Self-Esteem: The Core Of Our Personal Power

In this episode, Dr. Gina discusses how self-esteem impacts all aspects of our lives. She dives deep into explaining how self-esteem is the foundation of a successful and happy life. She strives to show how healing our self-esteem is transformative, life-changing and the source of our personal power.

Transcript

Welcome to living simply a guide to mindful living and mindful parenting with your host,

Dr.

Gina.

Hey everybody.

Welcome to living simply with Dr.

Gina Madrugrano.

My name is Ben Barber.

I'm the producer of the show and here she is.

Dr.

Gina.

Hey,

Dr.

Gina.

How are you?

I'm doing well Ben.

And how are you today?

I'm good.

It's Memorial Day here in America,

The United States.

And so it's,

I thought I was going to have more of a day off.

And then I realized that I didn't do that.

And I had all a whole bunch of commitments,

But it's been good.

How's your day going in Canada?

It's not a holiday there,

Right?

Not it was a holiday last Monday.

Okay.

So today was the work day for most people.

What holiday was last Monday?

Victoria,

Which is an old queen.

Queen Victoria's birthday.

Very nice.

So today we are talking about self-esteem.

Yeah.

So this is a topic that you have wanted to talk about for a while.

We thought we actually had done a podcast on it back in February,

But it turns out we never recorded it.

So we thought that we would talk about it today.

Can you give us a little overview?

And also,

Because this is a live show,

And if you're listening to this later on the podcast or Insight Timer,

I highly encourage you to follow Dr.

Gina on Facebook or YouTube.

And you can watch these shows live Mondays at 6 p.

M.

Eastern,

Eastern Standard Time.

So if you have a question about self-esteem or anything else regarding that,

Please leave it in the comments and Gina will try to answer that.

So Gina,

Can you give us a little bit of an overview of self-esteem?

Yeah,

Self-esteem is near and dear to me because over the years,

I've noticed working with my clients that it's at the core of everything.

People with healthy self-esteem are happier,

Are more successful,

Their lives run smoothly,

They make better choices.

So self-esteem impacts all areas of our lives,

Whether it's business,

Personal,

Love,

Parenting.

So I like to work with clients on self-esteem because it has such a huge impact in all these fears.

Absolutely.

And how has self-esteem,

What issues or triumphs over issues that you've resolved have you had to deal with self-esteem in your own right?

With myself or in my practice?

First in yourself,

And then we'll talk about your practice.

So as a person,

As I worked on my own self-esteem,

It's allowed me to be better at setting boundaries,

Making better career choices,

Basically the environments I would work in,

What I'm willing to accept,

Not accept.

It's helped me in business,

You know,

Not be so scared of setting boundaries even with clients.

In my parenting,

I think it's made me a better mom.

And if I have good self-esteem,

As a result,

My daughter will have better self-esteem because it starts with us.

It's changed my mindset,

So not feel victimized by things or circumstances.

So it's allowed me to empower myself.

So it's had multiple positive impacts on my life personally.

Absolutely.

And then in your practice,

What are some of the issues that you've seen over the years of issues with this?

I mean,

Because you started as a criminal psychologist dealing with sex offender cases.

And did you,

Like that is something that does a lot to victims' self-esteem,

You know what I mean?

So like what sort of things have you seen in your practice over the years and then transitioning into sort of the clinical psychology and the children and the parenting and stuff?

I imagine this is a subject that comes up over and over and over and over.

Yes.

It's at the core usually I find of all the clients that I work with,

You know,

Some people can have really healthy self-esteem at work,

But not be so secure with themselves in their personal areas.

But if I go back to your question,

When I started in forensic,

My specialty was with teenagers.

I did a lot of internships and I worked with adults,

Adult sex offenders.

But when I worked with teenagers in the criminal justice system and I don't know in the US how they call it,

But child services,

Basically,

Child protection services.

Yeah.

The youth all had issues with their self-esteem,

As you probably guessed.

Most of them were abused,

Whether emotionally,

Physically or sexually.

So I worked a lot with them on their self-esteem.

With the adults,

Obviously,

The treatment is different.

It's not about that.

But,

Yes,

With the criminal justice system,

There's self-esteem issues there because there's a lot of victims as well.

And when my work with parenting,

It's been like my goal to help parents build their kids self-esteem because they don't realize it.

They don't do it on purpose,

But they highly impact their children's self-esteem.

So I teach them to parents so that they nurture their kids self-esteem,

To empower them,

Make them more resilient.

And when I work with adults,

I work with a lot of females,

But it's happened with adult males as well.

Many people were in unhappy marriages,

Wouldn't stand up for themselves,

Would tolerate all kinds of dysfunction because part of it they didn't think worthy of having anything better than that.

So we work back to building self-esteem and self-care so that then it can trickle down and help them make better choices and choices that are in line with their values.

So if you're somebody that is lacking self-esteem,

If you're lacking self-esteem,

You're lacking self-care,

You just have a very low opinion of yourself and it's blocking you.

I mean,

First of all,

I would imagine that that's sort of a self-fulfilling prophecy.

I mean,

If you have low self-esteem,

You probably believe that you'll always have low self-esteem and so on and so forth.

And it becomes a perpetual motion of not having it.

So how do you raise your self-esteem?

Like,

I guess that's the big question.

When you're not feeling it,

What are the things that you can do to sort of raise your value in your own eyes?

What sort of self-work can you do to get there?

So the way when I work on it,

It's a bit of a process.

So I try to gauge where the person's at and where we tend to start is their internal language.

Basically how they talk to themselves.

I look at their mindset,

Their perception.

So if they have a victim mentality,

Meaning if they're always feeling they're a victim of their circumstances or people.

So I get a baseline measure of how they perceive the world and how they feel empowered or not,

How judgmental they are with themselves and others.

If they tend to look for other people's opinion before they make choices,

If they're authentic or not,

If they worry what people think about them.

So I work a lot on their perceptions of themselves and the world and others.

And alongside that,

I help them develop the ability to notice their thinking.

So a lot of mindfulness work because you can't change what you can't acknowledge or perceive.

And then I really,

Really start with the self.

So self-care doesn't matter what problem they show up with.

Usually they lack in self-care.

So self-care is self-love.

If you can't take care of yourself first and you always put other people ahead of you,

It is a sign that you don't value yourself more than you value other people.

And I try to do a lot of education also that you cannot attract people who love you more than you love yourself because you're not modeling it.

And how can you teach people how to treat you and how can you have healthy boundaries if you don't love yourself?

And it's on a continuum.

It doesn't mean people with low self-esteem hate themselves because I work with a lot of high functioning women.

And when you look at them,

They don't look like they loathe themselves and think they're disgusting or pitiful.

They're actually pretty successful,

Confident.

But when they look at,

Oh,

Yeah,

I've been putting other people's needs ahead of my own or I worry a bit too much about what people think,

Then it's a bit of a mindset shift.

So we also have to see self-esteem on the continuum more than black and white there or not there.

Absolutely.

In what ways does a lack of self-esteem help us to stay stuck?

So if somebody doesn't believe in themselves,

They might stay in a relationship longer than they should or stay in a bad job longer than they should or not chase a dream or go after something that they really want.

Can you do those things simultaneously while building your self-esteem or do you have to work on your self-esteem to sort of build up some momentum to get into what you want to do or what you want to get out of?

What would be your suggestions for that?

Well,

Actually,

What's great is it's pretty experiential,

Meaning you build your self-esteem as you go through the challenges.

So if you're in an unhealthy relationship and we're working on setting healthy boundaries and expressing your needs and having your needs met and start taking good care of yourself,

Learning to say no more than yes.

Well,

Just that in and of itself,

The result of it is very reinforcing and slowly but surely builds a person's self-esteem but also builds the courage to put into action what we're talking about during our sessions versus it just being an intellectual discussion.

So from the first day we meet or the first day we start intervening,

Coaching or a therapy,

It's like,

Okay,

Let's get on this.

We can start today.

And we look at strategy.

So we don't have to wait two years,

Six months.

We can start right away.

Absolutely.

And you get momentum and it can be quite addictive when you start loving yourself and go,

Oh,

This feels pretty good.

So I recorded a podcast earlier today with another friend of ours about actions speak louder than words and how important it is.

And I think that this really fits right now with the conversation that you and I are having,

Which is,

You know,

Talking about things are great,

But acting on the things that you want to accomplish,

Acting on the things that you want to plan and the direction that you want.

So like if you need more self-esteem,

If you want more self-esteem,

If that's an issue for you,

Actually doing the esteemable acts for yourself is more important,

Probably,

Than trying to like you're not going to act yourself.

I mean,

You're not going to think yourself into better action,

But you can act yourself into better thinking.

Yeah,

Because it tends to be a trap where I often see with clients,

They'll read all the books,

Listen to all the podcasts I recommend.

So it gives them the impression they're working on their stuff,

But they're not putting action behind their knowledge.

So they're gaining this tons of great knowledge.

They could actually teach it,

But they'll acquire self-esteem by doing what they learn,

Not just intellectually learning about it and talking about it.

It won't go very far.

Right.

Absolutely.

How about people that compartmentalize their self-esteem?

And let me explain that.

Okay.

So I feel like people have self-esteem in one area.

I do this well.

I know what this is.

I'm this.

I got this.

Relationships,

I have no idea.

Or like,

Maybe I know my stuff with this,

But technology,

I have no idea.

You know what I mean?

So I feel like it's not a blanket statement.

Having low self-esteem is not a blanket statement.

Maybe you're a career professional who's doing wonderfully,

But you have absolutely no self-esteem when it comes to your personal life,

Your dating life.

Yeah.

So how do you deal with compartmentalized self-esteem?

Well,

It's.

.

.

I hope that's a good question by the way.

Yeah,

It is actually.

It's not necessarily.

.

.

Actually,

Actually.

It is a good question,

Actually.

I have control to hang up on this stream,

By the way.

I think it's basically what triggers us,

Right?

So if we're very confident professionally,

We're confident in our skills.

We can't be shaken,

But in,

Let's say,

Our friendships or love relationships,

It triggers our core attachments wounds.

So we'll be triggered with individuals.

We might have insecurities,

Judgments.

So I think it's more common than not that I'll see,

Like I said,

Professional women that are so highly successful,

Business executive,

Business owners,

And their marriages are falling apart.

And it's often,

Most often than not,

I relate it to their initial attachment figures.

So what they've learned,

This is what you do for a man and this is what you do for your kids.

And so some of it is social learning and it triggers fears.

So a lot of women or men,

But I say women a lot because most of my clients are women.

The guilt,

What if I leave this marriage?

How am I going to hurt my kids?

Or comments I'll hear,

Well,

At least he doesn't beat me up.

So,

You know,

People tend to think you only leave a marriage because someone's verbally abusive and emotionally abusive versus maybe you just leave because you have different values.

Many will have husbands.

They feel it's like having a third child in the house who doesn't step up.

It doesn't have to be because you're being abused,

But it's based on societal values versus internal values.

And when your self-esteem is strong,

What guides you,

What's your GPS is your internal values because you trust them versus what everyone else is telling you to do.

What if your self-esteem is dependent on those things?

Right?

So what if your self-esteem inside of the marriage is really good or the relationship is really good or in the job is really good?

Even though you're not necessarily happy,

You are happy that you're married.

You're happy that you have two kids.

You're happy that you have a job that pays well.

You're not happy in the job.

You're not happy in the relationship.

The kids are fine.

But you're satisfied.

There's the happiness and then there's the satisfied of like I checked the box.

Does that make sense?

You've gotten to a certain point or you're in a relationship or you have a good job.

You have a good thing going,

But you're not happy and you're okay with the level of self-esteem that you do have is locked into the fact that you have this thing.

You've notched this place and even though you need more self-esteem to get over it and to reach for something more and better and happier and more joy and all of that stuff,

More fulfillment.

But the level of self-esteem that you are at anyway is dependent on the fact that you have those things.

So letting go of it,

You lose all self-esteem.

Does that make sense?

Well,

There's two things you're mentioning here.

First,

Level of happiness and self-esteem.

So technically,

Self-esteem is stable.

It shouldn't fluctuate with your external circumstances.

It shouldn't.

So healthy self-esteem is an inside job.

Example,

Let's say I'm very good at my job.

I like my job.

I'm confident and something happens,

I lose my job.

If I have healthy self-esteem,

Yes,

I'll be sad,

Stressed,

Upset,

But it shouldn't be about me being a bad person.

So healthy self-esteem is an inside job.

It shouldn't be determined by external factors.

Meaning you can have healthy self-esteem and be a homeless person.

Poor,

No money,

Living off the streets.

If it's determined by external factors,

Then it won't be stable.

Right.

And so when we work,

It's about the internal job trying to get to the core of who you are.

So not the ego,

But you at the core are unique.

Perfect the way you are.

It doesn't mean you don't have bad behaviors.

But at the core,

Even if you have bad habits,

You work on these habits.

It doesn't diminish your worth and your value.

So it's basically developing unconditional love for yourself.

So unconditional on circumstances.

And when you can develop unconditional love for yourself,

You can then have the same compassion for other people and your children,

Which we see a lot with kids.

I'll see highly successful parents whose kid wants to be a hairdresser,

A dancer,

A painter,

And you're like,

Are you sure?

And then the parents self-esteem is impacted by what their kids do.

Externals.

So it ideally you don't want to be impacted by externals.

Your self-esteem,

But it will impact your happiness.

Like right now,

People lose their jobs.

People are sick.

You can have super healthy self-esteem yet be stressed and unhappy.

Yeah.

I was just going to say,

The whole pandemic of it all.

Right now,

A lot of people are losing the things that business owners,

Such as yourself,

Things that are happening that are out of your control that really take a hit on your self-worth.

I'm not able to be as strong as I thought that I was or as independent as I thought that I was or that I was two months ago.

And I can't do these things for myself and for my family that I was able to.

And they're not.

And that,

I guess,

Involves anything where you're,

Where something changes,

Something dramatically changes your circumstances.

And it affects your self-worth because you become dependent on something else and not able to be as independent as you were.

I mean,

You've talked about many times about when your daughter got sick,

You know,

What kind of a toll does that take on your self-worth?

And does that have an effect on your self-esteem when all of a sudden you can't,

You know,

You try your best,

But you can't protect what you wanted to protect.

You know what I mean?

You're not in control.

Well,

Like I was saying before,

If it impacts your self-esteem,

Then your self-esteem,

Like I say self-esteem,

Self-worth are synonyms.

I want to distinguish if something happens,

You grieve your stress,

Like if you lose your independence,

It doesn't need to impact your self-worth.

Because,

You know,

Let's say a man is the provider and their company closed.

Yes,

He'll be stressed,

But it doesn't mean suddenly he's not a provider.

He's worthless.

It's just,

Okay,

I got to find a job.

He's freaking out,

But it doesn't automatically decrease his value.

If it does,

Then you know your self-esteem is determined by external circumstances.

So like I was saying,

If your self-esteem is healthy,

Yes,

You'll be hit by circumstances,

You'll be stressed or unhappy,

But doesn't mean you suddenly think you're a loser and you have no more value.

Right.

Absolutely.

That makes a ton of sense.

It just feels like it's hard.

It feels like that's a hard leap because so many people's,

And this is what you're saying,

You know,

That it's external and that's not a healthy self-esteem,

But so many people's self-esteem,

Self-worth is wrapped up in who they are with quotation marks,

As in what they do,

You know.

What they drive,

The size of their homes,

The labels they wear,

Wouldn't be caught dead in driving certain cars.

Those are temporary and externals and not very good markers to use as self-esteem.

Signs that you have self-esteem because what if you lose everything?

You know?

How,

And now leading into our end of the show portion,

What effect does gratitude play with self-esteem?

Especially in a situation where there are things that are,

You know,

Able to be taken away that are external,

You know,

In what way can gratitude play in helping you build your self-esteem?

I think gratitude has a great impact on so many things.

So,

If you have a lack mentality,

If you start noticing what you do have and what is right with your life,

It will greatly impact your perception of things.

Circumstances,

You know,

Like right now,

Yes,

We can't go play with our friends,

But,

You know,

Do you have a roof over your head?

Do you have your health?

So,

Gratitude impacts your mindset,

It impacts how lucky you think you are.

So,

I think it shifts your mood and your attitude and as a result,

You're more open to working on the other stuff that lead to healthy self-esteem.

So,

I think it's a door towards self-esteem.

Because you can be grateful and not have self-esteem.

All right.

And that leads into our closing portion of the show every time,

Which is the moment of gratitude,

Which is how you like to end every episode of the show.

So,

Dr.

Gina,

What are you grateful for today?

I was grateful for going for a nice long walk with the dogs and my daughter just before our show so I could relax.

And it's warm and beautiful outside.

So,

I'm so grateful that it's not winter because of the pandemic.

I think it'd be a lot harder if it was winter time.

So,

I'm grateful it's nice and warm and we get to go outside.

How about you?

I'm never prepared for this part.

I'm grateful for.

.

.

Okay,

So,

You know what that one's.

.

.

All right,

I'll go with the second one.

I'll tell you the other one off air.

I'm grateful for this morning.

So,

I wrote a script a couple days ago that I've been meaning to write this thing.

And so,

I wrote this script and it turned out okay.

It was just a first draft of something that is like a series of eight episodes.

And I made the outline.

I finished the outline this morning for the rest of the seven episodes of it.

And I said to my friend who I've been sharing writing stuff with back and forth,

Do you want to see the outline and tell me what you think?

And she said no because most.

.

.

Because people say that writers that explain their work get the satisfaction and don't feel the need to finish it.

So,

If you want me to read it,

If you want me to know the story,

You're going to have to finish all eight scripts and send them to me.

And I thought that that was really an awesome thing to do for a friend to go,

No,

No,

I'm not letting you just tell me about it.

Like you need to do it and then you can show me.

So,

I was grateful for that and that made me motivated to want to keep writing.

So,

Yeah.

That's about all the time that we have for today.

Dr.

Gina,

Where can people find you other than whatever Facebook page or YouTube page?

They're watching this on right now.

Where can people find you for help?

Dr.

Madriguiano.

Com or dr.

Gina.

Ca.

And I wrote a little ebook for this episode.

There's a lot of stuff in there we didn't talk about.

So,

They can get that.

There's also the piece of the pandemic course that you teamed up with life coach Glenn Ambrose on and any of that you can find that right now also at dr.

Gina.

Dr.

Madriguiano.

Com.

You can find out all of that information and you're available for sessions via Zoom and telehealth and all that stuff,

Right?

Right.

Awesome.

Okay,

Awesome.

And finally,

Dr.

Gina,

My last question for you for today.

Are you ready?

Yes.

What are we talking about next week?

I thought maybe we could take questions.

Okay.

I didn't plan anything yet.

So,

This is perfect.

If you have questions on this topic or anything else that we have,

You know,

Because most people will watch this.

In the United States,

It's Memorial Day,

6 o'clock in the afternoon.

A lot of people aren't,

You know,

Aren't watching this live that will watch it later.

So,

If you have questions regarding today's topic or any other topic,

Leave it in the comments or come back next Monday at 6 p.

M.

And we will answer your questions live.

Awesome.

Awesome.

Thank you very much,

Gina.

I will talk to you soon.

Take care.

For more information or to book an appointment with Dr.

Gina,

Go to drmandragrano.

Com or click the link in the description of this episode.

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