Really good questions to ask yourself

I sure hope I'm allowed to do this? If not, the moderator can remove it..I won't be offended..

I am reading a book called 'Honoring The Self'' this week. I'll put a link up for those who are interested.
http://www.amazon.com/Honoring-Self-Self-Esteem-Personal-Tranformation/dp/0553268147

I think the issue of self-esteem has such an important link to TMS.

I am now remembering a lot about my childhood as I ask myself these really important questions. The emotion is very strong, so be careful to do this slowly. I know I am digging into 'the pit'... to the place where my body pains began and have continued on and off throughout my whole life. (Diagnosed with Fibromyalgia at 21 years old - it was called fibromyositis back then)

I hope these questions will help someone today.

1. When you were a child, did your parents’ manner of behaving and of dealing with you give you the impression that you were living in a world that was rational, predictable, intelligible? Or a world that was contradictory, bewildering, unknowable?

2. Were you taught the importance of learning to think and of cultivating your intelligence? Did your parents provide you with intellectual stimulation and convey the idea that the use of your mind can be an exciting adventure?

3. Were you encouraged to think independently, to develop your critical faculty? Or were you encouraged to be obedient rather than mentally active and questioning? Supplementary questions: Did your parents project that it was more important to conform to what other people believed than to discover what is true? When your parents wanted you to do something, did they appeal to your understanding and give you reasons, when possible and appropriate, for their request? Or did they communicate, in effect, “Do it because I say so”?)

4. Did you feel free to express your views openly, without fear of punishment? Did your parents communicate their disapproval of your thoughts, desires, or behavior by means of humor, teasing, or sarcasm?

5. Did your parents communicate their disapproval of your thoughts, desires, or behavior by means of humor, teasing, or sarcasm?

6. Did your parents treat you with respect? (Supplementary questions: Were your thoughts, needs, and feelings given consideration? Was your dignity as a human being acknowledged? When you expressed ideas or opinions, were they taken seriously? Were your likes and dislikes, whether or not they were acceded to, treated with respect? Were your desires responded to thoughtfully and, again, with respect?)

7. Did you feel that you were psychologically visible to your parents, seen and understood?

8. Did you feel loved and valued by your parents, in the sense that you experienced yourself as a source of pleasure to them? Or did you feel unwanted, perhaps a burden? Did you feel hated? Or did you feel that you were simply an object of indifference?

9. Did your parents deal with you fairly and justly? (Supplementary questions: Did your parents resort to threats in order to control your behavior— either threats of immediate punitive action on their part, threats in terms of long-range consequences for your life, or threats of supernatural punishments, such as going to hell? Were you praised when you performed well, or merely criticized when you performed badly? Were your parents willing to admit it when they were wrong? Or was it against their policy to concede that they were wrong?)

10. Was it your parents’ practice to punish you or discipline you by striking or beating you?

11. Did your parents project that they believed in your basic goodness? Or that they saw you as bad or worthless or evil?

12. Did your parents convey the sense that they believed in your intellectual and creative potentialities? Or did they project that they saw you as mediocre or stupid or inadequate?

13. In your parents’ expectations concerning your behavior and performance, did they take cognizance of your knowledge, needs, interests, and circumstances? Or were you confronted with expectations and demands that were overwhelming and beyond your ability to satisfy?

14. Did your parents’ behavior and manner of dealing with you tend to produce guilt in you?

15. Did your parents’ behavior and manner of dealing with you tend to produce fear in you?

16. Did your parents respect your intellectual and physical privacy?

17. Did your parents project that it was desirable for you to think well of yourself— in effect, to have self-esteem? Or were you cautioned against valuing yourself, encouraged to be “humble”?

18. Did your parents convey that what a person made of his or her life, and what you, specifically, made of your life, was important? (Supplementary questions: Did your parents project that great things are possible for human beings, and specifically that great things are possible for you? Did your parents give you the impression that life could be exciting, challenging, a rewarding adventure?)

19. Did your parents instill in you a fear of the world, a fear of other people? Or were you encouraged to face the world with an attitude of relaxed, confident benevolence?

20. Were you urged to be open in the expression of your emotions and desires? Or were your parents’ behavior and manner of treating you such as to make you fear emotional self-assertiveness and openness or to regard it as inappropriate?

21. Were your mistakes accepted as a normal part of the learning process? Or as something you were taught to associate with contempt, ridicule, punishment?

22. Did your parents encourage you in the direction of having a healthy, affirmative attitude toward sex and toward your own body? A negative attitude? Or did they treat the entire subject as nonexistent?

23. Did your parents’ manner of dealing with you tend to develop and strengthen your sense of your masculinity or femininity? Or to frustrate and diminish it?

24. Did your parents encourage you to feel that your life belonged to you? Or were you encouraged to believe that you were merely a family asset and that your achievements were significant only insofar as they brought glory to your parents?

 

Thought provoking!

 

This list is phenomenal for addressing root causes of low self esteem. When l read it, I could see crystal clear why I struggle. Working to uncover the root of the damage is one thing, but getting enough good daily head talk to undo the damage is another thing. Still in the process of both. And realizing that most of my triggers hearken back to these foundational issues. I should get up the nerve to journal on each question.

Here’s what the author said to do:
The clients were asked first to answer the questions as best they could, then to cite examples in support of their answers, then to describe exhaustively all the emotions that the memory of those examples invoked, and, finally, to meditate on the conclusions drawn from these childhood experiences.

Thank you, @Karen, for posting this timeless list more than a decade ago.

 

First off, thank you whoever dug out this old post.....That sounds like a valuable resource for investigating for TMS root causes.... I have always said, I don't need answers, I need better questions. When you have the right Question, the answer is just 'there'. Those are all good questions. From glancing over them I have a mixed bag...Lots of autonomy, Very little support for individual worth.

That is a weird topic...self esteem. The Man who first helped me thru the 12 steps once said
"I'd like to wake up some morning and move UP to Low self-esteem".
He taught me that the opposite of low self esteem isn't High self esteem...it is (drumroll...........)
No Esteeming. Find your root values and let GO of them...stop esteeming stuff. The Judgement portion IS the problem. Funny...it also ties all religions and psychology together. The 'Original Sin' of Christianity and the Clinging materialism of the Buddah all meet up at that signpost

That is why I have never had much use for stuff that 'boosts' my self esteem. I have all sorts of issues, and stuff I wish I could conquer that isn't TMS related per se, but most of my problems come from my EGO, so raising my self worth is sort of a time bomb....any rise in material,ethical, psychological or physical perception of myself is usually followed by Loss and Despair,,,and TMS...... I grew up in Hollywood and worked for many an old celebrity and never felt sorrier for someone trapped in the throes of what Eckhart Tolle calls "a Limit situation". I watched my Mom who built her Ego around being an intellectual completely lose it all to dementia....

INSPECTING it , though has had the been helpful...admitting my vanities, shortcomings and false hopes has been quite liberating. And I could find virtually all of them by answering those questions. Those ARE all great Questions to confront Ego and find out about your TMS root causes....but I don't want any esteem. I'd only have to watch it leave like a baseball player loses his batting average, kicking against the pricks the whole way to retirement...and THAT would be sad.

 

I agree with @Baseball65 on this. I've posted a few times over the years that I think self-absorption should be added to the list of TMS personality traits. I think we tend to over-focus on evaluating ourselves and where we stand in the pecking order. Letting go of judgment of ourselves, others, our lives in general is the goal. Yes, we need to know ourselves and how our childhood affected us, and these are all good questions to lead to that understanding. But then we need to let go of it and go out and just live our lives, and stop comparing ourselves to others, to how we were in the past, or how we were a moment ago.

 

I was really intrigued by these questions! They are somewhat unique and help me see things from a little different perspective. Above all, they clarify to me why I just struggle so hard to be kind to myself. Sometimes when you can clearly see how you learned something (ie, I don’t “deserve joy,”) you can see how wrong that thinking is and the reason why you first believed it. I pretty much suffered a yes from all these questions. My parents were actually smart, talented and beautiful. Unfortunately, they both also had subzero self esteem, which they passed on to me.

I started reading the book that these questions came from, Honoring the Self: Self Esteem and Personal Transformation by Nathaniel Branden. For some reason, the bell is going off for me with this book. I’ve done an exhausting amount of self analysis, already: 10 years of therapy, the last 3 Internal Family System therapy. (I agree with you @Ellen, at some point enough is enough.) At any rate, Branden says self esteem isn’t about judging yourself or comparing yourself to others. It’s about your core belief about what you really deserve. Not based on achievements. Based on your perception of your inner self worth. Something that can be altered and improved.

The reason I dug up this old thread on self esteem is I started thinking about how my lack of ability to fight for myself is blocking my ability to go forward and live a happy life right now. I need to believe I deserve a good life. Because right now, it’s not a given. It’s hard for me, but I’m getting better at it.

 

This is an important clarification. Thanks.

 

To honor the self is to be willing to know not only what we think but also what we feel, what we want, need, desire, suffer over, are frightened or angered by—and to accept our right to experience such feelings. —Nathaniel Branden