BellaOnline Forums Beauty and Self Self Development Self esteem

I asked Holly this question: Which would you rather do, make a greater difference by lighting up the path of many others or hide your light under a lamp because only a few people don't like your kind of light? Her reply was...



Oh Holly, you are too beautiful to hide! So many of us here are blessed by you. I sincerely miss you when you draw back.

Besides, you let us at Bella in on a little secret in other posts: YOU DON'T WANT TO HIDE. YOU'RE JUST UNCOMFORTABLE RIGHT NOW. Retreating will not get you to where you really want to go.

I too, am very sensitive. However, it is not up to others to decide my value or yours. What they think does not change WHO WE ARE. One of my favorite quotes is from The Princess Diaries movie, "No one can make you feel inferior unless you give them permission to."

Holly, what would it feel like to tune into all the positive energy so many of us here are sending your way and tune out from the negative energy you're getting elsewhere?

Sending love and warmth and lots of positive energy towards you...

Tami

Holly,

I was just reading what you told Sue about her art work and something occurred to me.

Would it help for you to focus on your PURPOSE rather than on you?

Only your perception is the one that truly matters, Holly. Remember that!

Self esteem, self confidence, i lack both. i am very self conscious about my looks and my body, i have a problem with people looking at me, I will not aloud my picture to be taken, i see people with facial disfigurements, and feel so guilty, because i feel like i do about my self. I feel so ugly. and now being 60yrs old, fat,old n ugly. its just getting worse. i am a good person, i wish i could feel good about myself on the out side, because it makes me very unhappy

Skyhaven, !

i'm so sorry you feel this way.

May i ask, are there times when you feel less awful or more awful about your appearance? What makes the difference?

Usually, perhaps. But not always.

I once lived for 18 months with constant threats and harrassment by a certain person who was definitely obsessed with keeping me in my place, dangerous, and unstable... and it was believed by at least half a dozen people other than me... including professionals... that he might well cause me serious harm or try to kill me. It was also quite clearly in response to my revealing my talents, etc., that this came on.

That was then, this is now, and i have to remember that.

But i want to point out here that we're not talking about my having ordinary fear of disapproval! God, i wish!!!!

I don't feel SAFE expressing myself. Some days, it's worse than others, like it was this past week.

Before the threats, mental abuse, programming, financial sabotage, physical intimidation, severe public slander and even threats to my friends and their families (which ended many of my relationships),... there was that more ordinary disapproval of which all of you are speaking. Unfortunately now if there is ordinary disapproval it sometimes triggers me to feel mortally in danger and makes me feel the need to hide myself. I don't even always recognize that this is what is going on... i just react and feel very insecure about myself.

I know this isn't rational. It was too bizarre for it to happen again. Almost too bizare for it to happen the first time... i would have thought so, once.

But if you had walked in my shoes... you'd understand!




I WANT to have my freedom back. Inside. I want to have ME back! I'm working on it.

But do you see now that this is not about approval seeking for it's own sake or because i measure my own value by what others think! Yeah, i have self esteem issues, too, and that certainly plays into it... but that's not what's making this so hard to get over.

maybe. I don't know.

When others are in need of me, if it is important enough, i forget about myself.

It is very good to forget about yourself when others need you.

no i feel the same way all the time, growing up i was called names by my mother n her side of the family about my weight, then my childrens father during or 30yr relationship would so many times tell me "I don't know why i'm with you i know better looking women than you " so people have took away any self esteem i ever had.

Just remember... you knew smarter and nicer men.

He wasn't saying that to you because it resembled truth, you know. He would have told you your breath smelled like Spam if he thought you'd believe him. But he knew exactly what to say that would get to you and that's why he said it. What a jerk.