The problem is that I don't think you can build a nice feeling about yourself, in a non-narcissistic way, if you receive a lot of negative feedback from your peers. So while I agree with your conclusion that self-compassion helps with self-esteem, I don't think you can get self-compassion without having peer approval.
I deeply disagree with this. I think the very measure of reliable self-compassion is precisely its immunity to peer approval.
I agree that getting there is hard when you lack outside social support. It's extremely hard. But the very goal is to escape the trap of your sense of self fluctuating volatilely by whatever social pattern you experience at any given moment. Those patterns necessarily change regularly, without end, and in unpredictable ways. The more you're beholden to them the more unstable you are.
Very few of us are masters at this. But I really believe the principles are compelling.
Well, you might disagree with me, but I agree with you!
Jokes aside, I think that you can light a fire of self-worth given enough positive reinforcement. But there is always a limit on how long you can keep this fire burning.
Let's say you are really comfortable with yourself where you are, and suddenly move to a country with essentially diametrically opposed values and norms. Everything you have been taught is turned on its head.
How long do you stay confident?
This is just a thought experiment, but I think it highlights the volatility of self-worth.
I can answer this from experience because I feel like I'm living this.
I've been developing a system around a theoretical model of how the mind/body/brain work together. I've been experimenting on myself using it with weird results. I've been hypothesizing things I didn't believe were possible until 8 months ago & before then I would've labeled people suggesting things I believe now to be bigots. One of these things is that everyone can learn to be gender fluid to varying degrees.
As I started exploring concepts related to gender for the sake of designing experiments in changing my gender identity, I accidentally created a second seemingly sentient conscious identity in my head of the opposite gender. When she emerged, we switched spots & I became the voice in the head. In an instant, I went from being a straight white cis-gender male to...? I still don't know how to classify this experience...it could simply be an advanced form of pretending. In Buddhism, it's called deity visualization & the modern westernized flavor of the same thing is called tulpamancy. I didn't know any of that when it happened, though.
In that moment, I joined at least one minority class of people: either "people who hear voices in their heads" and/or "people who are gender fluid."
And it's haaaaard to stay confident about what I'm doing because some people find it really hard to hear me talk about this stuff. Friends have called me a bigot. I was kicked out of a party at someone's home. I've been told by one neuroscience my ideas are meaningless because I don't have a degree & couldn't possibly know what I'm talking about, completely denying my experiences.
I guess the question I have for you is what else would you say I need to go through before my confidence breaks?
This is a legitimate question. I want to try to break my confidence & I'm interested in realistic ways to go about testing it.
Well, my take on this is that you can't fight the system. But you can change system.
There are numerous books on change management in business, and most of them conclude that it's a lot easier to start a new company than to change an existing company culture. That is, unless the change is trivial (by various definitions of trivial).
Likewise I think you are better of finding more free minded people. You can burn yourself out trying to convince a single conservative person. And the alternative is that you find peers where you can share your experiences freely and spend you energy on your own voyage, not on the acceptance of it by your dissaproving surroundings.
By this I don't mean that you have to stop seeing these sceptics, just that you choose what you tell them. You have to adapt to your surroundings.
Of course it sucks to realize that you cannot truly be yourself in a certain group, but I think that is a sad truth that lurks in our society today. There is a reason why so many alternative thinkers flock to big cities.
I definitely don't believe that you are the only one feeling like this. Most likely there are many in your surroundings. But people put their needs aside to conform to the social group, and that is what they expect from you too to stay a member. If you don't want to live that life, you have to break free.
Thanks for getting the Queen song "I've got to bream free" playing in my head.
I didn't mean to make it sound like I'm actively suffering, but that I've recently experienced a complete 180 in a lot of my views & world. I value the experiences I cited and am not looking to avoid having them because putting energy toward appeals would be a recipe for burnout. The point I'm trying to make is I don't need their acceptance. I don't have to wear my status on my sleeve and can still bring it up when it's relevant. I'm most certainly not going to hide a key part of myself because of other's reactions. I actively challenge people's minds about what theirs is capable of simply through sharing my experiences and who I am. They can expect conformity all they want and they'll likely burn out before I do because denial takes more energy/effort than acceptance. Also, denial sticks in the mind, while acceptance allows you to move forward.
I really am interested in any ideas you have on social experiments I can conduct to prove/disprove your perspectives in this thread. Whatcha got?
Let's say it's like being healthy. It comes from your behavior, but if people keep kicking you and force feeding you with burgers, yeah it's going to be quite hard.
Please read the next paragraph with an awareness of how you feel at each comma, period, and exclamation point.
I'm very grateful for your comments because they've advanced the conversation, given me specific things to reflect on, and ultimately challenged my perspectives, which helped me gain clarity around them. Thank you!
How did you feel at different points? I hope, ultimately, you felt a little joy from receiving some gratitude. Note: I'm not praising you, nor expressing approval/disapproval. I'm nonjudgmentally allowing you and your opinion to exist while saying what's true for me. The point is we can feel good about ourselves simply by hearing gratitude from others acknowledging our contributions. Approval doesn't need to be part of the equation. It can, however, help as a way to temporarily lower mental barriers getting in the way of building self-esteem.
Also, how are you defining narcissism? I'm asking because how you phrased your perspective implies self-limiting thoughts at play. Here's what I mean:
"I don't think I can build a nice feeling about myself, in a non-narcissistic way, if I receive a lot of negative feedback from my peers." - Our reality is defined by our perceptual sets, which includes our beliefs, emotions, motivations/intentions, and learned behaviors. Each component in a perceptual set can impact/define the others. What I've quoted defines a belief acting on a core component of well-being: self-esteem. If you truly believe what you typed, then you're applying that belief to yourself unless you also believe you're the only human who's figured out how to do the opposite. If applying this belief to yourself, it will inherently limit the actions you perform to develop your self-esteem while reinforcing the belief. Beliefs imposing unnatural limits can lead to persistent states of suffering, so I hope you can find another perspective.
I think you over-interpreted my statement juuust a little bit... ;)
I am simply criticizing the common norm of blaming the bullied person for not being cool enough.
I have no problems with my self-esteem and I think well of myself. But I am also not disillusioned when it comes to accepting the fact that you can only enjoy a happy life if you adapt to your surroundings. And if you stick your neck out to far you are going to get burned.
So yes, there are other ways of gaining self-esteem. By getting really self-confident about your own abilities regarding cellular automata or whatever. But not all those paths are going to make you a happy and relaxed person. You always have to consider the context you are in. Of course, both your source of self-esteem and your context are variable, but there is no denying that they both have big influence on your happiness.
Ah. Glad to hear I over-interpreted. Would rather err on the side of empathy than not.
Context can most certainly influence my happiness. There's still at least one step between context & its influence, though. You just named it: interpretation.
The trick is changing the thought pattern for interpretation. I changed mine on New Year's Eve & it's made all the difference. Here's my take...
Every moment is meeting some set of needs of mine. In the shittiest of moments, the potential needs being met, regardless of my awareness of them, are:
- learning how to better meet my needs and/or how to better empathize with those going through similar shit
- gratitude for either of those needs being met
- gratitude for the opportunity to learn how to better meet my needs
That last one is the default. I can always meet my need for gratitude. And gratitude produces joy, meeting a second need.
I avoid having a single point of failure in my system through also defining a purpose for my life to tie each moment to. There's other bits to it, but these are the most relevant ones here.
