Self-Esteem - How to Regain it After Losing it to the Dieting Game

The foundations of high self-esteem are built in childhood through sound nurturing. This is a part of good parenting, vital to a child's healthy and happy development. It is through positive nurturing - the giving of unconditional love - that a child learns they are loved and loveable. Through these messages they learn how to give and receive love. This includes the ability to receive love openly from others and to give themselves the self-loving they also need.

In adulthood, the ability to believe ourselves loved and loveable may take a serious beating, when we allow ourselves to be influenced by external events and cultural attitudes. This is especially true for those who experience the effect of the dieting game on size and psyche.

Once trapped in the mindset of a dieter, the effect on self-esteem is destructively damaging. This is because people are influenced to believe that...

• they are not attractive as they are;
• unless they are a certain shape, size of weight that they are not good enough;
• unless they are 'food restricting' they are not being 'good';
• they are a failure when the weight loss goal is not attained or sustained.

In fact, many people's self-esteem has little or nothing to do with the love that surrounds them and is within them. Instead it had everything to do with weight, food and looks. How unhealthy is that?

Self-esteem in adulthood is based on how we view ourselves in our world. This in turn is dependent on how much we love ourselves. When we live in a world where we constantly compare ourselves to others, it is inevitable that our self-esteem will be affected. Judgement and comparison are two of the destroyers of self-esteem.

Comparing ourselves to others may mean that we make judgments about ourselves based on what other people say or write. Lost to us are the positive messages we learnt in childhood, that we are loved and lovable. What we have also lost to the dieting game is a healthy ability to love ourselves unconditionally. It is this unconditional self-love that sustains our self-esteem in adulthood through difficult and challenging times.

Without this inner belief of ourselves as lovable, and the outward actions of self-loving acts, we are at the mercy of all the negative messages generated by the dieting game. The more we seek external affirmations that we are good enough, attractive enough, the perfect size etc., the more we give ourselves a short-term fix of self-esteem. It never lasts. Like a drug we need to find the next quick fix, sooner and stronger. This is the reason for our lost lives where self-esteem is fleeting or for some non-existent

Regaining self-esteem requires us to turn our backs on what others may think or say that is negative. It needs us to focus on a search for the truth that we are, in this moment, perfectly loved and loveable. It requires of us that we start to love our body image. To do this we need to watch for all the signs and messages that underpin the truth, that no matter what shape, size or weight we are still unique, wonderful and loving people.

It is far too easy, in life, to discount and throw away all these positive signs in preference for the negative ones. These are the ones that keep our thoughts and beliefs revolving to the negative. They are the destroyers of all self-esteem. The choice to focus on the positive is yours.

Chrissie Webber is a published author and weight management motivation coach. Through her online company http://www.lifeshapers.co.uk/ she offers support, motivation and re-parenting to the 95% - 97% of dieters who are still struggling to find the weight they were born to be. Her web site and blog [http://www.chrissiewebber.co.uk/] offer motivation 'Keys' that help children, parents and adults discover a life without guilt, shame and self-loathing. To learn/relearn the skills of 'Conscious Eating' and how to live in harmony with food and nature become an online member today: http://www.lifeshapers.co.uk/