Low self-esteem. We all know the term. It’s more than personal for most of us.
It’s been part of so many of our stories.
Our lives. Our journeys.
Most of us have been told the same thing about it for so long we don’t even question it anymore. Yes, I know I have low-self-esteem, you say. It’s because of this and this and this – our list is long.
We're usually talking about our upbringing, our backgrounds, our stories.
Except this time, I want to catch you before you go there. Because you’ve been there long enough.
It’s time to turn this whole concept, this very idea of low-self-esteem on its head. You’ve been accepting this as being part of you for far too long. It’s time to do something different with all of this.
It’s time to look at what you’ve come to accept as your low self-esteem in a whole new light.
There’s nothing wrong with you.
You haven’t done anything wrong. You didn’t do something so bad to have earned the label stamped “low self-esteem.”
Actually, it’s the opposite. You only listened too well.
You only heeded all too well the cultural message that said you have to take on what others put on you to be loved.
And that’s exactly what you did. You took on everything. From everyone.
When someone said you should have known better, you agreed. When someone said you should be ashamed for what you did – whether they actually spoke the words or merely implied it didn't matter, you felt it. And then some.
You took everything on yourself. Even just a hint of it, you acquiesced.
To be loved. To be accepted. To be adored.
Everything they projected on you to get it off themselves, you took on.
Every. Single. Time.
That’s what your low self-esteem is. Not yours, but theirs.
It’s only because you have such a beautiful, sensitive soul that you didn’t turn it back on them where it was always meant to rest.
Not on you, Beautiful. Not on you.
That you heeded the message and took it all on you is why. Not because there’s anything the matter with you. Not because it’s become your destiny to shrink so that others can feel better about themselves, but because you simply took on and took on and took on what was NEVER, EVER yours to take on.
Take it and give it back. Just give it back. It’s not yours to carry. It’s not yours to keep taking on.
That’s all your low self-esteem is. That’s it.
No one talks about this because it’s easier not to. It’s easier to maintain the status quo because it benefits them. They don’t have to feel it, but you do. Over and over again.
That label. That feeling in the pit of your stomach. That it’s happening again and again and again.
But the absolute truth is there’s nothing wrong with you. Nothing. Never was and never is.
Throw it off. All of it. Every single piece of their stuff that doesn’t belong there.
All of it.
It was never, ever yours to carry.
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