Eat an Elephant - building self esteem

How do you eat an elephant?

One bite at a time.

How do you climb a mountain?

One step at a time.

"It is not the mountain that we conquer; but ourselves" Sir Edmund Hilary

Persevere - it takes time.

Building your self-esteem is essential when you are recovering from an abusive relationship. If you have been conditioned to think negatively about yourself and have started to doubt who you really are then now is the time for a fresh start, to fight for yourself and to polish off that diamond.

What is self-esteem? Fundamentally, it is how we value ourselves. To do this we have to know ourselves (strengths and weaknesses), see ourselves as we are and accept ourselves as unique and special and then like what we see.

"When we change our attitude towards ourselves, everything else changes as well, for our life is a reflection of the way we feel inside." Dr Mansukh Patel

It is time to focus on who you are, what you believe, what you want for yourself in your life and to start making the changes to ensure you get what you want from now on. Change is difficult and frightening so taking one bite at a time helps us to be brave enough to start.

I recently took part in a 5 day 400km charity cycle across Kenya. The best way I found to cope with this mental and physical mountain was to break each day down into 20km chunks, then stop and recharge for the next section. All I had to do was complete each chunk. Before I knew it I had completed the challenge. 

Set yourself a challenge to value and love yourself - from now on and for the rest of your life. 

There are a few key elements to consider as you take on this callenge:

TAKE RESPONSIBILITY - to be free you have to be responsible for what you think, decisions you make and the life you live.

PERSEVERE -  be determined. It will take time and effort.

BE MOTIVATED - remember why you have made this choice. This is your chance; don't waste it.

REMEMBER: YOU ARE WHAT YOU THINK.

So only think good things!!

Concentrate on all the positives you can find and feel about yourself - from talents to personality traits to everyday actions that you might overlook to parts of your body and to things that you have achieved.  All the little things as well as the more obvious things.


Include everything you can think of and make a list - a long, long list.

I am good: at washing up, at being a mother, at parking a car, at being part of a team, at whistling, at texting with my eyes shut, at cooking a great scrambled egg, at finding a bargain etc etc (By the way - not the list I would make about myself!!!!)

Day dreaming is thinking. Make sure you spend some time every day dreaming about how you want to feel about yourself, how you want to live and how you are going to make it happen. Only good stuff. No looking back. No negatives.

This is just the first small step in bulding your self-esteem and next time I will show you some exercises that will help you take the next step.

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Incremental Epiphanies - moving forwards

Looking back over an abusive relationship is impossible to avoid. If you have just escaped and started to fight for your freedom it is inevitable that you will try to make sense of how you got to be in a place that you thought you would never visit.

When I first identified my relationship as emotional abuse, when I looked back at the relationship I found that so many incidents then fitted the pattern of abuse. Each time I identified the pattern I inched forwards towards releasing myself from blame. Each time was a flashbulb moment that felt like another piece of a jigsaw neatly slotting into place. Incremental epiphanies that started to free me until, instead of thinking in an addicitive way still wanting to convince my ex- partner that I had a voice, I now felt like I had had a lucky escape. Now I had a chance to be me again. The further away I was, the better I started to feel.

I also found that I started to look at why I had fallen into the trap of an abusive relationship. I needed to work how how I could make sure that I never repeated the pattern. Why was my self-esteem so low? Why could I not walk away much earlier when it was so obviously a dysfunctional relationship? Why did I need to feel loved so badly?

After some research I found that if  you leave your childhood without the feeling of unconditional love from one or both of your parents you seek out approval and you don't have a reserve of self-confidence. It is a real struggle if you have parents that set expectations that you cannot meet, that do not show emotions and cannot express how they feel, that are often absent, that simply do not connect with you, let alone if you have any physical abuse. Do you recognise yourself in this picture? It leads you to search for parent replacements in your partners - father/mother figures, relationships built on fulfilling your childhood needs, anyone who loves you....

It is time to see clearly: looking back to your childhood self, recognising why you were vulnerable, believing that you are fantastic, brilliant, unique and lovable human. From now on you will judge yourself as your own best friend would - with kindness.What would they say to you if they knew all that you have been through? They would still love you and want to help you and protect you from ever being hurt in that way again. If you can start to treat yourself in this way you will leap towards a life that allows you to be you, to be loved just as you are.

Every diamond is found in the dirt - you are a diamond that you need to reveal facet by facet until you are once again sparkling in the sunshine.

I hope that you can recognise some of what you may be going through and take heart that others have been there, survived and thrived. A bit like when you hear the lyrics to a song that resonate utterly with how you are feeling. You know you are not alone. You are not the only person to have felt this way. Feeling solidarity is a brilliant source of courage and strength for facing each day and moving forwards towards the life you have dreamed of having.

When you have been in an abusive relationship for some time you need to understand that you are likely to be depressed, physically run down and mentally exhausted. One of the ways to start to show yourself some love is to start to take care of yourself. This is something I will write about in depth in future blogs. I will also help with building self-esteem, finding your new direction and fulfilling your dreams.

Please feel free to add any encouraging comments and stories so that we can build a support network based on solidarity and friendship for each other.

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