You and I are children of God: “Yet to all who did receive him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God” (John 1:12). God wanted to imprint deeply in our being the exclusive union to be a human being, and that is why, and only this should help you and I to live with self-esteem.We possess a substantially noble bearing, given only to humans by the King of Kings, we own a title which is priceless: dignity. But, what does dignity mean? Kant argues- as expressed in “The Metaphysics of Morals”- that the human person has no price, only dignity: “
We possess a substantially noble bearing, given only to humans by the King of Kings, we own a title which is priceless: dignity. But, what does dignity mean? Kant argues- as expressed in “The Metaphysics of Morals”- that the human person has no price, only dignity: “That which is the conditions for something to be an end in itself, that does not merely have a relative value or a price, but an intrinsic value, that is, dignity”. We humans are a category higher than plants and animals, because we were created to the image and likeness of God. That means we are like God, just like children are like their parents and we are capable of taking part in life with God and in God, for that, our model is Christ.
From this point comes the self-esteem I talk about, more than psychological it is spiritual. I dare call it that way, for in reality we Christians have no self-esteem, we have dignity, and because of this we are worth and deserve to be loved. We are worth the blood of Christ. We deserve the Kingdom of Heaven perfecting ourselves in Christ: God, man, master and savior.
Self-esteem is a fascinating field for many, seen from a psychological point of view it has been the object of millions of books written since the 90’s. These are books categorized as self-improvement in which barely take a peek of the soul, for their content is empty, they invite you to be the owner and master of yourself, to program yourself for success through the mind and to depend on your strength and will to do what you want in life. This is very good for those who have left God, but a Catholic depends on God. I remember the words of a priest: “Remember that we Catholics – do not mix our beliefs” so these self-improvement books (like programmed neurolinguistics, transcendental meditation, among others) do not connect us to God, to Christ. As a family counselor and marriage and family coach, I have seen many cases in which the persons (even when they are Christians) unfortunately, fill their heads with cheap self-improvement literature which does nothing more than confuse them.
My conclusions are my experiences
I do not deny it, all of us (because we are humans and are in the process of improvement) have sometimes envied that kind of person living with absolute self-confidence. We see it from the first moment when these persons introduce themselves: they have a big smile, establish visual contact and shake our hand firmly. We also see it on the way they walk, their verbal expression and the comfort we feel around them. These are people who naturally are this way and had the great fortune of having a childhood in which they had the Christian experience of dignity. Due to this, when we see someone who conducts him or herself so well, with so much aplomb and confidence we can say that that person enjoys a healthy self-esteem. He or she is free to socialize with other without complexes or fears.
It was precisely my wish to help people with this part of their self-esteem which lead me many years ago to study my first profession: instructor of professional models and beauty queens, executives and politicians. I used to train women and men in these aspects because from an early age, just like it happens with our Pope Francis, I am passionate about beauty: the human being, the creation, the ocean, the lakes and all of nature.Since I was young I thought that women were confident because they were beautiful and because of this that those who were not as beautiful (like me) needed an extra instruction in order to learn to be it and walk through life with confidence and aplomb. I thought these qualities were key to be successful and feel valued and important. I was wrong. My teachings, although important for the formation of personality, did not come from a solid foundation that would make a person feel that their confidence was grounded on a solid rock, that of dignity. My teachings came from all the principles learned in professional modeling and image coaching, which believe that everything comes from physical beauty and is from there that we must work on our self-esteem and security. Like you might realize, I was wrong. This reminds me to a story I read. Keep tune in until next week with the second part of my story. Please pray for me.
Since I was young I thought that women were confident because they were beautiful and because of this that those who were not as beautiful (like me) needed an extra instruction in order to learn to be it and walk through life with confidence and aplomb. I thought these qualities were key to be successful and feel valued and important – I was wrong.
My education, although important for the formation of personality, did not come from a solid foundation that would make a person feel that their confidence was grounded on a solid rock, that of dignity. My teachings came from all the principles learned in professional modeling and image coaching, which teach that everything comes from physical beauty and is from there that we must work on our self-esteem and security. Like you might realize, I was wrong. This reminds me of a story I read. Keep tune in until next week with the second part of my story. Please pray for me.
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