Thursday 24 OCTOBER 2002 (THE SUN) by Julian Aloysius Leicester Stuck with a label that is subconsciously holding you back? Julian A. Leicester says this is a result of negative programming.
One day a young lady came by my office. Let's just call her Cik Hafidah. She was a shy and quiet person and spoke pleasantly and intelligently. As we chatted, I found out that she was a lawyer. Cik Hafidah has a 'serious' problem: she said she didn't have the self-esteem and confidence to be a good lawyer. "I am just not lucky and can't be like others successful lawyers."
Self-esteem is one of the fundamental influences on nearly everything you do. When it is low, almost all areas on your life - be it at work, in your social or personal life - is made more difficult. Loss of self-esteem does not occur suddenly. It is a gradual thing, and you may find yourself becoming extremely critical of yourself or afraid to attempt anything new. You may even excuse any success you achieve by saying "I was just lucky" or "It was a mistake", or "Anybody could do that."
This kind of self0depreciation or self-sabotage is not an accident as it does not materialise out of nowhere. It reflects a condition that is rooted in the past and one fo the major causes of poor self-esteem is past negative programming that is the product of judgemental parents, teachers, friends, employers, etc.
All people are judgemental to some degree. There are those who serve up a categorical classification at every turn, one who decides what you do is either good or bad, right or wrong. They use a one-dimensional generalisation, and I call them them global labeler.
Of course, the list of labels varies from person to person, and sometimes the labels that are most condemning to you are those that seem to be most successfully buried and forgotten. But they are there, somewhere in your subconscious, contributing to the way you perceive yourself, influencing the degree to which you can exhibit self-esteem.
Your inherit the thinking style of your judgemental party. You acquire a critical inner voice that produces an internal fear. Finally, your self-esteem may suffer from the way you perceive your physical self. This perception may cause you to miscalculate your overall potential. Instead of acknowledging our physical limitations and then mentally counteracting whatever may seem negative, you see your whole being as negative.
Your major goal is to improve self-esteem now and permanently. One way to accomplish this is by positive reprogramming of your subconscious. This is done through the use of hypnotic induction to gently assist you to rid yourself of past negative reprogramming, improve your self-projection, increase your confidence and self-acceptence and change your perspective on your relationship to a given problem.
"See a whiteboard with the uncomfortable negative labels that have been given to you in the past. And now take an eraser and erase those labels from the board, just erase each one, wipe it away, it has no meaning for you...You are kind to yourself, capable, talented and you no longer have time for negative thoughts or feelings, you fill your mind with positive ideas, productive goals, and look at life as an adventure."
- Julian A. Leicester
