How Does Fear Impact Our Future Potential

Does shyness affects our talents and hides the fact that we're nice people?

My answer is that it absolutely does. 

If you have the potential of becoming a world-class musician, but you never tried then you’ll never get there. However, if you tried, does that mean you’ll be guaranteed a world-class title? No. Then why try at all if it's not guaranteed? As a result, most people don't even begin in the first place.

Your fear or shyness impacts the when you think, how far you are willing to learn, how much effort to put in, etc.

It influences us more than you think.

#1 - Fear removes possibilities to make you feel safe.

This is one of nature’s self-protection mechanism designed for us so that we can protect ourselves from danger. Fear has its place, but it should never rule over us.

Fear creates an instinctual defense that limits us to only the things that we know so that we can feel safe. If you are in an environment that you feel comfortable in, you feel safe. Fear draws you to the place you feel safe in. Anything that is foreign or new is considered dangerous.

However, if you are constantly in a defensive mode, that means you will never grow. If you only stay in the safe zone, it will be like living in a cave. We can only grow through coming in contact with things that are new. If we are not comfortable facing challenges and being uncomfortable then our growth will be stagnant.

Our maturity, experience, and wisdom all stop the moment we close ourselves up to new knowledge. Even if the world is changing, you will remain where you are at right now.

#2 - Fear makes you focus on the wrong things

If you spend time being scared of mistakes, you won't see possibilities. You will only see failure. Then with failure, pain.

You have to learn to see the situation with a different frame.

If you talk to someone with the goal of being mistake-free, the possible results are no mistake or mistake. This means at best you persevered your self-worth and at worst you discard more of your self-worth.

In contrast, if you were to focus on a different perspective, where talking to someone is about enjoyment. The best possible result is you have a great conversation. The worst is the conversation wasn’t enjoyable.

Can you see how the factors that we focus on changes the way we feel about the outcome? 

The second scenario never focused on yourself. It only focused on if it was enjoyable or not. Fear always shifts the focus towards the negative.

#3 - Fear makes you perform worse.

Let’s say everyone has a performance scale on effort and ability. For this example, we'll rate people's performance from 0-100. 0 meaning no ability. 100 meaning superhuman abilities.

If your ability range was 0-50 and your friend’s ability is 0-40, but you are shy and doesn’t do anything while he does an average performance, what happens?

You perform a 0 because you are too scared to do anything. No results equal no performance. 
Your friend performed a 20, which is average for him, not amazing but good. 

However, your range of performance is actually higher than him. You would have done better than him if you just did your average performance, but because of fear, your performance didn’t exist.

This is what fear does to you.

Any progress is better than no progress.

Even wrong progress you can look back and learn from what you did wrong.

#4 - Fear doesn’t stay in one part of your life.

Fear spreads.

When you are afraid of something, you try to cut off everything that associates your memory with that fear, which is literally a portion of your life. If you see anything that triggers your fear, you withdraw, making your life miserable.

Let’s say you are afraid of needles. Now everything that remotely resembles a sharp pointy edge will be on your radar, which is like…a lot of stuff. You can’t cut out all sharp pointy objects from your life, but if you let your fear persist, you have no choice but to avoid a portion of your life.

First Step -

What is something you want to do, but didn’t because you’re afraid?

- Augustus

Losing Interests, Losing Relationships [Free PDF]

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When Is It Too Soon To Give Up

I was teaching math to this high schooler once and she was struggling with this one problem. 

I, being the teacher, knew the answer and the different ways to get to it. However, the student didn’t.

I gave her tips and hints so that she would be trying to solve the problem in the right direction. I can see that she was so close to the solution, yet she doesn’t know it.

She was working hard, but she had no idea if she was even close to the solution or not. When is it too soon for her to give up? [Btw she did solve it.]

Should she ever have given up?
Should she have sought out help whenever possible?

I can’t give you a definite answer because every situation is slightly different. I do want to run through a checklist that can help you evaluate.

This checklist isn’t made for just the student. It’s also for you to see if you are giving up too soon.

Why are you giving up?

**Note - This applies to problems, not people. If someone says no, it means no. Don’t harass people.**

#1 - Because you feel like you tried everything and nothing works.

From experience, when people say this, they often haven’t thought of all the ways that are possible. It’s either they have ignored other people's advice or they are not aware of other options.

When this happens, research more options. You can read books, listen to podcasts, and more, and it will expand the way you think. A lot of times we think we tried everything that’s because we did try everything that we know of.

#2 - Because you are not good enough.

Not all the roadblocks that we have has to do with our knowledge or ability, sometimes it’s mental.

Sometimes we give up because we tell ourselves that we’re not good enough to achieve certain results. We believe we are not the type of person that would have that kind of results, so the image of us even having that success is unfathomable.

When we think this way, we almost gave up mentally before anything even started. With this approach, rarely does anything even work out.

#3 - Because it’s too hard.

Well if you gave up because it’s hard, you’ll probably never learn anything. Why? Anything new is hard. The only reason that you are learning it is because you didn't know it before.

You are gaining new & valuable knowledge to enhance your relationships or life, but learning it will be hard.

It is normal for us to go through the hard process of learning. It’s doable. Just takes time and patience. Most of the rewarding things in life don’t happen instantly. If you are willing to work through it, you will gain results that are much more fulfilling.

#4 - Because you know you are making up excuses.

You know when you are making excuses. Call out your own BS. When you know you are trying to avoid doing something for whatever reason, you might fool other people but you can’t fool yourself.

We all try to justify our excuses, but you want to progress in life, not wasted time.

If you are going to make excuses for yourself all the time, you will not be going anywhere. You will not change. You will have to live with what you currently have.

Excuses are part of procrastination. The problem will still be there when you come back.

#5 - Because you feel like it’s not possible.

If we give up because we don’t think it’s possible, it might be too early.

I’m not saying anything is possible, because you can’t wish your way into becoming Superman. Somethings are not possible. However, there are other ones that are possible, but we can’t imagine it.

Sometimes we don’t think it’s possible, because it’s since we never done it before. We never went through that experience and affirmed that we are possible of doing it. 

Of course, you won't FEEL like it’s possible, but do you have the potential of doing it? You just might.

#6 - Because you don’t know what to do.

The technical skills to get to where you need to be can always be learned. All because you don’t know what to do, it doesn’t mean you have to stop there.

You don’t know what to do RIGHT NOW, but that doesn’t have to be you forever.
You can learn, you can grow.

If you don’t know how to do something, learn it. Everyone doesn’t know how to do something at some point in their life.

#7 - Because you are too burned to try again.

If you are emotionally exhausted, yeah I understand. Take a little break. Emotions are some of the things that we have to learn how to manage.

There will be days where you’re just sad and want to do absolutely nothing.

There will be days where you want to throw plates and curse the world.

Not every day will be pleasant but move forward day by day.

#8 - Because you feel like it will never work for YOU.

So this might sound kind of harsh, but your problems are not special.

There are billions of people in this world all unique. We have been living for very minimum 3000 years, so I’m saying that your problems are not going to be special. There is probably at least couple of 100,000 people struggling with the inner issue about life that you are going through right now.

If they managed, you can too. 
If they survived, I don’t see why you can’t.

Don’t limit yourself to thinking that you are the only person in this whole entire world that is struggling with this issue.

First Step -

I once didn’t go to a lecture because it was raining. What’s your favorite excuse?

- Augustus

Losing Interests, Losing Relationships [Free PDF]

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Why Fear Is Worse Than Pain

Limits, like fear, is often an illusion. - Michael Jordan (Former basketball player, 6 times NBA Champion)

Fear is an interesting emotion. It feeds on itself.

If you are scared of giving a presentation, you’ll think about all the things that could go wrong in that presentation. It makes the whole experience worse than it’s supposed to be. 

Fear explores multitudes of possibilities. 
Unfortunately, it only emphasizes on the negative experiences.

Did all these negative possibilities actually happen?
Of course not, but they already happened in your mind.

It’s an illusion that binds you.
This is why I think fear is more harmful than the actual pain.

#1 - Fear is a perpetual pain.

The thing with fear is that there is no end. 

When you fear something, that is what you think about. You can’t tell yourself to not think about it. It can't disappear out of thin air. Fear stays with you and it keeps you there.

Fear is you standing, waiting and anticipating for the pain appear while it never happens. It makes you anxious and on edge. This feeling is everlasting unless you face the pain.

Fear can also go deep.

The more we think about something, the more we dig into the endless possibilities that could go wrong. One small mistake could feel like the end of the world. You start to react to all the possible ways it could hurt you and all the possibilities after that.

The human imagination and creativity are limitless, but it will work against you in times of fear.

Limitless Possibilities = Limitless Pain.

That’s fear.

#2 - Pain will end if you feel into it.

The good thing about pain is it will end if you lean into it.

It may not be immediate. 
It might be excruciatingly painful at the moment. 

But it will end. 

There are pretty traumatic pains that we have in life. It is very difficult to face them, but if you lean into it and accept it and face it, you won’t be afraid of it anymore.

Pain matures you and teaches you how to handle life's emotions. You will learn how to feel through it & embrace the pain.

This can be losing a loved one, a breakup, or a rejection.

Lean into these seemingly endless painful memories and a rollercoaster ride of emotions. It will stretch our limits and our fear of pain.

#3 - Fear amplifies your pain.

The more you think about something. the more you focus on it. the more you will be aware of it.

Same with fear.

The more you are aware of the potential pain, the more it paralyzes you from your current position. It makes the potential pain that you will experience 10 times or 100 times worse than it actually was.

Have you ever had that moment where you thought to yourself...

“Hey, …that actually wasn’t so bad.”

Yeah, that just means you thought about the pain too much before you actually did it. Fear distorts your imagination for the worse.

#4 - Fear becomes a wall.

Fear makes you stay in the same place. That’s one of the worst reasons for fear.

Not only is fear painful, but it restrains you from growth.

When you go through pain, it stops. You can now reflect on the results of that pain. You can think about how it was worse or better than you thought or what you could have done differently. This is because you have tangible results that you can see.

However, with fear, there is nothing. You are afraid of the POTENTIAL pain. It becomes a huge wall that will exist as long as you avoid it. You can only know what COULD happen but not actually what happens. That alone hold you back.

You withdraw to places that make you feel safe, but that will restrain your freedom. 

The emotion numbness you feel, 
the lack of confidence you have, and
the fear of intimacy you hate
will all be there.

Fears should be faced.

First Step -

If I wasn’t afraid, I could…

- Augustus

Losing Interests, Losing Relationships [Free PDF]

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3 Misunderstandings We Have About Pain

You heard of the phrase “Pain is weakness leaving the body.”?

Yeah…I don’t buy that. You probably see that on a gym wall or on someone’s t-shirt.

I can see why people like the phrase but we got to have the proper understanding of pain. What exactly does pain mean to us?

Is pain really weakness leaving the body? No, it's a mantra for people to push harder past their normal limits. That's totally fine. I just want to take this chance to explain the nature of pain.

When we feel pain, do we dodge it? 
Do we push through it? 
Do we suck it up and move forward? 
Do we sit around and wished it never happened?

Let’s discuss the misunderstandings we have about pain.

#1 - We should always put past pain.

As human beings, we are actually tougher than we think. We have a lot more ability to grow after the initial pain. As a matter of fact, we have to move past the initial pain for real growth. We have to go past the limit to break down our original foundations and rebuilding them.

I’m speaking for both physical and mental.

Physical is when you are rebuilding your muscles but you have to tear them a little bit for them to recover stronger next time.

Mental is when you reach beyond your mental boundary, then expanding your mental endurance as a result.

However, the point here that I want to make is understanding that pushing through pain isn’t bad, but we want to understand that pain signals the limit.

Breaking the limit isn't good ALL the time.

The only way for us to grow is to go past our perceived limit so we can become more than what we were like before. Yet, understand that not all limits are meant to be pushed through all the time.

You must understand that sometimes pushing too far for any pain will result in irreversible damage. You want to push enough to grow but not pushing beyond the damage point.

#2 - Pain is meant to stop us from growing.

When we first feel pain, our natural instincts are to stop. It is supposed to be like that, but it’s not meant to say run away at the first sign of pain.

Pain is an indicator of danger and limit, but we don’t want to be afraid of it. We want to be able to face it and evaluate what this pain means. 

Is the pain hurting us? 

What is the source of this pain and how can I recover from it?

Don’t spend your life trying to run away from a pain, because most of our maturities and growth can only come from pain.

#3 - Pain is meant to be left alone.

Sometimes this is true because we learned that if we have physical cuts, it will heal by itself. However, for emotional cuts, it might not be all that easy.

A lot of times for emotional wounds, the pain that is left alone actually works against you. While you are isolating yourself to heal, your inner critic cuts down your self-esteem. It makes you distrust yourself. It makes you hate yourself.

This only gets worse with time. It doesn’t heal by itself. It wants to withdraw and diminish your own existence. This type of pain isn’t meant to be left alone. You want to work through the pain and face it so it doesn’t ruin your life even more.

First Step -

What’s one thing you want to do differently this week?

- Augustus

Losing Interests, Losing Relationships [Free PDF]

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Do You Avoid Attention From People?

I think at some point in our lives we’ve probably avoided talking to some people for whatever reason. Things got awkward or that person pisses you off. There are numerous amount of reasons for it. Sometimes, it might be unavoidable and even the only solution.

Here, we’re not talking about stalkers or aggressors that will attack you if they don’t like you. We're talking about you not like to receive attention in general.

We want to talk about the situations where you could do nothing but avoid the attention of other people. Any attention. Good, bad, confusing. 

Any attention just makes you nervous.

Here are some of the things you might be doing -

- Pretending to be doing something else - Common tactic. Pretending to be busy so you don’t have to talk to them. Trying to be busy when you’re not. just to avoid that contact. avoid communication

- Avoiding eye contact - When you don't physically look at the person, it gives them less permission to talk to you. You are hoping by not acknowledging their presence that they will do the same.

- Lowering your head - This is to make your presence smaller. Almost as if you were trying to hide.

- Taking a detour - We’ll do some ridiculous things to try to avoid any awkwardness. For example, deliberately waiting in the bathroom until the crowd is gone then coming out or taking a long detour to avoid the person.

What are you trying to avoid?

- Intimacy - Are you actually afraid of people trying to get to know you? If you are trying to avoid intimacy with a person, you will be pretty miserable in your relationships. The whole point of relationships is to get close to someone and for that person to know and accept you for who you are.

- Making mistakes - Mistakes can be pretty embarrassing. We usually would shy away from things that would make us look bad or feel bad. Yet, you can't mature without mistakes.

- Being happy - When you don’t think you deserve happiness, you throw away that happiness. If it comes to you, you dodge it and avoid it.

- Fears you have in the past - We all have our own emotional baggages and maybe we’re not ready to face some of them in the past. However, these baggages will affect all of our relationships until we have dealt with them.

- Yourself - The most impossible thing to avoid, yet so many people still try to do. If you hate yourself, it's a never-ending cycle of self-degradation. 

Now, evaluate yourself. Which of these things are you avoiding?

First Step -

I avoid attention from people because __________.

- Augustus

Losing Interests, Losing Relationships [Free PDF]

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5 Reasons Why You Feel Invisible in Groups

Do you notice this guy in the back?

…Probably not. 
Because there is simply no reason to notice him. 

It’s not because he isn’t good looking or he doesn’t have a great personality. It’s just if he doesn’t do anything, show anything, or express anything…then there is nothing to notice. People can be aware of the way his appearance but that only goes so far.

I understand that a lot of us are afraid to speak up or say anything in social settings.  We don’t want to embarrass ourselves in front of other people. 

Personally, I feel like it may be one of the factors that are influencing the way you feel within group settings.

Here are 5 reasons why you might be feeling invisible in groups.

#1 You are not actually engaging the group.

You are there but you are not really there.

You might be physically in the group & talking, but you're not really to get involved. You talk, but cautiously. You talk only enough to not be vulnerable.

You are not talking with the group. You are skirting around the group. In a sense, you are making yourself feel invisible by actively avoiding the group.

Don't get me wrong. You still WANT to be part of the group. You're just not opening up.

You might hope that...

someone will help you get integrated into the group or
surrounding yourself physically by people to feel like part of the group,

but if you are only pretending to engage with the group, nothing is going to work out.

#2 Unless you speak up, people will assume you have nothing to say.

This is pretty obvious.

If you don't say anything, how can anyone know that you actually have something to say.

We already know that public speaking is one of the top fears that people do have. So you're not alone is the fear of public speaking. 

But if you want relationships, you have to talk.
No talking, no relationships.
Not knowing what to say, that's another story.

I know a lot of us actually have good and deep thoughts. For the longest time, I wanted to speak up, because I felt like I had great inputs and valid points. However, I didn’t speak up because of the crushing fear, so…these thoughts that I had never spoken will never be known.

Of course, be discerning. Don’t speak every thought that comes into your mind. Not all thoughts are helpful to be heard, but BE BOLD.

#3 You are talking but not connecting.

Talking is the very basic way to connect with someone. If you don’t share deeper things, then you won’t connect. Simple. 

I have had literally talked to someone for 4-5 years and only talked about exercising or work. I knew nothing about his struggles, fears, or dreams.

You can talk as long as you want about food or hobbies, but we all know you connect through depth and vulnerability.

If you don’t let people in, it really doesn’t matter how many people you surround yourself with. You will feel alone.

Don’t shut everyone out, just let the right people in. 

If you really wanted to, you can have a 30 mins conversation about absolutely nothing. Talking is an avenue for connection. You have to make the actual connection happen.

#4 You want to talk, but you are too nervous.

Social anxiety is pretty real. 

I honestly believe that social media has a huge part to play in making everyone feel more insecure about themselves. 

Cause this anxiety issue wasn't this prevalent couple of thousands of years ago.

While social media is good, it also allows for people to constantly compare themselves with each other.

Meaning...say hello to discontentment and lowered self-esteem.

If you don’t have a solid self-esteem yet, social media will feel like a nightmare. You will admire all the things you don't have and try to win attention and approval of other people.

Now bringing it back to real life. Not only is social media changing the way we communicate, it also replaces real-life conversations. It’s much easier to text someone than to talk to them face to face. As a result, we start to not understand body languages and social etiquettes.

Rather than using social media as your main form of communication, make time to talk to people in real life. 

If you don’t talk, you will feel invisible, so work on overcoming that nervousness. Don’t let technology become your crutch.

#5 You are trying to join the wrong group.

This one is more about the wrong environment. If you are trying to join the wrong group, I’m pretty sure things will feel very awkward for you. 

When I say wrong groups, it means having a mismatch between you and them.

The group can be completely different in interests or values than you. For instance, you’re a software engineering and trying to join a punk rock music club. Not saying it’s impossible; it’s just going to be much harder.

When your values clash with theirs, it makes any type of communication harder. Not because you can’t talk, but it’s harder for you guys to like each other.

These are 5 reasons why you might feel invisible within a group. Perhaps you can relate with some? It’s not a pleasant feeling, but we get a chance to understand it more and move past it.

First Step -

How would you rate yourself in terms of social skills right now?

- Augustus

Losing Interests, Losing Relationships [Free PDF]

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High Self-Esteem vs. Low Self-Esteem

I think we all know what high and low self-esteem look like.

You have the successful business entrepreneur that just got a job promotion last week and the soft-spoken engineer that gets awkwardly pushed around at work.

These are stereotypes. It doesn’t matter if you’re a guy or a girl, successful or not, you can still have low self-esteem. Yes. You can be a world-class lawyer that is still highly insecure about herself.

So how does this work?

What Is Self-Esteem?

It’s basically how we feel about ourselves. We are talking about restrictedly just how you feel about ourselves as human beings. Not abilities, not societal worth, not our net worth, etc.

The biggest indicator of our self-esteem has to do with how we treat other people. Are we able to treat other people as our equal? Not inferior or superior, but as equals. Because how we feel about ourselves will be projected onto how we treat others.

How Does Self-Esteem Affect Us?

What Is The High Self-Esteem Mechanism?

The mindset grows with every accomplishment.

Your failures are steps to success so you never really lose.
You have the confidence to face challenges, because you have faith in your own capability to solve the problem.
You are more resilient after a traumatic event.
You are not afraid to share your opinions with others even when they are different.
You still feel anxiety, but you know how to manage it when you are in social situations.
You are able to show yourself grace when you have made a mistake.
You are less afraid to show your vulnerabilities and weaknesses, because you know your self-worth isn’t dependent on it.

When facing life, having high self-esteem has a great propensity for growth.

What Is The Low Self-Esteem Mechanism?

Preservation.

Your main goal isn’t to reach out to have your needs or desires met, it’s to survive on the bare minimum.
You go through life trying not to make any mistakes, not to offend anyone, not be a burden to anyone. 

You act instinctively and responsive towards how you are feeling at the moment as if the emotions are controlling you rather than you controlling it.

When you want to talk in a conversation but you couldn’t it’s not because you don’t want to, it’s because your anxiety wouldn’t let you.

It’s an extremely defensive approach. There is nothing wrong with approaching the world with caution, but if it is driven by fear, you are no longer seeing things from an objective perspective anymore.

When someone compliments you and you reject it, it’s not because you don’t want to be praised, but because your mind tells you that you are unworthy of it. Since low self-esteem's aim is preservation, you usually end up feeling lonely, isolated, unloved, your needs unmet, dissatisfied with life, and depressed.

As the direct opposite of high self-esteem, low self-esteem reinforces the fact that you are more unworthy with every mistake you made. While the same mistakes for a person with high self-esteem mean that this is just a step towards success, a low self-esteem individual becomes paralyzed with fear & consequences of that mistake and is unable to move on.

A low self-esteem individual wants success just as much as everyone else, but the voice of criticism keeps him/her from his/her own potential.

First Step -

What is one thing that you like about yourself the most?

- Augustus

Losing Interests, Losing Relationships [Free PDF]

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Who Else Wants To Be Sincerely Loved?

Have you ever had these thoughts?

“Why does no one hear my cry?”
“Why is everyone so selfish?”
“It feels like the world is just going by without a care for me at all.”
“I feel like even if anyone is here with me, he/she can’t sincerely love me, because… not a single part of me feels lovable.”
"If I find the right person, I’ll feel loved…right?”

When I say love, I’m not just talking about romantic but also platonic.
Love in a sense of acceptance and being cared for.
Love is an amazing part of life. I don’t think anything could change the world as much as love.
Love is what really binds life together. A very important part of life.

However, why do we not feel like we’re able to be loved? How can we feel loved? Why aren’t we feeling loved?

Here, we’ll be talking about the feeling of love and how our self-image affects it, especially in the realm of low self-esteem. A lot of times, people struggling with having low self-esteem seek out to be loved but only to feel disappointed afterward.

We all want to be loved, but is love from others dependable?

1) Not Everyone Understands Low Self-Esteem

If you find an average person that have great intentions but no background on self-esteem, he might not be able to sympathize with your situation. Sometimes he expect it as something you get over like the flu. He might not know how it feels to be feeling unworthy. He might not know what it feels like to have something good slip away from you so you hold onto it with your life. He might not know why it’s so scary to open up to someone.

“This might be the only good thing that’ll ever happen to me…”

Why? Because he is expecting it like any other relationships he had. He is expecting you to be similar to him. He is expecting to be loved and appreciated by you the same way he will show to you.

This doesn’t mean you can’t have any friends or date anyone, it means you have to learn to love yourself before connecting with another person.

In any relationship, people all know that they are supposed to give love and receive love, but there is another part that people don’t usually talk about. You are also supposed to give and receive love for yourself. If for whatever reason, your other relationships can’t provide you with love, you are supposed to be able to take care of yourself.

In fact, you are supposed to have learned how to love and appreciate yourself as a person from your parents, but not all of us have a perfect family background. The romantic love is another type of love that builds on the foundation of your self-love.

You can’t be fully dependent on another human being for feeling loved. It’s a myth that someone can provide you with all the love that you need. When you are fully dependent on someone else’s love, you will feel devastated whenever he is unable to provide that. If he and you get into a fight, you might feel destroyed because you feel completely emptied of love, which makes the problem worse.

In a healthy relationship, both sides are able to care and show love for themselves, so in times of conflict, they can not only provide love for themselves but also for the other side. It gives you the ability to love on other people when you are hurt yourself.

2) It’s Not Their Fault Or Their Responsibility For Your Self-Esteem

I’m not trying to be harsh, but it is really not their responsibility to help you. It’s nice of them if they helped you, but they are not obligated to help you. This doesn’t mean “Oh everyone is selfish, so I’m not going to trust anyone again.”

This means that no one can walk for you. As much as other people want to help you move, your legs are your own. Only you can move your legs, and it’s your responsibility to move your own legs.

This doesn’t mean you can only depend on yourself.
This DOES mean learn to care for yourself and reach out for supplemental help.

If you don’t know how, start right now.

3) Learn to Take Responsibility for Yourself

If you don’t know how to show love to yourself. It’s not your fault, but it is your responsibility for your self-esteem.

Don’t blame ANYONE including yourself for any mistakes. Taking responsibility doesn’t mean never show any weaknesses. It means actively take actions towards taking care of yourself. I think it is very courageous to try to take responsibility for yourself because it’s hard and frightening.

You really can’t love other people without learning to love yourself first. You are the first person that you are taking care of. Once you have learned to take care of yourself then you can move onto other people. After that, then you can expect a proper relationship with another person.

We all want to be loved but all relational love is mutual. It’s a codependent relationship, where you are independent as a person and depending on others at the same time. I know we are sometimes so concerned with helping others that we forget to take care of ourselves. However, in order to help other people, we have to care for ourselves first. It’s not selfish; it’s necessary.

First Step -

Educate yourself on what low self-esteem is, so you know what is happening to you emotionally.

- Augustus

Losing Interests, Losing Relationships [Free PDF]

Lilrcover2
  • Understanding the 5 CAUSES for an emotional wall between you and everyone else.
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7 Myths About Self-Hate

One of the things that I commonly say is -
You don’t want to learn swimming with a weight tied to your legs.

We want to make sure that we are removing all the negative influences before we revamp ourselves for the positive influences.

Part of removing the negative influences is about educating ourselves on what the negative influences are doing to us first. Here we are going to look at common false beliefs for self-hate.

1) People, Things, Circumstances Can Help You Feel Better About Yourself.

This is the most common way for someone to feel less bad about himself/herself. I do it too sometimes.

If we feel horrible about ourselves, the first thing we do is try to find...
people that affirm us.
things that make us look better like cloth.
things that make us feel better like ice cream.
more control like exercising.

Or if we finally found someone that is willing to be our friend or accepts us fully for who we are. We think it’s true love and that this is it.

I’m not trying to be negative here, but if we don’t like ourselves, no happiness will last.

These things are all great, but they can’t boost our self-image permanently. Self-image is about how WE see ourselves. If that doesn’t change, nothing will change permanently.

Can someone change how you feel about yourself if you don’t want to?
No.

All the things we do are changing the environment around us, but not the mindset that we have. This is an inside job.

2) Confidence Can Be Faked.

There are some things that can work when faked, but confidence isn’t one of them. If we don’t feel good about ourselves, we can pretend to be confident around people, but that isn’t going to last, especially around social settings.

People can see through fake confidence like no other.

Moreover, most of the time, we are already putting up a front to try to blend in or not be a burden to anyone. This outer facade that we have is only but an empty front.

If you have a decent amount of self-esteem, this might work for some selected individuals, but if you feel horrible about yourself already, this will only make things worse.
 

3) You Can Hide Your Real Self from Others.

I’ve seen a lot of people trying to talk and form genuine connections with other people while being afraid to show who they are as a person. These people have good intentions and very nice people, but a connection is only formed by conversing between real people.

If we are only trying to talk to someone while only showing part of us or the “acceptable” parts of us It’s like trying to talk to someone with a ski mask on. You can’t exactly see or feel like you got to know the real person. Moreover, you might be wondering what this person is hiding.

4) It Only Affects You.

People underestimate self-hate and their relationships. It’s easy to think that because this is only about you and how you treat yourself, not how you treat others. They are very much linked.

The closer someone is to us, the more they will be influenced by how we treat ourselves.

For adults, you will start to handle their mistakes the same way you handle it, overly critical. For kids, they just copy whatever they see and they absorb your principles as their own. They basically become a smaller version of you.

The solution isn’t to further exclude yourself, not have friends, or not have kids. The solution is to get help, so you can have wonderful relationships later on.

5) It Gets Better With Time.

People say time heals wounds. This is partially true. Healing needs time, but untreated emotional wounds can last a lifetime.

I always felt like emotional damages are more severe than physical damages because they don’t heal themselves. You have to be intentional in working through the pain or it might stay there for the rest of your life.

A lot of people experienced horrible traumas, tried to stuff it down, and pretended everything is ok. It will never be just ok. We’re not robots. Having emotions make us human.

Trying to avoid emotions or suppressing it will be like you walking through a minefield because there are so many things that will act as triggers to the emotions that you are trying to avoid. Then the emotions come back more intense and unpredictable.

And no, it will stay there unless you clean it up.

6) If You Try Hard Enough, It Will Change.

I am big on change because allows us to go to a different place than our current place. However, if we work extremely hard on something that doesn’t work, we just wasted a lot of valuable time and energy.

If a car has a broken engine, we don’t work hard to push the car, we work hard to fix that engine. It’s not just about putting in the effort, but putting in the effort in the right places.

It’s so easy to spend all that time and energy to polish who we are on the outside to make sure that we never make any mistakes and being nice to everyone, but the real person that needs help is the one inside us.

7) Other People Have the Responsibility of Helping You.

I swear I am not trying to be a jerk when I say this, but people really don’t have any responsibility to help you. We all have the responsibility to help ourselves, and if other people help us, that’s us receiving grace.

We are not entitled to any help from anyone.

This doesn't mean go and solo this thing ourselves, and that we can never depend on anyone ever again.
This doesn’t mean everyone is selfish for not helping us.

This means we have the responsibility to learn how to care for ourselves emotionally. If we are feeling extremely sad, we have to learn how to love and care for ourselves when we are vulnerable.

We have to learn how to feel through painful moments and being gracious & loving to ourselves. That is undoubtedly one of the best gifts that we can give to ourselves. Be actively responsible to care for ourselves, not neglect our needs.

First Step -

Did you feel like any of your myths were debunked?

- Augustus

Losing Interests, Losing Relationships [Free PDF]

Lilrcover2
  • Understanding the 5 CAUSES for an emotional wall between you and everyone else.
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10 Long-Term Damages of Emotional Walls

Do you feel emotionally stuck? 
Like you’re not feeling the emotions that should be having? 
The picture of life suddenly feels gray and lost its meaning? 

I don’t know what kind of life events have brought you to this place, 
but you might be feeling an emotional wall.

What is an emotional wall?

An emotional wall is basically an invisible wall where it keeps our emotions in. For whatever reason, we are subconsciously suppressing ourselves from expressing our own emotions. 

The primary reason for suppressing emotions is to keep us safe. It’s our body’s natural defense mechanism for self-preservation. When we get hurt, we automatically withdraw into a defensive state. It's to buy us some time for us to recover.

I don’t think any of us enjoys not being able to feel our emotions again, especially happiness. That is usually the emotion that vanishes rather quickly. 

I’ll say this. It definitely feels safe to be behind an emotional wall, but it also has long-term consequences. We’re going to look at ten of these long-term damages.

1) We Suppress Our Emotions.

We are afraid of showing our emotions. Why? Because showing emotions makes us vulnerable. We don’t like to feel vulnerable, especially not after we got hurt really badly.

The purpose of our walls is always to protect ourselves. We create this wall to stop the flow of emotions by not letting anything out or in. We don’t want to let other people influence the way we feel. We have been hurt by other people by putting in so much trust in them in the past. We’re not going to let that happen again! We are going to control and protect ourselves.

If we feel any emotions, we suppress it.
If we feel want something, we ignore it.
If we are happy, we discard it.
If we are angry, we don’t show it.
If we are anxious, we spin out of control.

However, to other people, it’s like trying to talk to someone who only responds in one-word answers. With no emotions, other people don't feel connected to us.

On the other hand, we can’t get a conversation going, because we are trying to talk and afraid to talk at the same time.

This defense mechanism is meant to be temporary. The wall is supposed to be up long enough for us to recover then open up again. It’s not supposed to be that locks our emotions up in forever.

2) We Suffocate Our Emotional Needs.

When the emotional wall is up, it means nothing going in and nothing going out, which means we are suffocating our emotional needs.

Think of it like a castle. In order for the people in the castle to be healthy and happy, they need food, medicine, and daily supplies. However, if we lock the gates up, the people can’t get any of their daily necessities.

If it’s for a week, that’s probably fine. But how about a year or 5 years?… Everyone inside the castle would literally be beyond starving.

Our emotional wall is the emotional gate of our castle. We are closing this castle because we sense danger! However, now even when all the danger is gone, our castle is constantly under siege. You have needs and a locked up castle doesn't help.

3) We Don’t Know How to Manage Our Emotions.

When we suppress your emotions, we lose the experience of coming in contact with our emotions. Our experiences with our emotions feel more and more foreign, especially the negative emotions.

As the feelings come up inside us, it feels untamed and wild. We will try to avoid it, suppress it even more, and do anything to not experience the negative emotions

Instead of learning how to accept the emotions and working together with it, we become ruled by it and even oppose it. This makes the flow of our emotions abrupt, impulsive, and reactive.
When we feel depressed or angry, the intensity of the emotions blows out of proportion.

Our willingness to allow our emotions out will help us get used to our emotions in the long-run.

4) We Become Self-Blaming And Self-Critical

If we are isolated from the world, it’s very likely that we will start to be self-critical. Because we have no idea what other people are thinking about. We can only guess, and people in general usually assume the worst. If a person makes the slightest glance at us, we might think the person is critiquing our appearance.

Over time, there becomes this chasm between us and the world. We on one side & them on the other. Now the thought evolves into something worse.

If we were better, then they would have accepted us right? There must be something wrong with us.

Being self-critical is almost like a natural voice inside us. We hear it the most not because we want to, but because it’s like a belief. Being self-critical allows us to believe that we are on the path to becoming better as people. Being self-critical promises us to become people that are able to be loved and accepted.

This is what we tell ourselves, but the truth is we can be loved just as we are. However, it’s one thing to understand it, but another to believe it by heart.

5) We Are Trapped in the Past

Another side effect of a wall is that we can’t see beyond it. We can only see what is on the inside and has already happened.

The past.

We don’t think about anything new. We try to not think about the past, but that is all we have. When we do think about it, we get depressed. We replay the endless painful memory like a broken record. Then we become more depressed and our self-esteem sinks.

Because the past is all we see, we don’t see the present or the future. Our time stops at the moment we cut ourselves off from the world. The world moves on, and we stay right where our memories have left us.

One of the things that often comes up with people in isolation is the feeling of regret. That feeling of being left behind by the world and losing so many experiences while they are trapped. When we don’t remove our emotional wall, our maturity, our time, our growth all stops with it.

6) Can’t Have Deep Relationships with Other People

This is definitely one of the key things that people notice right away. Emotional walls prevent our ability to open up. How do we build relationships with people when we are scared to open up and be vulnerable with other people? You can’t!

Do we want relationships? Of course!
Yet that wall is so high and so thick that we can’t hear anything on the outside. No one can talk over it. Nothing can break through it.

If we’re trying to create a bunker, this is perfect.
But we are trying to connect with other people!

When the person is scared to show their emotions, it prevents them from sharing anything personal. Therefore, they only talk about the more surface topics and never get into the more intimate topics. No real depth of friendships can be cultivated over it.

7) There Is No Hope.

When we are behind a wall for a long time and we see no way out, we start to lose hope for anything and everything. It’s like running in an endless tunnel. It’s an endurance race but endure to what end? We can’t even see the end.

We feel starved, but no one is coming to help.
Nothing is changing.
Then we start to believe that nothing can ever change.

Hope is more important than you think. It gives us motivation and the drive to change because we believe it is possible. No hope means that we will give up before we even start.

8) We Become Emotionally Indifferent.

When we make a habit of not showing our emotions…
When we don’t think there is hope…
When we don’t think anyone else understands how we’re feeling…
When it’s hard to take a step to reach out to anyone…
When we struggle with not liking ourselves as a person…
When we neglect our own needs…

It’s hard not to be emotionally indifferent. However, this doesn’t mean someone will come along and save us, because no one is capable of saving us. Only we are capable of taking down the walls we had put up.

There are a lot of different reasons for feeling indifferent, but all the possible changes that can possibly happen is in our inside mentality.

9) Emotionally Tired from Putting Up Walls All the Time.

Putting up a wall takes energy.
It takes so much energy trying to be strong all the time.
So not only are we starving inside, we are also expending energy to keep up our wall.
This is really a lose-lose situation.

To be honest, the people around us want to see us get better. They might ask us a few times about how we are doing, but they don’t understand how the struggle is a process. We don’t instantly improve in a day or a month. They check on us a little bit and expects us to improve. On the other hand, we are trying to look strong while not improving on the inside at all.

As a result, we put up a front to be strong for our friends, for our family, and that is tiring. I mean we don’t want to be a burden and a bother them all the time, right? So we just keep the walls up.

10) We Believe the World Hates Us.

For people feeling isolated, there is this sense of disconnectedness from the society, because there is pretty much two societies. Them as a big group and us as the group of one. It’s the "us vs them" mentality.

The bigger the division between us and them, the easier it is to feel like they are more critical of us. They might think we’re odd, weird, and unlovable. This happens very simply because it feels like we are not on the same team.

If you are not with me, you’re against me.
Because if you like me, then we would be on the same team.
That’s the false belief.

The truth is most of the time, do people actually dislike us? Probably not.
Some people probably don’t even realize we existed.

Not because they are selfish.
Not because they don’t care about us.
Not because they are trying to exclude us.

They are just trying to make sure their lives doesn’t collapse on them. Most people actually have more problems to deal with then it seems.

No one is perfect, but rarely is there anyone out there that is specifically out there just to hate and exclude us. A lot of times, it’s more about the emotional wall that we put up that made us exclude ourselves. We have made ourselves unavailable and stand-offish to other people, which drove them back.

We want those relationships, but these emotional walls are truly damaging.

First Step -

Which point stuck with you the most?

- Augustus

Losing Interests, Losing Relationships [Free PDF]

Lilrcover2
  • Understanding the 5 CAUSES for an emotional wall between you and everyone else.
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