time they were going to go to the event. That would leave little time for them to experience the event. This put the friend that was ready to go in a place of frustration and felt that her feelings and rights were not considered in the other’s decision to abort the original plan. When the absent friend was asked why she decided to not be there at the appointed time, she said she had a few things to do and errands to run. She had not gotten everything done to prepare to go, so she was doing it now. Upon further exploration, it was uncovered that really she was just doing something else; a different task at a different event that she valued more than the one they had spent all this time preparing for. She expressed that she thought it would be ok because she thought the prepared friend wouldn’t mind just waiting around for her to decide when she wanted to leave.

The prepared girl had to ask herself: was she being considered and respected in the decision making of the unprepared friend? Was she feeling important to the other friend? As she thought about these things, she expressed to us that she did NOT feel respected or considered, and going with this friend late would make her feel like a second choice to what the other girl really wanted to do. It was at that very point that she had a decision to make. Do I keep my self-respect intact or do I just put up with bad behavior for the sake of being able to go to the event? She decided that she was going to cancel for now and expressed to the unprepared girl that she would love to go with her at any time it was a priority to her. She believed if they waited until then they would both enjoy it more. This left our client, the prepared girl, in a place that she felt she had rights and that she made a healthy decision for herself and that she had considered her own feelings. That led to immediate self-respect and she expressed that she felt like her self-love grew in that very moment. She could feel it.

This month we are talking about what self-doubt looks like in each design. This week we will focus on the Blackened design.

In the rapprochement model, we know that when a Blackened person gets overwhelmed it is usually because they cannot complete a task or check it off their list. If they have a box or compartment in their head for a task, they have usually taken the time to carefully line up all the other boxes that are around it—the structure of how each task needs to be done, when it needs to be done, and how it needs to be done. If someone gets in the way and they cannot complete it, this has the possibility to overwhelmed them. They can also get overwhelmed with drama or too much talk and not enough action or doing. It is also possible that the Blackened person themselves can get in the way of getting the task done. It is usually because they have completed the prior task on the list early and they don’t like to waste time so they try and throw another task in there. If they don’t have enough time, they might run into problems completing the next task on their list. In certain situations, that can lead to social or professional failures.

Here is an example of this dynamic:

One Human Art client was Blackened and was so good at structuring her tasks that she had a planner where each category of tasks even had their own color. To look at her organizer was like looking at a carefully crafted graph and was an exercise in organization. She was equally as good at completing those tasks.

She had just been given a new title in her job, and with this new position came the requirement for her to accompany the CEO of the company to meetings and events. This client would mark the start times of all these different events in her organizer, but often found herself early in completing the task that was before the event or meeting, so she would try to squeeze an errand in beforehand. She did this because she couldn’t tolerate wasting time. Unfortunately, many of these errands would take a little more time than expected and she found herself being late to the meetings and events. When confronted, she told the CEO that she was only a few minutes late each time and that it didn’t seem to be a big problem. But the sheer amount of times she showed up late was a problem for the professional expectation of the leader of the company. This later led to the decision to let her go from this position and the company. The client was left hurt and confused because she thought she had done a great job on each task, but she failed to see the overall reflection her tardiness had left on the professional reputation of the business.

One of the strengths of the Blackened design is they are efficient and resourceful. They value making good use of their resources and don’t appreciate waste in any of these areas. The challenge is, one might lose credibility with a Blackened person if they are careless with resources; and when it comes to collaborating the respect level has diminished a bit due to this perceived carelessness, so it is difficult from the get-go. The Blackened person might not see the “careless” person as their equal and might dismiss them quickly.

The problem with the Blackened design is that they might be quick to see perceived carelessness in others, but it might be harder for them to see the “resourceful to a fault” in their own design. Both of these instances can lead to failures and self-doubt.

If you are high in the Blackened design, do what you do best and just “fix” it. If you see that something is not working, you have a natural and warm logic that can see what is not working without throwing out what is, so focus on that. Take a step back and evaluate what is working and increase that, while at the same time see what is not working and eliminate what is destructive and creating self-doubt. You are the “no drama” design, and you are quick to reassess the situation and abruptly move to what is working. Your casual demeanor makes things easy to move along void of a lot of fuss or conflict. You just offer reasonable solutions that are made fun with your dry wit and the realness you bring to each situation. Your profound honesty and your “it is what it is” attitude lead to accountability when used in healthy interactions and tend to keep those you are with safe and secure.

So go out and fix, get things done. Take care of those things that you are responsible for. Move to help and create solutions. It creates a sense of security for you and those around you. And always remember, Everyone is a Masterpiece.

Brook

Authentic Road or Manufactured Road: The Human Race

Posted on April 2, 2019May 30, 2023 by Brook Thornley

One thing we all have in common as humans is that we are all engaged in the same marathon, the race, the human race. We all want to cross the finish line and we all want to make something of ourselves along the way. I love that about people. It’s just that, no matter how well intended we might be, if we pick the wrong path we end up at the wrong finish line. If we pick the right path we end up at the intended finish line—the one meant for us individually.

But how do we make sure we are in our intended life and on the right road? The answer seems pretty simple to me. It is all in who we identify with. If we chose to identify with our self and our authenticity, we are on our intended authentic path; if we try to identify with everyone else and mirror them, we choose the harder path that might not get us where we want to go. It certainly will create more obstacles along the way.

When we choose the road marked authenticity, we still have trials and struggles, but we finish the race with more traits and a stronger, organized, and healthy self. Using our authenticity to navigate the struggle of the race grows our ability to support our self and most importantly like, and even love, our self for who we are and what we have been able to accomplish. It moves us forward.

If we choose the road that is manufactured it is much harder because we have to create a path or a road before we can even run the race. It is organized through fear and is escalated with the bulldozer of control instead of curiosity; it twists us and turns us and winds us chaotically through the race and leaves us exhausted and confused as to where we really are and what our finish line even looks like. We still put our time in the race, we just wind up in a completely different spot than we wanted and leaves us disappointed and alone.

I remember years ago sitting in a lecture with world renowned Dr. Stanton Samenow who wrote the book, “Inside The Criminal Mind.” He was contrasting people who I understood to be authentic and those who had created such a manufactured and egoic self that they had completely lost any ability to have empathy. He also described some who were so ego driven that they lost any sense of self regulation and observing ego. He said something that has stuck with me for years. This is how I remember it: “Self-esteem is the product of a process.”

He went on to describe that ego driven individuals have little or no ability to stick with a process. They want a quick fix, or instant gratification. I sat and absorbed that for a minute. He went on to describe that it is in the process, and the effort that is required for that process, where we gain or self-esteem. He used the analogy of a race and said if he picked us up at the starting line and drove us to the finish line to ensure that we finished first then the trophy would mean nothing to us. It would be meaningless because we didn’t put our own effort into the process. That made so much sense to me. I had been working at this point for many years as a personality profiler and I had witnessed this dynamic so many times. To me, the people I had profiled that really took the time to understand themselves and use their authenticity to push through the human race one step at a time, patiently learning to love and support themselves, had reasonable amounts of self-love and self-esteem. Those who just wanted to be liked or admired right then and there, doing whatever they had to do to be accepted by others (outsourcing their acceptance) seemed to be plagued with self-doubt and loathing.

That is why at Human Art we have been focusing on authentic self vs manufactured self. We have talked about how each design works in this dynamic. Now I just wanted to punctuate how important it is to stay in your lane of life; run the race through your authentic personality and design, and let others run the race in theirs. Using your authenticity, you will find yourself ahead of others at one point and behind others at another. But you will also see that it doesn’t matter because running at your pace and in your way is the very process that is going to bring you optimal results. It is your time that you run it in, it is your story that makes the finish so wonderful, and it is what you see and discover along the way that will have meaning to you in a way that no one else will understand. It is literally between you and your maker. It is all about what you make of it.

I encourage you to jump in and find the authentic path for you. Some of the adventure in life is walking up to the starting line and pondering what lies ahead on your authentic road and then run! Keep running, sometimes fast sometimes slow, but just keep moving ahead. Take in the process and be curious. Love yourself along the way, and love others as well. Don’t judge your time and don’t judge others’ time. Just accept the journey and the distance of the race–the human race. And while you are running, remember, everyone is a masterpiece.

Brook

“Nobody Likes Me, Everybody Hates Me, I’m Going to go Eat Worms”

Posted on July 16, 2018May 30, 2023 by Brook Thornley

“Nobody likes me, everybody hates me, I’m going to go eat worms!” It is true, some of the kids in my neighborhood when I was a little girl would sing this little song or chant often. The interesting thing is this little group of kids were the very kids that I loved and admired.

I saw a bit of this same dynamic in junior high. There was a girl that ran in the same circle of friends as me that would seek me out sometimes and tell me she really needed to talk to me. When she had my attention, she would declare with a lot of pain in her demeanor, “No one will talk to me. I don’t have one person that will listen to me. I am invisible.” That struck me so strange because I was sitting there with loads of empathy for her. I believed her. I am telling you, I could feel her pain. I could see it, but at the same time I was confused because I was sitting there listening to her. This leads me to a very important subject.

As a child we have to wait for others, especially adults, to entreat us, to listen to us, to validate us—and often times they don’t. They fall short. To those who have experienced this pain I am sorry this happened. Looking forward, as an adult, we must be aware that it is a totally different thing or dynamic in ord

er to heal. We are now responsible for healing our own wounds.

I’m cringing right now because sometime when I say this it has the possibly of coming across as a minimization of the deep-rooted pain that in some cases is very real. It might even elicit some defenses.

Don’t stop reading. My intent is exactly the opposite. If we can accept this and run in to it, it will do the opposite. It will provide relief.

The most important part of healing your own wounds is to love yourself. This is all about your sense of self or self love. It falls in the category of your relationship with yourself, not your relationship with others. If you have no idea what your relationship with yourself looks like just examine your self talk. How you talk to yourself is an indicator of how you feel about yourself.

I want you to find a pen and write the following down somewhere, or put it on your screensaver on your phone, or where ever you will see it often.

WE CAN ONLY ACCEPT LOVE AND ACCEPTANCE FROM OTHERS TO THE LEVEL WE LOVE AND ACCEPT OURSELVES.

We are going to walk through 3 steps of jumpstarting your sense of self or your self-love or your self-esteem, however you want to put it.

The 3 Steps Are:

Whatever you want in your life…you must become
Find your freedom through your customized value system
Accountability is all you….. guard your perimeter

I would like to focus on number one today and then we will address the other two in the following weeks.

1. Whatever you want more of in your life, you must become

For example, if you want people to seek you out then you must be the type of person that seeks out others. If you want people to talk to you, you must talk to others. If you want more kindness in your life, your priority must be being kind to others.

Too often we sit in our wound and wait for others to come fix it; yet we can’t see that they are trying but don’t hold the healing ability. You are the only one who does. Yes they can be a support system, but asking them to do it for you is called “outsourcing your healing.” It is literally like trying to hire it out. It never works; it will fail you. It is like wanting to go swimming at a public pool with the desire to enjoy the water, but driving there and sitting in your car, refusing to get out, and waiting for someone to bring the pool to you with all the fun that comes with it—the life guard, the people splashing, the sun…And when that doesn’t happen we are left disappointed in others; that they let us down and, because of their lack of thoughtfulness that they didn’t show up for us, we didn’t get to enjoy the water. I think we have all experienced a version of that in one way or another. The fallacy is that we are not looking at our responsibility to ourselves. If we want to enjoy the water, we have to go jump in.

This week I challenge you to try being exactly what you want more of in your life. See what shows up. If you do, the healthy people who can enjoy it with you will start showing up to meet you there. That is good information. And for those who don’t or can’t show up that way; it is okay. They are learning also. Don’t judge. Who knows, maybe in your new place of showing up as the person you want to be might inspire an idea of who they want to be. Someday they might surprise you and meet you there. For now, enjoy the water and be patient with one another because everyone is a masterpiece!

-Brook

**If you want more help in discovering what you want more of in your life, become a member of the Human Art Classroom and learn more about your personal design.

Self Esteem: Falling in Love With Our Authentic Self

Posted on October 29, 2015May 30, 2023 by Brook Thornley

To me, self esteem is the product of a process more than it is a trait that you just obtain in one simple attempt. Quite often people come to Human Art with the request to help them restore their self esteem and we are always excited to start that process. It makes me reflect on how much this request comes up and how often certain skills are needed and have to be learned to start that process. To be honest I think we all need a little bump in our self esteem here and there. So it would prove us wise if we would take a little time to evaluate how we are actually measuring our self esteem and who we are enlisting to evaluate our progress and our worth.

How are we measuring? We will never find self worth if we constantly look externally for our worth. When we look externally for our worth it usually comes in the form of comparing. Comparing ourselves to others or comparing our situation to others’ situations. I promise you that looking externally for your worth will fail you because you are comparing yourself to someone who is totally different from you. Someone with their own design and own version of authenticity that has nothing to do with your design and looks nothing like yours. Yours is truly unique, like no one else’s. So we need to look internally and start the process of finding the good in ourselves.

When we enlist ourselves to measure our growth, and base it on our authentic self, we succeed. We are the master of our own design. We know it better than anyone else (besides God) so the trick is falling in love with ourselves and who we really are. Self esteem grows out of a sense of self and our sense of self grows out of a healthy autonomy. I emphasize GROWS. Day by day. Situation by situation. It doesn’t happen immediately or just once. It is largely defined by our efficacy—our ability to have a good result and, more importantly, a safe outcome in each situation or small interaction. The ability to engage more fully in interactions leads to our ability to affect our emotional stability.

So let’s take a Whitened client for example. Their ability to affect a situation comes from their spontaneity. It is creativity and enrolling at its best. That kind of thinking is out of the box which can lead to solutions we may not have ever considered. The thought process looks an awful lot like brilliant bubbles popping up with ideas to consider.

The other three designs think differently, so they might not understand the process and label it as careless. They say it’s too many bubbles (ideas) and would take to many resources to carry out. “It’s unrealistic,” they might say. Because they think differently they might miss the fact that each bubble is a consideration that leads to other considerations and other ideas, which leads to a solution that was never entertained before. The point is, it still ends up being one or two solutions they just dance through a lot of bubbles to get there. Then comes the criticism. Sometimes delivered by the other person, but all too often by themselves. The Whitened person now feels like their ability to effect a good result is gone, their ability to produce a good outcome diminishes, and they are left feeling unsafe and with lowered self esteem.

Each design has their way they need to be effective and really feel efficacy. If they cannot obtain those results it leads to self doubt and then low self esteem. So make sure you are aware of the results that you need:

Saturated: Clarity and the ability to produce quality outcomes (whatever you might deem quality).

Whitened: Enrolling and change that is important to all the social circles in their life.

Grayed: Minding the details and the importance of them. They need the space and time to be thorough.

Blackened: To be effective you need to just get it done. Finish what you started, get the result based on the expectation.

So don’t fall into the trap of minimizing the need to be effective in your design. Your ability get results is yours and it defines your brilliances. No one else has it in the way you do. Don’t expect them to totally understand it, just support yourself and start negotiating in a healthy way. Also understand and honor others around you by honoring their process and need to be effective.

Everyone needs self respect
Everybody needs to effect good results
Everybody deserves emotional safety
And most importantly…
Everyone is a masterpiece.

Get Back in the Boat

Posted on July 20, 2015May 30, 2023 by Brook Thornley

It was junior high. We had just moved so I was the new girl. It was also the first day back to school and one of my new friends I had met ran up to me to announce that the football star and the student body president were both interested in me and wanted “to go out with me,” ( which meant that that we would publicly profess our dedication to each other, awkwardly talk in the hall a few times and then use that new status as a relationship to climb higher on the popularity ladder). I remember not wanting to pick because not only were the two choices fabulous options socially, but both guys really were nice, good guys and somehow I could tell that within just a few days.

After about a week I discovered I really liked talking to the student body president, but the football star was so dreamy, so I had made up my mind that I socially could not go wrong with picking the football star. I was the new girl, in a new school, going out with the football star. I was just rowing my boat in the bliss of junior high life…for about three days. Then the football star became disinterested and I found myself “dumped” back into the normalcy of junior high life.

Well, I had not lost my sense of self and still knew who I was so my confidence was intact, but my pride was not. In preparing to return back to school on the fourth day I needed a plan; one that would allow me to enter the halls appearing unaffected by the whole situation and a way to show that I was so fine. My mother advised me to hold my head up and be strong and just get through it—and of course wear the absolutely cutest outfit I could find. That always helped.

The fourth day came. I was in my fabulous outfit. I still remember it: fire engine red pants that fit perfectly, a red and white high contrast shirt for a little sophistication and authority, and some fabulous wedge high heels.

I was feeling great about myself. There I was in the hall at school walking towards a few guys when I spotted him—the football star. He was walking with his friend towards “the ramp” (in our school we had a big hallway that was a ramp where stairs usually are to get from one level to the next but it allowed for more students to pass through at a time so it was a large space). There was only the two of them and then me coming up behind. I picked up my confidence and my speed. Right as I passed them I flipped my hair; a gesture to show I was unaffected and in control. It was perfect until the force of the flip met my high heels and consequently I fell face down and did a superman slide, arms out and all, down the entire ramp screaming the whole way. My books all flew in the air and landed at the bottom of the ramp along with me.

There I lay, face down, dying. The cute football star who I know didn’t want any part of this, scooted over and, standing above me but not looking at me, said in a whisper, “do you need help?” Still looking down I said, “No I’m actually good!!”

Well, needless to say, not my finest moment. But we all have those, right? The trick is not avoiding them. They are a part of life. A part of “opposition in all things” and the bad experiences with the good. The trick is still believing in ourselves and getting up…Immediately back into the boat of life and start paddling. Do not stay in the water of self doubt. You WILL arrive at your destiny if you just keep getting back in the boat and paddling. No matter how many times you experience your own personal “dump.” Believe you can keep getting back in. Staying in the water of self doubt will get you nowhere. You will fail. So just get in and row.

I did just that and actually ended up going out with the student body president. It lasted quite a bit longer. The best part was I became good friends with both and have great memories. If I had given up I probably would have let it be a moment that defined me in a negative way and who knows what damage that could have done.

As you have the experiences and work on getting back in the boat, remember that every design jumps back in and rows differently. Here are some things each design can do to help them get back in and keep going:

Saturated: Change the goal. Your design is skilled in being able to find a better way than before to get back in and row.

Whitened: Enroll and change it up. Make it fun or exciting. Do it differently use your spontaneity. In these moments that is what works best.

Grayed: Tread water for a moment and think it through. That’s what you are good at. Find all the connections then carefully and meticulously get back in the boat.

Blackened: Just hit it. See it as a challenge rather than a disrupted expectation and conquer it.

What is your version of being “dumped?” Whatever it is, find your initiative and get back in your boat. Row in the way you are comfortable. Engage in something you are good at whether it be physical or mental. Find joy in it. And remember, everyone is a masterpiece!