Travel Soul Therapy

Overcoming Low Self-Esteem With Travel Therapy.

To begin overcoming low self-esteem, it is helpful to understand what is self esteem and how we create it. It is very important to have an honest approach to understanding of reality of who you are. 
You may begin by taking what you think you are and look beneath superficial label or tag. If you think "I am Joann" for instance, you come back with an answer: "this is only my name" but this is not who I am. 

You can go on with this inquiry until you exhaust all definitions of mental concepts and physical senses and until you recognize something that remains without any concept or definition — a direct awareness of being.

From this inquiry we can begin to accumulate an insight into ephemeral concept of self, which is a direct reflection of what we assembled through learning from others and imagining about ourselves. Concept of self is manufactured. We can look for it in ourselves and we will not be able to find it existing independently from our own thinking process.

Overcoming low self-esteem is possible with understanding of its process. Self-esteem is generated by the power of subconscious belief about yourself as a being. It is accumulation of limiting conclusions made about who you are based on experiences and assumptions made in formative years. 
It is completely formulated as identity approximately by the age of seven. It becomes a multi-faceted image of yourself, separated from objective experience through conceptual relationship with it. 

The kind of relationship we have with self-image determines the level of self-esteem we have. If we are conditioned not trust ourselves or look at ourselves with deficit mentality, we will have very little confidence in our daily behavior. It often permeated with doubt and sense of not having or being enough: "am I doing ok? Can I do better?", which leads to fixation on self.

Fixation perpetuates the feeling of low self-esteem. It is a habit of comparing yourself to others, competing for attention, validation and supremacy. It manifests through negative projection onto others via thoughts of jealousy, paranoia and competition and is often accompanied by emotions of anger, unworthiness and a sense of a helplessness of a victim. 

Frequently, fixation on self is sustained through self-sabotaging behavior in order to maintain the structure of inner reality of subconscious beliefs about yourself. It becomes a virtual prison, where life is experienced only within boundaries of limiting beliefs about who you are and what you are capable off.

To overcome low self-esteem we need to change how we think about ourselves from moment to moment. We can choose different, more positive thoughts about ourselves and with sustained practice our beliefs about ourselves will change. The power of mind is such that our beliefs will manifest different behavior and our reality will change.

PERFECT CONDITION FOR OVERCOMING LOW SELF ESTEEM

Travel could be of great help for overcoming low self esteem. It disrupts a habitual loop of self-centered thinking by purely physical separation from the familiar language, culture and environment. Yet it cannot be a passive process. It's an active shift in thinking based on intention to be unconditionally loving toward yourself. Decide to make this intention in faith.

Traveler is required to become more mindful. That means to be more observant of what is taking place within the focus of experience — both environment and internal process of thinking. There is a possibility to notice a gap between thinking and an observer, which loosens identification with an object — a brief glimpse into freedom. 

As you travel alone, you are gaining more momentum of accepting responsibility for consequences of your choices and feel a sense of accomplishment. 
The magic of travel is such that you often come across something contrary to the way you thought, culture shock. 
It has a positive effect of increasing self-awarenss and abandonment of preconceptions. By the virtue of leaving a comfort zone and entering cultural shock, you find yourself in a midst of perfect conditions for overcoming low self esteem with rapid growth in self-awareness.

Travel also helps you to focus your attention to the daily lives of others, local people doing about their business and other travelers you come across. You may begin to recognize how fortunate you are to be able to travel and have an inspiration of making it a priority over other ways to spend your money and time. 
With every new insight you gain on the road, you grow and have more confidence in attaining purpose of life. Your self esteem rises with realizing more value of your life.
Additionally, travel enriches you with authentic life experience of personal transformation and deep insight into attaining purpose of life that you can share and teach others.

RECOGNIZE GREATNESS IN OTHERS: 
OVERCOMING LOW SELF ESTEEM

If self-esteem is not something that exists independently of our thinking, then there is a way to change it. It requires an understanding and a motivation to change. 
First to understand that what we focus our attention on, grows in our experience of reality. In other words we are shaping our experience through attention. In order to begin overcoming low self esteem, we need to shift our focus onto others with genuine positive intention.

Look inside and firmly decide to be generous and gladly promote others' goodness:

• Congratulate others on their good deeds and intentions
• Rejoice in others' success or achievement
• Recognize and speak of positive qualities of others' thinking and behavior
• Avoid pointing out others' weaknesses
• Avoid criticizing others with intention of elevating yourself
• Give up struggle for self-recognition

It doesn't mean that by following these principles you would reduce your own value and begin to feel less than others. Contrary to it, by giving value to others, overtime you will increase self esteem as you will notice a mindset of abundance.When you come back from travel, instead of feeling exclusive and superior to others, you simply recognize how fortunate and enriched you already are.

RESULTS OF OVERCOMING LOW SELF-ESTEEM

"Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others."
-Marianne Williamson

Not overcoming low self-esteem could become a way of escaping self-development and become a habit of spiritual laziness. It could be used as a false cover of safety to avoid being judged or punished for initiative. 
On one side it might feel safe to be self-effacing and avoid leadership of one's own life, while on another side expecting others to recognize and do things "right" for us. 
By keeping ourselves low and avoiding a risk of responsibility for ourselves, we perpetuate ourselves being a prisoner of a victimhood — where our lives are viewed as an outcome of mistaken decisions by others.

Overcoming low self-esteem begins with a decision to stop relating or referring to yourself and others in a derogatory way, expressed out-loud or in self-talk. Become aware that you are responsible for how you think and begin to own your choices. The results of overcoming low self esteem are worthy of temporary discomfort of inner transformation. 

Benefits:

• Noticing more life. A lot of energy is wasted in pre-occupation with ourselves in the wrong way, by not realizing the transitional process of who we are, a constantly changing flow of energy. At the moment of realization of purpose filled life of authentic individual, there's freedom from limiting perception where life appears more vivid in details and experience.


• Openness to learning from others, seeing value in many forms. Our ability to have a positive outlook on life is determined by intention to transform our way of being as consumer of life to empowered co-creator of one's own reality.


• True generosity of acknowledgement and acceptance. More enjoyment in your life is bound to appear along with openness and self-acceptance. When you approve of yourself, the energy required to keep the faulty interpretation of yourself real is freed and you could experience a spontaneous release into a blissful nature of who you are. 
  With profound generosity that comes from self-acceptance it is naturally to recognize greatness in others.


• Realization of fulfillment based in awareness of who you are. Sense of fulfillment is a manifestation of a nurtured soul. It cannot rely on external sources for being fulfilled and experience genuine happiness.

By overcoming low self esteem you create authentic conditions for a nurtured soul, ground for well-being and happiness. 

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