I looked at your website, howtoimproveselfesteem.org/. Good on you for starting it! Meaningful changes are happening and it’s exciting to watch and participate in it. WE are the change we’re creating!

This morning, the day after I wrote this post, I started rethinking the use of “recovery” versus self-improvement. I’ve always found it hard to accept the idea that “once an addict (to drugs and alcohol), always an addict.” It’s limiting in that it validates the idea that there’s something wrong with us and we can’t trust ourselves, our bodies or our minds. Self-improvement, on the other hand, is about believing in our power and desire to do better today than we did yesterday. It’s upward and onward!

Recovering from a loss of balance is natural but when “recovery” is used by the alcohol and drug rehabilitation community, it means something totally different. When someone accepts the idea that the only way out of addictive behavior is to identify themselves as an addict for the rest of your lives, they give their addiction more power than themselves. Is it time to stop being afraid of ideas and start believing and trusting in ourselves? If there’s any truth to the statement: as we think, we create, can’t we change what we create by changing what we think? One place to start is to stop being afraid of ourselves and start loving ourselves, just because we can!

Self-improvement is built into us so why not acknowledge it and stop letting people and ideas bully us into submission? Can you see this day coming? I can, as more and more of us discover that we create our own reality from what we choose to believe about ourselves and the world around us. Thanks for writing and sharing your thoughts, Janet. We’re part of the trickle before the flood.

Here’s a link to a great article about questioning beliefs: When Your Mother Says She’s Fat.