Since the release of my book Self Esteem Unlocked a lot of people have expressed interest in the idea of hidden belief systems that hold you back and stop you from achieving your full potential.
A lot of readers have emailed asking about family belief systems, for example, the things which family members say about their abilities and the status of the family. Often they are used to define your family’s place in the road where you live and in society in general and to explain and reinforce why certain things are done or not done in the family.
Where the whole family suffers from low self esteem you may hear excuses or comfortable family jokes that are used to explain away a lack of achievement such as ‘you won’t find any eggheads in this family; not like So-and-So down the road: just because their eldest went to university they think they are better than everyone else.’
Such things can be passed down from generation to generation; a father struggles to cope with DIY and is constantly nagged and criticised by his wife. Years later their son may be surprised to discover that he is in a very similar situation. Without knowing it he has followed the unwritten family script that says ‘I am no good at DIY and my wife is ashamed of my lack of ability and criticises me for it.’
The good news is that you do not have to be held back by these restrictions. The first step is to see what you are dealing with. It is useful to sound out other members of the family that you know you can trust to be discreet and ask them their opinion. People love to be asked for their advice and you will often unearth some shrewd insights.
An elderly aunt of mine described the men folk on my mother’s side of the family as ‘cautious, reserved individuals who like nothing more than to go home after work and nestle in the bosom of their family. They work hard and are likely to have money squirrelled away in lots of odd corners.’ This means that if anyone in our family wanted to go out and buy a bright pink Porsche and spend all night partying until 3 am. we would have to undo a great many family belief systems!
Part of improving your self esteem is being able to develop the flexibility to step outside of the unhelpful family belief systems.
For example, one person that I worked with was very inhibited by the way her father used to tell her that she would never amount to anything. Whenever she couldn’t manage to do something or things went wrong for her this phrase would trigger in her mind and she would experience feelings of misery, apathy and hopelessness. Once it was in the open she began to challenge this thought whenever it flashed through her mind. To start with it felt as difficult as trying to catch butterflies, but she persevered, and, using other techniques from the book she was soon able to take failures great and small in her stride.
Other things that Self Esteem Unlocked will help you with are Money Beliefs. If your family has the hidden belief that “we have always been poor” or “we never seem to be able to manage money properly; it just slips through our fingers” you may have troubles. Self Esteem Unlocked will show you how to unearth these beliefs and get them out into the open and then how to bust them open and replace them with much more healthy beliefs such as “with hard work, determination, flexibility, initiative and shrewdness I can create for myself an income and lifestyle that I will be proud of.”
Self Esteem Unlocked will help you with your Sex Beliefs. At the moment the dieting industry and the media has got us all by the short and curlies so that the prevailing belief is that unless you are slim and toned you cannot be sexually attractive. What rubbish! Improving your self esteem makes you really enjoy being you and when that happens you believe you are drop dead gorgeous without a shadow of a doubt. And you don’t have to throw all your mirrors away! Self confidence makes you incredibly attractive sexually.
Enjoy the book; it’s one of the most important you will ever read.
Notes
False values; money: I’ll never earn much; your level in society can be determined by education, what your dad did and what you’re mum and dad and grandparents Believed. These are the hidden things that hold you back. If your parents had a secret belief ‘we will always be hard up’ then that is what will happen to you. ‘We are not big drinkers’ ‘I can never get clothes to fit me’ ‘Bernard’s scathing views of neighbour Charles: he is a shit; his children are scathing with one another and with friends. For scathing read a high degree of judgmentalism.’
