Self-esteem is something that we all wish we had more of. Some of us go through our entire life feeling "self-esteem deficient". The constraints placed on us by low self esteem can feel so impenetrable that we find ourselves shrinking back from our dreams and accepting something less than desirable. This often results in feelings of emptiness, sadness, deprivation and a life not fully lived.

Although a great deal has been written about the problem of self-esteem, here I wish to bring to light a new perspective that I trust will give you hope in freeing yourself from a life of quiet desperation. In order to begin this journey I ask you first to note that we have entitled this book "Esteem for the Self" and not "Self Esteem". Before you read on please take a moment and observe for yourself, which of these terms feels most appealing to you.

Most people feel that the former i.e. "Esteem for the Self", somehow sounds and feels better to them. Take another moment and see if you can determine why this is. As we move along in this journey I think the reasons will become increasingly clearer to you.

Now, I think you have already recognized that the expression "Esteem for the Self" is what most people call "Self-Esteem". As we will discuss later we choose to reverse the order of the words for a very important reason. The term "Self-Esteem" usually connotes something you either have or don't have enough of. It therefore implies that, if lacking, something went wrong somewhere in your life and that there is very little one can do to go back and change it.

This often leaves one feeling helpless, frustrated, angry and or feeling in someway defective. Unfortunately these feelings themselves aid only to further deplete self-esteem. This is made clear by just allowing yourself to feel some or all of these feelings and then noticing what they do to your feelings about yourself. In all cases one experiences a further depletion in ones self-esteem.

An interesting observation however emerges from this last exercise. That is that if these, so called negative emotions can make self esteem plummet, then is it possible that corresponding positive emotions can make self-esteem rise? Well let's try it. Here are some positive emotions: joy, love, happiness, inner peace, feeling grateful and forgiveness.

Allow yourself, if you can, to feel some or all of these and notice how they make you feel about yourself. What did you notice happened to your self-esteem? Well if you were able to genuinely connect to any of these positive emotions I think you will readily see that not only did you feel better but you probably also felt better about yourself; that is your self esteem rose.

An interesting parallel is also observed between one's level of self-esteem and the subjective experience of one's energy level. If you observe what happens to your energy level as your self-esteem fluctuates, you will observe that energy goes up with self-esteem and vice-versa.

Another way of saying the same thing is that one feels lighter, more buoyant, more optimistic and more excited about life as self-esteem rises. Conversely one feels heavier, more weighed down, more tired and more pessimistic as self-esteem goes down.

So in effect, negative emotions appear to drain you of energy and positive emotions help to re-infuse you with energy. The energy we are talking about is what we call "vital life energy" or more simply the energy of life. So what is really happening then when your vital life energy is being drained from your life?

Well it means that the vital life energy that was meant to support you in living a full, healthy, happy life is disappearing. In other words there is less life in you as the energy becomes progressively depleted. Again another way of saying this is that you are aging or dying. So are you beginning to recognize the real impact of negative emotions on your life? How do you feel about it? Watch out for those negative emotions because they'll get you every time!

(Kindly proceed to Part 2 of this article)