The most important relationship we will ever have in our lives is the one we have with ourselves. If we feel good with ourselves, accept ourselves and think positively about ourselves, then we become fulfilled. Therefore, how we relate to ourselves will determine how happy we will be.

Building self esteem is probably the most important factor that leads to happy and fulfilling life. Healthy self esteem requires self knowledge, self acceptance, empathy, compassion, self respect and personal understanding. To achieve these states, it requires ongoing personal work. This work can be enhanced by a competent psychotherapist who can guide you through the process. Self esteem is founded on a fundamental understanding of who we are, what we need, where we are and where we want to be. Self-esteem is the psychological foundation that our personality is built upon. The stronger our sense of self, the more we will be able to withstand the storms and difficulties that come along with life’s challenges.

Improving self esteem and building confidence requires the development of abilities such flexibility, durability, acceptance, engagement and being present while developing appreciation. By building our character, we improve our self value and enhance our internal strength and internal freedom, rather than allowing our externals constrains to limit us or control us. This in turn leads to the creation of a durable, flexible and fulfilling life.

Self esteem is knowing how life really is, and accepting life as it is. It is not about imposing our expectations or idealized notion of how life should be. It is not about blaming ourselves or others when life doesn’t turn out that way. Learning to live with how life is, and developing an understanding, compassionate relationship with ourselves is the key to healthier self esteem. As such, healthy self esteem is based on the ability to develop realistic goals while acquiring abilities and skills to construct a satisfying life.

Excessive worry effect almost every aspects of our life. Below you can find a short list of its effect.

Worry affects your physical state:

• Prevent you from relaxing
• May causes sleep disturbances such insomnia
• Makes you tired and weary
• May cause headaches or raises your blood pressure

Worry affects your thinking, feeling and behaving

• Makes it difficult to make decisions and be decisive
• Promotes pessimism, confusion and doubts and c
• Keeps you preoccupied and withdrawn
• Keeps you obsessed with negativity
• Interferes with concentration and attention
• Wastes time and energy and hinder productive action
• Lower self-confidence
• makes you anxious and fearful of taking risks
• May lead to depression and emptiness

It is clear that our moods are influenced by our physical chemistry and by the negative or positive events that happened to us. It is apparent that we cannot change or prevent certain events (good or bad) from happening to us from time to time. Yet, this is only part of factors that influence our moods and it offers limited view of our emotional system.

The Greek philosopher, Epictetus said, Men are not disturbed by things, but by the views they take of them. In other words, our emotions and moods are actually not caused by the events happened to us directly, but rather our emotions are affected by the meaning we give to the events themselves. As such, we get upset, angry, content or happy as a result of the way we inter-operate and think about the events.

This old yet revolutionary knowledge has a tremendous power. It allows us to change our position from a passive and victim view to a proactive and responsible view. It gives us the power to change the way we feel by changing the way we think; to choose healthy and constructive thoughts that lead to durable and fulfilling life. It allows us to move from a beyond our control position to within our control position. The within of our control position does not mean necessary to get what we want, but rather to do our best (within our power) to get what we want and to accept what is beyond our control. In other words, accept the things you cannot change (beyond your control), and change the things (within your control) that you cannot accept. Again, the adaptation of this philosophy builds self esteem and self confidence and creates durable and fulfilling life.