Self-worth-- wHaT's ThAt?!

I have to say first and foremost- the title of this post made me giggle a little bit because in writing it, I kept imagining someone like that PBS paint guy Bob Ross saying in his funny voice:

*Disclaimer for this post-- my thoughts may be everywhere-- but I promise that eventually through a few posts- it will all tie together.*

So, to get started. Self-worth: also known as self confidence, self-respect, self-love, self esteem. Self-worth is what enables us to believe that we are capable of doing our best with our talents, of contributing well in society, and that we deserve to lead a fulfilling life. Everyone, at some point in their life, struggles with self-esteem issues. So don't feel alone! The BIGGEST obstacle of learning your self worth is learning to over come what ever issues you may face. Whether it be fear of not being able to do something, fear of failure, poor self image, thinking you're not smart enough... the list goes on and on. 

So--- HOW do we start to learn of our own self worth? HOW do we start to build our self esteem and come to realize our own self worth?  First things first: 

Now, bear with me because things could get super cheesy sounding-- BUT bare with me. As cheesy as things may sound, they actually work.  

First Step: Getting Your Head Right 

What in the heck does that mean? It means we need to understand the power of attitude toward yourself. How you perceive yourself, how you talk about yourself-- how you represent yourself eventually becomes a reality for you. If it happens that you're putting yourself down, belittling your worth, and making light of your talents in the face of others, you will come across as self-effacing and low in self-esteem. This isn't humility -- it's self-denial. But, if you exaggerate your qualities, talents, and skills, you'll most likely come across as egotistical and arrogant. There is a middle pathway to follow-- one that doesn't make you come across as self-effacing or arrogant-- but to know the fact that you are a valuable person, equal to everyone else, and that you are unique and worthy. Getting to this belief can be difficult if you have spent years underestimating your worth but it is always possible to change your thoughts and to learn to value yourself. 

We need to learn self-love-- the English language has a hard time dealing with the word "love" – it has to cover a lot of territory for the many different types of love out there. Having self-love is about treating yourself with the same care, tolerance, generosity, and compassion. Self love falters when we fall into the realm of addiction. Alcoholism, drug addiction, Internet addiction, and all similar addictions are a sign that you're hurting deeply but also that you don't want to face up to the opportunities presented by working through your pain. Working through pain is KEY. It is by no means pleasant-- thus the reason why not many people work through it. 

Facing what we struggle with is painful-- realizing things that we need to change about ourselves, letting go of our fears and facing them so that we can become better is difficult. Letting go of fears and insecurities is scary. Our fears and insecurities act as a shield-- making us think it is protecting us-- when in actuality-- it's doing nothing more than pushing us further and further away from what we are wanting to become. Once we accept and realize what needs to be changed in ourselves, and start MAKING the change, it will accelerate us to the next level-- getting us closer to the person we want and strive to be.  YOU ARE WORTHY. You deserve the best life has to offer. (Ready for the cheesy part?!) Help yourself believe that you are worthy. Figure out what it is you need to do to get to that point where you can make that change. Find help-- it's out there. Whether you do it on your own or whether you seek out help-- work towards to getting what you want. YOU DESERVE IT.

In the next post-- The next step--Analyzing yourself and building a positive self image. 

Basic Human Needs-- The Beginnings of the Formula of Happiness

According to many psychologists and  doctor people, there are fundamentals or a hierarchy's of human needs. For Maslow, he says it's physiological, safety, love and belong, esteem and self-actualization. According to Glasser, it's survival, love and belonging, power of recognition, freedom and fun. And then according to some other guys that no one really knows or who has really heard of (Manfred Max-Neef and others), there is subsistence, protection, affection, understanding, participation, leisure, creation, identity and freedom. All of these guys have some pretty great points on what us humans 'need' to survive and/or be happy. What I want to do with my next couple of posts is concentrate on certain subjects or sub-subjects that I think (and what some of the professionals think) is the formula for happiness. 

Now, as I was doing some research, I just so happened to get the bright idea to Google "formula for happiness" and much to my surprise and nerdish delight, an ACTUAL formula popped up. It looked a little something like this:

   Now, I don't know about all y'all, but that doesn't make much sense to me. It's been quite a long time since I did any sort of algebraic equation so quite frankly, my brain about exploded when I tried to even understand this even a little bit. But, according to the website I found this on (http://www.nationaljournal.com/economy/this-is-literally-the-formula-for-happiness-20140805), it states that "the gist of that formula is this: Happiness spikes when we win and our expectations are low- but that happiness gradually fades over time." So, basically, they weren't studying overall, lasting happiness, but more a momentary joy from a 'reward'. As I was reading through the article a little voice and image of Obi-Wan Kenobi popped into my head as he waved his hand and said "this is not the formula you are looking for." so, I took that in a nutshell- they lied. This is no formula for happiness. Do they think that it's going to be that easy?!?!? Nothing that valuable ever comes that easy! Good, lasting things take time, work, and effort. 

To start off my quest for a 'formula' or more, and outline to follow to gain happiness, I want to concentrate on a few different things-- self-worth, life circumstances, our own view on things, humor, relationships, and spirituality. There will be other things to come, but I want to concentrate first on these things first. 

Tune in tomorrow for a thrilling post about learning how knowing your self-worth contributes to happiness. It will be dangerously sensational! 

A funny thing called life

Life: The awkward stage between birth and death. We all experience it. At times we either love it, hate it, make the most of it, or take it for granted. But when it all comes down to it-- life is what WE make of it. In attempting to start this blog, (and hopefully keep it going) I hope to address the important things in life--Happy things, sad things, things we all hate to talk about but oddly enough need to hear, hilarious things, some not so hilarious things, and things that will hopefully touch your souls and lift you up and give you the motivation to become the best "You" you can be. We all have ideas of what we ultimately want to achieve-- to become. The problem is getting there-- figuring out how to become the person we long to be.

My hope is that in the things that I have to write and express, it will inspire for good-- not for evil-- because come on, lets face it-- we have plenty of that going around. There are plenty of people out there that are a little trigger happy and want to blow everyone up because they had a horrible childhood and therefore want everyone to suffer as they suffered. I think the world needs more people like that one child in nursery school that went around giving hugs to people and sharing their juice box with their now new best friend. I'm not saying that that is what people should do now--cause lets get real, having a grown man come up to you, give you a hug and want to share his juice box would be a little creepy and leave you wondering whether or not he should be out wondering the streets alone. So, starting with my next post-- which hopefully will be tomorrow, I'm going to start out with the 'Fundamentals for Achieving a Happy(ier) Life. Everything else has fundamentals-- why can't life?!