I've been learning some fascinating things in Human Relations class recently. A lot of them center on self-esteem and personal responsibility.
We were given an article to read in class, it was an interview with a Dr. Reynolds. Dr. Reynolds’s philosophy about self-esteem is "just do it", act despite your fear or anxiety, the good feelings and higher self-esteem will come with success. He also states that we have no control over our feelings, but we can control whether or not we allow those feelings to control us. That gave me pause for thought.
I've seen proof of this in my own life. Each time I take a risk despite my fears and anxieties, and that risk is met with success, I feel just that much better about myself and just that much more confident.
If I'd continued to let my fear and anxiety rule me I would still be lacking confidence, and feeling extremely bad about who I am.
I spent several years trying to fix myself, yet still behaving in the same old way; it wasn't until I started behaving in a new way that I actually started feeling better.
The other thing we covered today was "Who controls our emotions?" How many times have I said "You make me so angry!" or "You hurt my feelings." The fact is, no one can make us feel anything. Our emotions are a result of what is going on inside our heads. It's a hard concept for me to get my head around yet at the same time, I try to enact it in my life. I try to choose how I'm going to react and try to moderate my emotional reaction so that it's a reasonable one rather than an out of control one that I'm going to feel embarrassed about later.
There's a lot here to digest and I'm still sorting it out as I write. I'm glad I took this course with this instructor. She's good and the course material can be applied to real life. There aren't too many courses I can say that about.
