The Coach Ratner Podcast
Coach Ratner is not a matchmaker, but a MateMaker. With 7 books under his belt, Coach Ratner is an accomplished author and sought-after speaker on topics such as relationships, self-esteem and spirituality. His unique insights and captivating speaking style have helped countless individuals achieve their goals and transform their lives.
Whether you’re looking to unlock your full potential, cultivate meaningful relationships, or just to feel good about yourself, Coach Ratner is here to guide and inspire you every step of the way. Join the thousands who have already been transformed by Coach’s teachings and start your own journey towards success, fulfillment, and ultimately a passionate, loving relationship, with one person for the rest of your life.
The Coach Ratner Podcast
Audiobook-Never Feel Unloved Again, Chapter 6
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Discover how to construct a protective barrier around your personal happiness and self-esteem with insights from Dr. Jane Anderson. We'll uncover the roots of low self-esteem, particularly how family dynamics and parental influence can shape a child's emotional health. Learn the importance of providing unconditional love and understanding the unique motivations of your children to nurture their self-worth. We explore the impact of divorce on children, the pressures of youth sports, and how to support your children in a way that ensures their self-value isn't solely tied to their achievements.
In this empowering episode, we share personal stories and techniques to cultivate resilience, forgiveness, and self-acceptance. Join us as we tackle the influence of social media and consumerism on our self-esteem, highlighting the significance of finding inner contentment rather than seeking external validation. Embrace the journey toward self-love and acceptance, understanding that true happiness stems from within. By fostering these qualities, we aim to equip you with strategies to break the cycle of low self-esteem, promoting emotional well-being for both yourself and future generations.
Welcome to the Living in Clarity podcast. This is Coach Ratner. We are continuing our audio book of Never Feel Unloved Again the 12 Strategies to Cure Low Self-Esteem Be Grateful Instead of Hateful. A recurring theme to carry forward throughout this chapter is the idea of safeguarding your happiness. Envision creating a protective barrier around it, just like a fence in your backyard. Fences serve the purpose of either keeping things in, like young children or dogs, or keeping things out, such as trespassers or wild animals. Just as we deploy safeguards to protect our valuables, money and loved ones, our happiness deserves a similar level of protection. As you go through life, think about what makes you happy and what causes you to feel bad about yourself. Create your own fence to keep the bad out and keep your happiness in. Put a fence up and protect your most important and valuable asset your positive self-esteem. Forgive the source. Where did your low self-esteem originate from? One likely place might be your parents. How parents act in front of their children has an effect on them for the rest of their lives. Their negative behaviors can have a significant impact on their children's self-esteem, whereas providing emotional support and encouragement can foster a positive sense of worth in children.
Speaker 1:A major cause of low self-esteem are people that come from families that deal with dysfunction or have gone through a divorce. There are times that married couples should get divorced, but it does not have to be the high percentage of marriages ending today. I would venture to guess that most parents will say that their children are better off with their parents separated, and they may be right. What you may not hear them say is that their children will develop emotional injuries that may not appear for decades. Dr Jane Anderson, a clinical professor of pediatrics at the University of California, san Francisco, states that divorce is detrimental to the emotional well-being of children. Children of divorced parents may experience various challenges. Some of them include higher risk of emotional distress, decreased social and psychological maturation, higher risk of emotional distress, decreased social and psychological maturation, loss in religious faith and practice, loss in cognitive and academic stimulation and decline in physical health. Other data has shown that children from divorced parents are twice as likely to tempt suicide. They're about four times as likely to have trouble fitting in, and I've seen data that shows women who have divorced parents are 60% more likely to divorce themselves. For men, the number is 35%. This is why the biggest decision you will make in your life is who you are going to marry. This is also why I spent so many years of my life writing and teaching about what it takes to have a passionate marriage.
Speaker 1:Your poor marriage can have such a detrimental effect on your children if you don't know how to model for them what a healthy relationship looks like. Children are generally aware that their parents love them, even when they are divorced. It is when the two people they love the most don't love each other that causes the child to not love themselves. These internal emotional injuries have a tendency to show up later in life, generally after they've been married. The inability to trust others, love others or allowing yourself to be loved are all symptoms of low self-esteem. These symptoms are from poor relationships, but they don't come from your poor relationships. They are not your fault and are not so obvious until after you have many failed relationships later on in life. It is only after coming to terms of what caused your failures is when you are able to forgive the source and make sure it does not happen to your offspring.
Speaker 1:There are two ideas that one should consider when raising children that may not be so intuitive. The first one is that children should know their parents have unconditional love for them. However, saying I love you to a teenager has very little impact on them. What is more important for them is to know that you have their backs. It does not mean that you have to agree with them on every issue. It just means that children know that if you are ever stuck in a difficult situation, you will be there for them. This sets a strong baseline for positive self-esteem and independence throughout their lives.
Speaker 1:The second most important thing when raising children is for the parent to understand what motivates each child. What works for one might not work for the other child. One of the worst things you can tell a child is why aren't you like your brother? Because they are not like their brothers. They are unique and there's no one in the world like them. If your parents criticized you or you were always compared to other children, that may be a source of your low self-esteem. If this is the case, you need to forgive your parents and understand they did the best with the tools that they were given. You can then make sure that you will not be the source for your children's low self-esteem.
Speaker 1:Parents should not set impossibly high standards for their children or themselves. This can lead to feelings of being inadequate when anyone is able to meet those standards. This can be especially true of parents who have spent time and energy promoting the athletic careers of their children. This feeling of low self-esteem originates from aspirations that were never achieved, but it can happen even when they do succeed in athletics. Some athletes who have succeeded at the highest levels in their sport have had to struggle with low self-esteem. Their sport have had to struggle with low self-esteem. This includes athletes such as the Williams sisters, michelle Wee, roy Jones Jr, andre Agassi, just to name a few. Young adolescents who play sports should do it for the purpose of interacting with other children and having fun.
Speaker 1:Once a parent starts pushing a child to make it into his career, the pressure can be immense and can cause low self-esteem. Even if your child is going to grow to 6'9", has great basketball skills, is extremely disciplined, it is still a long shot for them to be a successful professional basketball player. Still a long shot for them to be a successful professional basketball player. The parents should support it, but it should be in the context that the game is a way to make a living, not the way they should be defined as a person. That way, if they don't succeed, which is the most likely scenario they won't suffer with low self-esteem If the same child is only going to be five foot five inches tall. One should never tell their children they will never succeed in basketball because of their height. This is something that a child will eventually figure out for themselves. Otherwise, you telling your kid they'll never be tall enough to be in the NBA can be detrimental and possibly cause them to have low self-esteem.
Speaker 1:Social interactions with peers and teachers can also influence a child's self-esteem. Positive feedback or validation from these interactions will boost their self-worth, while negative experiences or criticism can have the opposite effect. If you had critical teachers growing up, that might have been a contributing source of low self-esteem. Later on in life, experiencing bullying or harassment can lead to feelings of shame, insecurity and low self-worth. This is why parents need to be aware of their children's feelings and take action to protect them if needed. Nothing boosts a child's or adult's self-esteem more than their achievements.
Speaker 1:Success in various areas of life, such as academics, sports or hobbies, can contribute to a person's sense of self-worth. Hobbies are very helpful for positive feelings, even if a child does not stick with it. Trying to find a hobby that your child enjoys will help with improving low self-esteem. Parents should always support the hobbies of their children and give them encouragement at all times. Then there are significant life events, such as trauma, abuse or major life changes, which can have lasting effects on a person's self-esteem. There is a wide range of trauma and abuse, and a certified therapist should be involved when children or adults are trying to recover from such past events.
Speaker 1:While parents and caregivers may play a significant role in the development of a child's self-esteem, it is important to recognize that self-esteem is complex and multidimensional. One should be aware that there are many influencing factors in someone's self-esteem throughout a person's life. Why is understanding the source important to your self-esteem? Because once you can figure it out, you will know what steps to take to cure it. However, the most important thing is to forgive the source of your low self-esteem. Constantly blaming others for your challenges will just turn into an injustice collector. That is not the kind of collector you want to be. It's much better to collect coins or stamps than to collect all the injustice that other people have done to you. This constant holding in of your emotional pain may never go away. Holding onto grudges, resentment or negative feelings towards others can take a toll on your mental health. By practicing forgiveness, we release ourselves from the burden of carrying negative emotions and free ourselves to focus on all the positive aspects of life.
Speaker 1:Parents also need to know to show resilience when they are in front of their children. That includes not blaming, complaining and always trying to see the good in every situation. Life is always going to be throwing challenges our way, so you should not be. You should Not only be resilient, but act resilient in front of your children. One example is how parents deal with insects that invariably show up at everyone's house. They should never freak out or act scared when a spider, wasp or mosquito makes a visit. They should act calm and do what it takes to get the bug out of the house or into the toilet. A parent can use this example to teach compassion to their children by forcing a spider into a cup and tossing the insect outside.
Speaker 1:Parents that want to raise emotionally healthy children should not be the cause of those fears. Yes, wasps can sting, so you may have to kill it, but since most house spiders are harmless, the fear of spiders is irrational. Fear in one instance can spread to other areas of life. Then you end up with children with foolish and unjustifiable fears. There are many communities in America where they have a fear of dogs. Dogs were used to chase slaves who had escaped from their owners previous to their emancipation. Then there are the Nazis, who used them to attack Jews in Europe during the Second World War. Cynophobia is the overwhelming fear of dogs. People with this anxiety disorder feel intense fear and anxiety when they think about or see or encounter a dog. The excuse that most people use for this fear is that they had a negative experience with a dog when they were younger. Forgiving this source also means having the resilience to not let past fears control your life. Personally, I was bitten by my neighbor's German Shepherd when I was about four or five years old. I did not let that affect me later on in life. In fact, I now own a dog and will use her to help other people get over their fears.
Speaker 1:A teacher stands in front of her classroom with her arms stretched out, holding a bottle of water In her palm. She asks the students how much the bottle of water weighs. The students give various examples, from 6 ounces to 1 pound. She responds that the weight is meaningless. What is more important is that the longer she holds the bottle, the more pain she feels. If she holds it in for a minute, there is no pain. If she holds it in for an entire day, the pain will be excruciating. This is the same when we hold a grudge or don't forgive the source of our pain. The longer we hold it in, the more pain we feel.
Speaker 1:Forgiving is a trait that happy people are able to do easily. Since you want to be one of those happy people, you will learn not to hold a grudge and live a life with the ability to forgive, to learn to react to life's challenges with resilience, and learn to forgive the source of your low self-esteem. You will find yourself being a much happier person. Side note my son said that these are the three hardest things for anyone to say I'm sorry, I forgive you and Worcestershire sauce. Be happy with internal satisfaction.
Speaker 1:Not too long ago, we could get a deep sense of personal pleasure from a walk on the beach, watching a beautiful sunset, finishing a marathon or just seeing our children frolic in the park. Just the act of experiencing or accomplishing something was enough to make us feel good about ourselves, without the need for any external validation. It was early in the century that when you traveled, you would bring your camera or buy a disposable one from the drugstore. After your vacation, you would take it to the drugstore or Costco and wait a week to get your pictures printed. Only then would you share it with your close friends and family, not your hundreds or thousands of Facebook or Instagram friends. These moments gave us self-satisfaction happiness that comes from within us, not from anywhere or anyone else.
Speaker 1:Social media has dulled this intrinsic reward. Rather than absorbing these moments for our own benefit, today we share them with the world, seeking public affirmation of our lives. This quest for external validation pushes us to carefully stage moments for others to see. If your satisfaction comes from others' approval, you will always need more of it. Yet people today experience more loneliness, anxiety and depression than any point measured in history, so that must be something that is not working.
Speaker 1:In this modern age of instant communication and social media. The need of approval from others is similar to when someone buys a very expensive name brand clothing or handbags. If buying a Chanel or Louis Vuitton handbag would make you feel better about yourselves for more than a few weeks, then therapists would be out of business. There are probably more therapists per capita in the world today than any time in history. Yet our lives have never been more comfortable and convenient. Truly confident individuals don't rely on showing off a Fendi or Hermes handbag or have to name-drop to feel secure in themselves. They find their self-worth from within and do not need external validations Only. A designer handbag may bring momentary satisfaction, but it cannot replace the deep sense of self-assurance that comes from knowing, accepting and loving oneself.
Speaker 1:Body image can be a source of low self-esteem. This is especially true during adolescence and early adulthood, but it does not seem to end there. The recent phenomenon of people showing off their bodies on social media plays such a major role in how you feel about yourself, no matter how old you are. We are bombarded with scenes of perfect bodies from everywhere you look television, internet ads. We are bombarded with scenes of perfect bodies from everywhere you look television, internet ads, magazine covers and even video screens at malls and airports.
Speaker 1:I thought long and hard about body image and how much time we spend working out being laser focused on eating a vegan, vegetarian, mediterranean or plant-based diet. I am a big fan of eating healthy because I believe you are what you eat. If you put junk in your body, you get junk out of your body. I believe we have become a society that is too focused on our body image. The reason why there are many advertisements for diets and workout gimmicks is because it influences people to buy their products. What do you think is considered a healthy body shape in the images we see today about body or consciousness? The answer is a body that is thin, muscular and tan. If you don't have that, you're out's. Thin, muscular and tan. If you don't have that, you're out of shape, fat and maybe even ugly. There does not appear to be any middle ground. I think these concepts are just the societal views and not the reality we should be living with.
Speaker 1:When did having a tan become synonymous with healthy good looks, while having a pale skin was looked down upon? It's curious to observe how college students, particularly those from the colder northern states, eagerly run outside on the first sunny spring day wearing bathing suits to catch a tan, even when the temperature barely reaches into the high 50s. In movies that depict the 1800s early 1900s, affluent women were often portrayed as having fair, pale skin. The movie Titanic comes to mind as an example. They would stroll about with wide-brimmed hats and parasols shielding their faces from the sun. Being pasty white was considered beautiful. In contrast, having a tan was associated with the working class, those employed outside in the sun, on farms or constructing railroads. Tan skin was considered a marker of lower social standing, synonymous with poverty. The narrative has shifted drastically over time. Today, being tan is often associated with being healthy and fluent, symbolizing a person who can afford to travel to sunny, exotic destinations, whereas being pale means you have to work 80 hours a week to afford rent and food and don't have any free time to be outside.
Speaker 1:When did this shift in social perception occur? I would venture to guess that it coincided with the rise of the marketing industry, particularly when Madison Avenue transformed from just a street in Manhattan to a major epicenter of the marketing universe. The influence of Madison Avenue as a powerhouse in shaping public opinion likely played a pivotal role in defining beauty standards and associating a tan with luxury and influence. At one time, being slightly overweight was considered sexy. Again, this is probably because if you were thin, you didn't eat, because you could not afford to eat. However, in today's society, this is generally not an issue, so now carrying an extra 10 to 20 pounds can lead to feelings of inadequacy, potentially triggering negative emotions, which causes a person to eat more. This then becomes a vicious cycle and we end up 100 pounds overweight. More people die in America from the side effects of overeating than from starvation. We should stop this feeling that we are worthless if we are overweight.
Speaker 1:Once we realize that the source of our low self-esteem is being caused by whatever trends or influence from the boardrooms of Madison Avenue, then we may be able to cure our low self-esteem. Having a body that's healthy is something that everyone should strive for. However, being healthy is not indicated based on how tan or skinny one is. This has caused many in our society to be laser focused on the shape of individual body parts or preoccupied with their weight. This focus on their bodies can be unhealthy and may play a major role in having low self-esteem.
Speaker 1:Once you understand the source of what is causing you to have low self-esteem, you will have an easier time being cured from it. Your internal satisfaction starts with knowing how awesome you really are and there are people that love you, even if you are struggling with loving yourself. Remember that happiness and contentment come from within and are not solely dependent on external circumstances or the opinions of others. No matter your shape, size, skin color, clothes, purse, car or even the likes on your social media. Learn to love and accept yourself as you are, without the need for external validation, and you'll find greater peace and fulfillment in life. This is the Living Clarity Podcast. Thank you so much for listening. If you enjoy it, please like, save, share or send me an email at coachratter at gmailcom or the Living in Clarity podcast at gmailcom. See you next time.