Review: The Six Pillars of Self Esteem, by Nathaniel Branden

Six Pillars of Self-Esteem by Nathaniel Branden
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I took my time reading this book as there is so much to process. This was my first book from Nathaniel Branden, and I will definitely seek out others he has written as I found this so helpful.

This book focuses on what self-esteem is and how to raise your self-esteem. This was the author's forte in his practice as a therapist. The six pillars are The Practice of Living Consciously, of Self Acceptance, of Self Responsiblity, of Self Assertiveness, of Living Purposefully, and of Personal Integrity. Some might feel that is enough to know, but Nathaniel Branden goes into detail about each of these and how they apply. It enables the reader to full understand the meaning of self-esteem and how to create and build it, if it was missing from your upbringing (as it was in mine). He also touches on those that had it damaged and how to work with that.

Nathaniel Branden uses a sentence completion system to repair and build self-esteem. He provides the beginning of a sentence for the reader/patient to complete. Through repetition daily, using the same 4-5 sentence stems for a week to two weeks, the reader/patient is able to trigger some conscious and subsconscious changes in their thinking to aid their self-esteem. Each pillar has its own sentence stems the reader can use, but at the back there is also a 31 week program or course where you can focus each week on 4-5 sentence stems and review them each week to really go indepth and work to build it properly and constructively. I am currently following it and finding it quite profound in places.

Some reviews of this book and of Nathaniel Branden's work are criticised due to his connection to Ayn Rand. Some feel that this connection negates his work in some way. I haven't fully understood why as I haven't found anything that Rand has written to contradict Branden's work. Or that she believed or wrote anything negative. On his own, his work has merit and for those seeking to improve their self-esteem and thus their outlook on life, and achieve more in life, this book is definitely worth your time.

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How to feel your feelings, not think your feelings

Whenever you are upset do you resist how you feel?

Do you spend ages in your head debating why you feel the way you do?

Do you analyse and judge your feelings, processing them by deciding if they are valid or not?

How we feel affects our physical state. It causes tension in the body, muscle problems, anxiety, and can manifest in a multitude of ways; I’ve suffered muscle problems in my back, neck and shoulders, heart palpitations, anxiety/panic attacks, hyperventilating, acid stomach, irritable bowel syndrome, and eczema. All of them were a direct result of how I was feeling at the time, even though I often wasn’t conscious of it.

While working with my physiotherapist, we discussed how I process my feelings, and I said I thought about how I felt and sort of debated or discussed it in my head as a way to resolve how I was feeling. Sometimes it would only change the emotions – and not always in a helpful way. If I judged myself, or told myself off for feeling that way I would make myself feel worse.

By way of a diagram they showed me that this was the long way round, and actually would trigger more feelings, causing me to delay resolving my initial feelings.

Thinking about them instead of feeling them meant I held them in my body for longer, sometimes forever without ever resolving them. But if I didn’t engage with them mentally, if I just sat with my feelings, let myself feel them, without judging or thinking about them, simply experiencing them, then my body would release them much quicker. And if it was a negative feeling, the intensity of the feeling would be reduced the next time it showed up.

I believe one of the biggest reasons behind the rise in mental illness and mental health issues is that we are taught that feeling our feelings and expressing them is a bad thing.

“The avoidance of feelings amplifies the feeling. Directly turning into the feelings will dissipate them.” – Chris Witecki

We are told expressing emotions exposes us or makes us vulnerable. That it is ugly or brash and something to be ashamed of; that it offends other people, whether it is anger or sadness, and we should hide it from other people.

But even though our society has taught us that expressing our feelings is a bad thing, our feelings are there to be felt – not discussed, not negotiated, not confined, repressed or pushed way, but felt.

If we don’t feel our feelings, we can’t trust our feelings, or know how we feel about anything. It undermines our self confidence and ability to be sure about what we like and don’t like, or what we want and don’t want. It can stop us being able to build any kind of inner security.

If we don’t feel our feelings we can’t learn how to regulate and balance them, and decide what is normal within our own bodies, and be able to identify when we are feeling more sensitive than usual.

Without feeling our feelings, we can’t really know how we feel about anything, good or bad. And it cuts us off from ourselves making us less in touch with who we are, which in turn affects our ability to connect to others in a confident, healthy way.

“Instead of resisting any emotion, the best way to dispel it is to enter it fully, embrace it and see through your resistance.” – Deepak Chopra

In the case where feelings are about past trauma or part of PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder) it can be very difficult to feel those feelings again, and the knee jerk reaction is to push them away and not want to feel them; to dissociate and detach from them. But those feelings more than any others need to be felt so that they can be acknowledged and released. This helps resolve how we feel inside, and teaches us how to respond to them if and when they come up again.

By allowing ourselves to feel those raw feelings and sitting with them for a while, they won’t be so raw the next time. They will be significantly reduced and maybe disappear all together.

“The emotion that can break your heart is sometimes the very one that heals it.” – Nicholas Sparks

Here’s the process my physio taught me when I felt triggered or upset:

1. Where in your body are you feeling this feeling? (often for me it was my stomach; I felt sick)
2. Sit with that feeling – really feel it throughout your whole body;
3. Imagine that feeling as a ball, or turn it into a ball in your mind’s eye, and imagine taking that ball out of your body and holding it in your hands;
4. Then try and put that ball back inside you;
5. Does it feel different? (usually it feels completely different or has changed and you can't get it back in)

But you don’t have to imagine it as a separate entity and imagine taking it out of yourself, you can also imagine it just fading and releasing.

We can’t change anything without acknowledging and accepting it, so by doing this we are able to change it. Not only the feeling and how we hold it in our bodies, but also how we respond to it. By being still and letting it consume us for a moment we are present with it, and present with ourselves. We learn how we feel, how our body feels, and build a better more connected relationship with ourselves.

“To express yourself needs a reason, but expressing yourself IS the reason.” – Ai Weiwei

Review: The Magic of Surrender by Kute Blackson

The Magic of Surrender: Finding the Courage to Let Go by Kute Blackson
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I'm a fan of Kute Blackson. I adore his book You. Are. The. One and have read it multiple times. I was hoping for something as powerful again and there is a lot of fantastic stuff in this book, but it didn't quite hit the mark for me in the same way - although I will read it again.

I understand the concept of letting go, but do struggle with the use of the word 'surrender' and 'magic' used in this context. The connation is that you give up on something or giving yourself over to something. Although the message in this book is to give yourself over to your heart, and not let your mind or your fears rule your life. It's about letting your heart decide, follow your heart and listen to that, rather than do things you don't really want to do because you are chasing a specific outcome.

I felt using words like Magic and Surrender is really feeding into the esoteric side of spirituality that has become a marketing tool in the personal development industry, and moves away from helping people develop tools to actually move forward in their life. Although Kute simplifies these terms to make them accessible, and is in some ways straddling the two to reach a wider audience. The overall theme in this book was about not resisting life and letting it happen and live in the moment and let go of a specific outcome or expectation. Not a new concept and one he has tackled in his previous book.

Kute uses a method of providing multiple examples that go over the same subject so you can absorb it from different perspectives and find one that works for you. There were examples in this book that reflected my situation exactly, and each time I gained more understanding about what I need to do - or, more accurately, what I need to think; how to change my mindset and see how I can open up my life to be everything I want it to be. When I found myself struggling or disbelieving an example, I realised it meant I was wrangling with the concept and it was a moment of growth for me.

It's the kind of book that definitely needs more than one read to be able to consume all the messages and teachings offered within it, even though it wasn't as prolific as his first book.



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The key to unlock guilt - what are you really feeling?

Do you feel guilt on a regular basis?

Does it control and manipulate you?

Does it paralyse and stop you doing things you want to do?

Guilt is a destructive and ultimately pointless emotion. - Lynn Crilly

One day when I was at my acupuncturist, I mentioned feelings of guilt, and he told me that guilt wasn’t a real emotion; it was an emotion that covered other emotions and asked me what I was really feeling. I thought about it, and that day it was fear and sadness.

It made me think about all the times I had felt guilt – which was quite a lot in my life as my mother used it as a tool to get her way through my entire childhood. She was a master manipulator in making me feel bad about myself so I would do what she wanted. This developed into me becoming a people pleaser, always sacrificing my own feelings for others, and feeling guilty if I didn’t.

It was revolutionary for me to realise that guilt wasn’t really an emotion, that every time I felt it I was really suppressing another emotion. With my mother it was mostly shame and fear. Shame being: what made me so important to put myself first? How could I think so highly of myself? Doing so was shameful, so I had to relent to others, meaning her. And fear: what would she do if I didn’t? What words or actions would she take to hurt me?

With my husband it was fear too, and sadness; fear that I would lose him if I didn’t act differently or do what he wanted - not that he was asking or forcing me to do anything because by then it had become an automatic response. And sadness that I wasn’t able to connect in our relationship as much as I wanted and needed.

Guilt is always hungry, don't let it consume you. - Terri Guillemets

​In deciphering guilt I was able to decipher my true feelings and release the paralysis that guilt often brings. I was able to take action and go about resolving the feelings, whether just by thinking through them, or by being able to do something about the real emotion I was feeling. It was the key to unlocking my guilt.

My feelings of guilt had also led to suppressed anger, anger which had been destructive in my life and relationships, stopping me from being able to connect properly and engage in ways that were healthy and constructive. So in understanding the truth behind my feelings of guilt, I was also able to resolve a great deal of my anger, which was mostly directed at myself for giving in to others all the time.   

So next time you find yourself feeling guilty about something, ask yourself, what am I really feeling? And try and name those feelings. If you can identify your true feelings you can take action to respond to them differently.

The guilt you feel finally comes to an end when you fully express how it came into your consciousness. - Luke Garne

Review: One of Us Has To Go, by Katja Schulz

One Of Us Has To Go by Katja Schulz
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I was curious about this book, as I know a few people with both mild and severe OCD. As it is the true story of the author's life, with a few alterations to respect privacy, I wondered how it would be written: what point of view it would take, where it would begin, how the information would be imparted. It read as an intriguing real-life drama, with elements of suspense.

The author starts at a breaking point for the main character - one of us has to go - and then returns to the past, starting from the beginning to tell the story of Finja and her friend Sonja, who is the one with OCD, moving backwards and forwards between the past and present day until the past catches up.

I found the writing compelling and the story piqued my curiosity, especially with cliff hangers at the end of some of the chapters. I became emotionally invested in Finja's story, and needed to see how it was going to turn out: how she reached that breaking point and what the outcome would be. I wasn't disappointed - in fact it has quite a revelation at the end, with an ending I hadn't anticipated at all and landed the 'wow' factor.

The author puts across the chaos of the OCD sufferer, and also how it affects those caring for them, in a way that is coherent for anyone to understand, even those of us who do not suffer it or come into contact daily with those that do. I was able to understand on a level I hadn't before, and in fact I was amazed at how much the author had been able to achieve in their life - especially living in multiple countries and different cultures. It shows that the illness doesn't deprive the victim of their ability to live, just whether they are able to enjoy the life they were living.

It also highlighted the trauma that is often a root cause for this illness, and how the people that inflicted the trauma are never held accountable. I was horrified by both sets of parents and their lack of responsibility and caring.

The other exceptional part about this book is that the author is not a native English speaker, and this is not a translated book (even though it is edited), and yet it reads as well as any written by an native English person.

I am keen to read this authors second book, and would urge anyone with an interest in understanding OCD to give this book a read.



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Review: Neurotribes, by Steve Silberman

NeuroTribes: The Legacy of Autism and How to Think Smarter About People Who Think Differently by Steve Silberman
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I came to this book after watching Steve Silberman give a Ted Talk about the forgotten history of autism and how the current anti-vaccine movement is still centred around the fear of children developing it.

As a mother of an autistic (Aspergers) son, I am fully aware that vaccines have no connection to autism. My son showed signs of his particular autistic nature within the first days of being born. But I was interested to know more about how this misinformation escalated into what is termed as the 'Autism wars', and this book was far from disappointing.

It also resolved once and for all why there is, what is termed an 'epidemic' of cases by showing that it is solely down to the perimeters of the diagnosis being developed and released through each edition of the DSM (the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, published by the American Psychiatric Association). The manual was first published in 1974 and has since gone through several revisions, defining Autism and its myriad symptoms more clearly with each issue. It is this and nothing more insidious that is causing this upswing in numbers.

Neurotribes provides the history of Autism, right back to its very first mention in the late 1800's. Silberman uses the detailed case notes of Hans Asperger and his team in Vienna prior to the second world war, describing each individual case and how it was found, talking about specific children and people. He also talks about Eugenics which was heavily prevalent at the time in the United States, and even law from 1909 to 1939 in most states, and how it informed the campaign that Hitler used to rise to power.

It also details the disturbing outcome for the children in institutes both prior to the war and during, and the true horrors that befell them. Back then they were tagged as Feebleminded, and parents were advised to put them in institutes as they weren't believed to be worth educating. In fact in many cases it was only families with money or those that couldn't bear to give up their child that kept them at home and who actually turned out as fully developed individuals.

He recounts how after the second world war, research into Autism was led by a man named Kanner, in the US - as all of the psychologists and researchers working in this field prior to the war were either no longer alive or no longer living in Europe due to many of them had been Jewish. Kanner's input wasn't positive, as he believed autism was rare and/or caused by toxic mothers. His beliefs about the condition actually created a great deal of the stigma that autism still carries today. It was only from the 1960s onwards when parents started to push back against these ideas and start to come together that more progress was made, and Aspergers initial findings (that it was not rare at all) would return and become part of the diagnostic literature.

In the latter years, Silberman talks about society and cultural influences, and how it is no longer just about children but about adults too. He talks about how a man called Lovaas, a clinical psychologist, brought in the idea that it was a disease that could be treated and even cured with holistic medicine, and the problem that caused for many parents, who instead of accepting and working with their children to nurture and help them grow, it stigmatised people with autism further. And how the organisation Autism Speaks still promotes these ideas.

Silberman doesn't try and temper the darker more disturbing sides, he solely narrates every detail, providing an overall picture of how the diagnostics have progressed over the decades.

The later part of this book provided some interesting insights into how adult autistic people think and feel, which helped me understand my own son better, and also provides details of organisations and conferences out there not just for me as a parent but for autistic people.

This book has helped me understand how the diagnostic side works, and provided me with valuable information on both the autistic mind and what is available for both me as a parent and for my son.

This is a valuable read for anyone who has had Autism touch their lives. I am not surprised it won an award.

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Comparison - how to stop it, and live the life you want

Do you wonder how others do things? 

Do you see it as a failure on your part if you aren't doing things the way others are?

Comparison can be positive when it is in analysis of statistics to gain more information, or in decision making. But when used to compare ourselves to others, or comparing someone else’s life to our own can often lead to negative feelings like regret, frustration, sadness, depression, even anxiety.

We all get stuck in the trap of comparing ourselves to others from time to time, whether materialistic things or not. We've all coveted a neighbour’s garden, car, or holiday. We’ve all looked at someone’s success and compared it to our own, and been left disappointed with what we’ve achieved.

“The reason we struggle so much with insecurity is because we compare our behind-the-scenes with everyone else’s highlights reel.”- Steve Furtick

Those are clear cut examples of comparison, but there is a more insidious kind that is almost unconscious. It lies in conditioning within our society and culture, and is when we don’t do what the herd does, or matches what the herd does, and we are ousted and excluded, or ridiculed.

The pressure to stand true to ourselves is hard. If we think differently, take different actions, or desire different things, from tiny things to how you live your day to day life, run your household, do your job, raise your children, to how you respond to people, how open you are, how you see things from another perspective. It can be difficult. 

But the truth is we are not all the same, and not just in likes and dislikes and preferences, but in how we receive information, how we process things, how we respond or react to things. And this can make it so much harder, and cause us to be harder on ourselves.

“Comparison is the thief of joy.” – Teddy Roosevelt

A recent chat with a friend was a prime example of this. They felt they could not meditate, because they weren’t doing it ‘right’, because they were unable to follow online meditations due to struggling with visualisation.

Not everyone sees in pictures, some people see in words. My friend is an incredible poet, but felt limited because she couldn't conjure up the images the person narrating the meditation suggested. She felt she was wrong, or there was something wrong with her that she wasn't able to do this. But I told her that that is not the case; everyone has their own way, and not everyone can visualise and that’s normal. I could the relief in her face.

I see it in books I read on self-help, too, especially those that have a spiritual basis. Some of them define ways you should see/feel/process things. They are written as though it is only that way. But every person has their own way; they process things in their own way. They imagine things and relate to things differently; symbols mean different things to each individual.

These are external small pressures we as individuals often feel, and they can mount up. Small ways we feel we don’t fit into the crowd and are failing somehow.

With some people it can make them angry, and resentful, even causing them to reject an entire community, topic, or convention; wasting time and energy being hateful towards it or complaining about it. Others might view this behaviour as bitter or jealous, yet really it is a reaction to feeling insecure. They might like to be a part of it, but they don’t fit with the expected behaviour/method/thought process. They struggle to adjust to what is required. They haven’t worked out how they can encompass it in a way that works for them. This can lead to isolation, depression, or feeling ostracised.

“Don’t compare your life to others. There’s no comparison between the sun and moon. They shine when it’s their time.” – Abhishek Chauhan

So how do we stop feeling this way? How do we stop comparing ourselves?

We start by recognising when we are making those comparisons, and the negative or limiting impact they have on us. Identifying the areas they show up in and assessing how we feel about them.

When you look at others and what they are doing, and maybe feel anxious that you are not where they are, tell yourself, I’m doing what I’m doing, and I’m okay with where I am at. I don’t need to be there, or doing that. Reaffirm your own goals, and your own steps, as well as acknowledging the achievements you have made.

Only compare in a positive way, in a way that inspires you to better yourself. If you look at what someone is doing, you might think, ‘I want to do that too.’ But rather than then look at it as a failure that you are not,  look at how they are doing whatever it is you want to be doing, ask questions, get informed about how to go about - decide if it really is what you want to be doing, and then make your own way there. Use them as a positive role model.

Don’t let external pressures dictate who you want to be and how you want to show up. Take pride in your uniqueness.

Find your own way. Cherry pick if you like. Find what suits you.

Remind yourself there is no right or wrong way - only the way that works for you.

This your journey, your path, not theirs. 

You deserve to be seen. You deserve to be heard. You deserve to be known for the real deal that you are. The best place in life is where you’re already okay. Come home to you. It’s where you belong.” - Anne Bechard