3324: Got Low Self-Esteem? By Ira Israel on Creating A Personal Identity & Self Help

[00:00:00] [SPEAKER_00]: This is Optimal Living Daily, Got Low Self-Esteem by Ira Israel of IraIsrael.com.

[00:00:07] [SPEAKER_00]: And I'm Justin Malik, your personal narrator reading to you every day including holidays.

[00:00:12] [SPEAKER_00]: And with that, I'm going to continue reading to you as we optimize your life.

[00:00:20] [SPEAKER_00]: Got Low Self-Esteem by Ira Israel of IraIsrael.com

[00:00:26] [SPEAKER_00]: According to the founder of primal therapy, Arthur Janach,

[00:00:30] [SPEAKER_00]: when a baby is put down alone for the first time, say in its own room while the parents sleep in another room,

[00:00:37] [SPEAKER_00]: and allowed to cry itself out, the baby registers being put down as,

[00:00:42] [SPEAKER_00]: why are you leaving me alone to die? You're killing me.

[00:00:46] [SPEAKER_00]: And please note the pun, put down means lay to sleep with infants but euthanize with pets.

[00:00:52] [SPEAKER_00]: Genov argues that being put down for the first time creates a core or primal abandonment and betrayal wound.

[00:01:01] [SPEAKER_00]: Later in life, according to this theory, when our partner cheats on us or we are fired from a job that we love,

[00:01:07] [SPEAKER_00]: we become distraught because this abandonment or betrayal reopens our core wound.

[00:01:14] [SPEAKER_00]: The unwitting ramifications of infants being put down to sleep alone and then sent off to school

[00:01:20] [SPEAKER_00]: until the child becomes acclimated to these new realities could be staggering.

[00:01:25] [SPEAKER_00]: As animals, I believe that we are meant to be in our mother's arms and sleeping with our primary caregivers,

[00:01:31] [SPEAKER_00]: provided a secure environment for four or so years.

[00:01:35] [SPEAKER_00]: But the highly competitive nature of late capitalism has caused people to shorten this secure stage

[00:01:41] [SPEAKER_00]: when the baby's needs are taken care of in the name of creating productive members of society as early as possible.

[00:01:49] [SPEAKER_00]: A longer earning potential is a greater earning potential.

[00:01:53] [SPEAKER_00]: One of the themes of how to survive your childhood now that you're an adult

[00:01:57] [SPEAKER_00]: is that our rather abrupt individuation processes have created a majority people

[00:02:03] [SPEAKER_00]: whose abandonment fears from insecure attachments manifest as both anxiety and depression,

[00:02:11] [SPEAKER_00]: which are afflicting Americans in epidemic proportions today.

[00:02:15] [SPEAKER_00]: One of the reasons that so many Americans are treated for anxiety and depression

[00:02:19] [SPEAKER_00]: can be traced back to the traumas associated with an infant individuating, gaining its own sense of self, its own identity.

[00:02:28] [SPEAKER_00]: What is important in terms of constructing personal identity is how these traumas are interpreted and assimilated.

[00:02:35] [SPEAKER_00]: If an infant is securely attached to his or her mother and or primary caregivers,

[00:02:41] [SPEAKER_00]: then it subconsciously knows that the mother would never really put it in harm's way.

[00:02:46] [SPEAKER_00]: From Mary Ainsworth's Strange Situation Experiments in 1969,

[00:02:51] [SPEAKER_00]: we know that infants with secure attachment, 33% according to Ainsworth,

[00:02:55] [SPEAKER_00]: do not freak out when the mother leaves them alone.

[00:02:58] [SPEAKER_00]: The world is essentially safe to them.

[00:03:01] [SPEAKER_00]: And more importantly, they can securely reattach when the mother returns.

[00:03:06] [SPEAKER_00]: However, the Dr. Spoknichian, let the baby cry itself out or what doesn't kill it makes it stronger,

[00:03:13] [SPEAKER_00]: parenting style of previous generations may correlate with the spate of divorcees

[00:03:18] [SPEAKER_00]: who do not truly know how to securely attach and reattach

[00:03:21] [SPEAKER_00]: due to the stark and abrupt individuations that were forced upon them before they could speak.

[00:03:27] [SPEAKER_00]: The world is essentially unsafe to them.

[00:03:32] [SPEAKER_00]: Just as a thought experiment, imagine a family on a desert island

[00:03:36] [SPEAKER_00]: and how they would interact for the first four years of their child's life

[00:03:40] [SPEAKER_00]: and compare it to our bottle-fed, raised by a nanny from a foreign country,

[00:03:45] [SPEAKER_00]: sleeps in its own cage and or swaddled a few weeks after birth, etc.

[00:03:49] [SPEAKER_00]: The scientific way of raising children seems to have starkly different mandates

[00:03:55] [SPEAKER_00]: than a child being raised in nature.

[00:03:58] [SPEAKER_00]: No child was ever born with low self-esteem.

[00:04:02] [SPEAKER_00]: One unintentional ramification of our way of raising children in Western civilization

[00:04:07] [SPEAKER_00]: is low self-esteem, rampant low self-esteem.

[00:04:12] [SPEAKER_00]: Children assimilate the frowns of their caregivers trying to train them to use a fork

[00:04:16] [SPEAKER_00]: as, there must be something wrong with me.

[00:04:20] [SPEAKER_00]: Mommy, or whatever other mother in Lacanian terms, would not be unhappy if I were perfect.

[00:04:27] [SPEAKER_00]: Thus many infants assimilate the idea that there must be something wrong with me

[00:04:31] [SPEAKER_00]: during the first few years of their lives and this low self-esteem

[00:04:35] [SPEAKER_00]: dogs them through adult years of addiction, infidelity, self-sabotage, inability to maintain a job,

[00:04:43] [SPEAKER_00]: and many of the afflictions listed in the thousands of pages of Cognitive and Emotional Disorders

[00:04:49] [SPEAKER_00]: listed in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders.

[00:04:53] [SPEAKER_00]: Also, our educational system is very clicky.

[00:04:57] [SPEAKER_00]: When children are making same-aged friends and forming clicks at school,

[00:05:02] [SPEAKER_00]: they notice that they are excluded from some groups.

[00:05:05] [SPEAKER_00]: Again, it is possible that these phenomena are assimilated as,

[00:05:09] [SPEAKER_00]: there must be something wrong with me.

[00:05:11] [SPEAKER_00]: If I were different or cooler or perfect or taller, etc., then that group would accept me.

[00:05:18] [SPEAKER_00]: The funny thing is that I would say that the majority of people believe they are outsiders,

[00:05:24] [SPEAKER_00]: and I admit that my psychotherapy patients represent a skewed population.

[00:05:30] [SPEAKER_00]: There's something perverse about our culture that makes most people,

[00:05:33] [SPEAKER_00]: even the prom queen, football quarterback, movie star, rock star, tech billionaire, feel marginalized.

[00:05:41] [SPEAKER_00]: This could be a result of the splintering of our society,

[00:05:45] [SPEAKER_00]: but until we find or create some common core values like compassion,

[00:05:51] [SPEAKER_00]: then it will remain difficult for people from different tribes like geeks, jocks, yuppies, millennials,

[00:05:56] [SPEAKER_00]: boboes, republicans, democrats, progressives, socialists, etc. to communicate empathetically with each other.

[00:06:05] [SPEAKER_00]: Ah, what can be said about teenage years that hasn't already been documented on Netflix and HBO?

[00:06:10] [SPEAKER_00]: It's all about angst, seemingly.

[00:06:12] [SPEAKER_00]: Why are these years so arduous for the unwilling participants?

[00:06:16] [SPEAKER_00]: Is it the hormonal changes, peer pressure, the desire to be liked amidst a sea of haters,

[00:06:22] [SPEAKER_00]: continuously being judged, weighed, calculated, squeezed into a box?

[00:06:28] [SPEAKER_00]: There's something so desperate about being a teenager in our culture.

[00:06:32] [SPEAKER_00]: The resentment accrued during this phase of individuation is monstrous and manifests ultimately as low self-esteem.

[00:06:40] [SPEAKER_00]: Teenage suicide rates have never been higher.

[00:06:43] [SPEAKER_00]: It appears as if there are severe growing pains associated with being a teenager in Western civilization.

[00:06:48] [SPEAKER_00]: In recent times, thanks to technology and disease, things seem to have grown even worse.

[00:06:55] [SPEAKER_00]: Most Gen Z'ers today equate texting and DMing with talking,

[00:07:00] [SPEAKER_00]: lest we inform them that 93% of all communications are non-verbal,

[00:07:05] [SPEAKER_00]: according to UCLA psychology professor Albert Morabian.

[00:07:09] [SPEAKER_00]: But even when they see each other on FaceTime or Zoom, it's usually only the face,

[00:07:14] [SPEAKER_00]: so that all body language and ethereal energy, as well as smells and chemistry or pheromones, are completely missing.

[00:07:23] [SPEAKER_00]: Mirror neurons do not fire via text message.

[00:07:28] [SPEAKER_00]: Infancy, adolescence, and teenage years seem awkward and confusing for everyone involved.

[00:07:33] [SPEAKER_00]: Too many choices, too many influences, too much infighting, too much competition.

[00:07:39] [SPEAKER_00]: In some ways, our educational system could be equated to a giant resentment factory where spirits are crushed,

[00:07:46] [SPEAKER_00]: souls are destroyed, and many teenagers emerge as faceless laborers duped in producing odd and often useless luxuries,

[00:07:54] [SPEAKER_00]: or manipulating symbols on a glass screen for the next 60 years or until a sufficient rupture

[00:08:00] [SPEAKER_00]: compels them to discard the measures of success that have become guilted cages and self-induced slavery.

[00:08:06] [SPEAKER_00]: Our entire educational system should be rebuilt from the ground up.

[00:08:11] [SPEAKER_00]: The first 18 years of a human's life should not be one behavior modification exercise after another

[00:08:17] [SPEAKER_00]: because one unintentional ramification of continuously being graded and judged is low self-esteem.

[00:08:25] [SPEAKER_00]: Future adults should be taught classes like how to be someone's friend,

[00:08:30] [SPEAKER_00]: how to give a non-creepy hug, how to actively listen and make other people feel heard,

[00:08:36] [SPEAKER_00]: how to have loving relationships, and how to breathe rather than forced to learn subjects that they will never use later in life.

[00:08:45] [SPEAKER_00]: We need to figure out another way of interacting that is more compassionate

[00:08:49] [SPEAKER_00]: so that future adults are able to construct secure attachments and stronger self-worth.

[00:08:58] [SPEAKER_00]: You just listened to the post titled, Got Low Self-Esteem? by Ira Israel of IraIsrael.com

[00:09:06] [SPEAKER_00]: and I'll be right back with my commentary.

[00:09:09] [SPEAKER_00]: Think it, Ira. This was from his book, How to Survive Your Adulthood Now That You Are Disillusioned, Disenchanted, and Disappointed.

[00:09:16] [SPEAKER_00]: You can find more info about Ira's work at IraIsrael.com.

[00:09:21] [SPEAKER_00]: I do think rethinking our education system is important.

[00:09:24] [SPEAKER_00]: Of course, there's room for optimization, but it's definitely going to take a lot of time, research, and conversations to get there.

[00:09:33] [SPEAKER_00]: And hearing articles like this is a good start to at least open the door to questioning it.

[00:09:38] [SPEAKER_00]: So thanks again to Ira. Have a great rest of your day, and I'll be back tomorrow as usual.

[00:09:43] [SPEAKER_00]: Where your optimal life awaits.