Each month we will post an affirming article on this page to help you improve your mental health. If you have feedback for us or suggestions for future articles, please email us and let us know.

If you are interested in reading other affirming articles or want to learn more about how to use affirmations to improve your self-esteem, relationships and general sense of well-being, please click on Affirmations Archive below.

Affirmations Archive

When you think of being proud of yourself, what thoughts and feelings come to mind? For some folks, I would guess you might say, "Me? What could I possibly be proud of?" In other words, you may be swimming in your own shame, and from the depths of that dark ocean, it may be very difficult to see anything worthy about yourself. Others might remember childhood warnings like: "you're going to get a swelled head if you don't stop that bragging right now." One person recently told me her Mom would tell her, "If I say anything positive about you, the fairies will come and get you." For you, being proud may be the equivalent of bragging, and clearly, such activity may be dangerous to pursue lest you lose friends, or worse yet, get captured by the fairies.

Or perhaps you remember being made fun of for some accomplishment of yours. Remember being labeled "teacher's pet" or "brown-noser"? So you learned it is better to keep your accomplishments to yourself. Or, you may be a member of the group of folks who learned the best way to deal with compliments is to simply attribute any success of yours to "guess I was just lucky". Women in our culture are especially programmed to believe this way. This way you can let the compliment in, but cleverly divert any real attention to you or your skills because it was simply fate or the position of the stars that made such success possible. Others of you may have had "false pride" modeled for you, like my father who used to brag, "I drive better drunk" or "I never make mistakes". And inside, you knew what you were hearing wasn't true, but if it was a parent or authority figure claiming it, then at the very least it could get mighty confusing in your head about acknowledging your success.

Were there other experiences you had or messages you heard which also confused you about feeling proud of yourself? Take a moment and allow yourself to reflect on these experiences, allowing yourself to be aware of any feelings that may surface in the process. You may want to journal about these feelings, and write down whatever those other messages were which may now block your ability to feel proud.

The results of all the above experiences is that many of us learned how to successfully block out some or much of our sense of pride we might have developed as children. Our parents and grandparents truly believed these messages were in our best interest, but sadly they did more harm than good. No matter how well-intentioned they were, they damaged our self- esteem and fractured our self confidence.

Fortunately, we can heal these fractures, and we can learn healthier messages which will promote our worthiness and confidence in the world! We must first give ourselves permission to be disloyal to the dysfunctional message-givers of our childhood, and commit ourselves to being loyal to a greater degree of healthy functioning for ourselves. YES, you DO DESERVE to be healthier.

Let's look at the components of a healthy sense of pride:
POWER: When we are proud, we have the capacity to be powerful in many aspects of our lives. We have the capability of being influential as we feel the strength that eminates from the pride. We refuse to hide our strengths and abilities. In fact, we want to share them with others because it is in the sharing that our power really increases.
RESPONSIBILITY: When we are proud, at the same time we are acknowledging our power, we also accept the responsibility that comes with it to be sensitive to others' shame while we acknowledge our own accomplishments and strengths. Feeling proud is not about putting other people down, nor is it about elevating oneself above everyone else. Rather, feeling proud is about being willing to be ourselves with others. This means we give ourselves permission to speak from our hearts and from our minds our truth as we know it, spoken with a balance of conviction and sensitivity.
IMPORTANCE: Pride gives us permission to acknowledge that we are important, and have important contributions to make in this world and in our community. Being proud is not a contest to see who makes the most important contribution. Each of us in our own ways can contribute to the well-being of other people. I believe that many things we do in this world are important because we are bound to touch and influence others by our actions. When we are proud, those actions have a positive intention and purpose.
DESIRE: To be proud includes feeling a desire to be seen, to be heard, to touch others in powerful, inspiring ways. When we feel proud, we also give ourselves permission to experience these desires, and to know that having these desires are normal and healthy.
ENJOYMENT: When we exercise a feeling of being proud, this often leads us to a sense of enjoyment... of our lives, of our friends and colleagues and family, and of our jobs and work.

To help you get in touch with your pride, I'd like to offer you this meditation. You may want to tape record it, and then you can let yourself guide yourself through this meditation. Or you could let a friend record it for you. Or just read it, and then follow it as closely as you can. You can open your eyes off and on after each step of the meditation if you like.

So, if you'd like to do the meditation, give yourself the next five minutes. You can start by spending the first minute breathing as deeply and slowly as you can. Now, let your eyes gently close, and continue to breathe slowly. Now, for the next minute, take some time to picture yourself being in a really safe place, a place where noone can harm you, physically, mentally, emotionally or spiritually. Remind yourself you can return to this safe place any time you need to as you do this exercise. Now, for the next two minutes, I'm going to ask you to picture some people in your mind's eye. For some people, they visualize easily. Other people may hear me say picture this person, but instead you will choose to feel their presence. Others may know the person is present because they can notice a distinct pleasant smell about the person. Use whatever senses you can.

Now, allow yourself to picture in your mind's eye, the face of one person in your life who you know truly cares about you just the way you are. Now allow yourself to begin to see the faces of any other person, one person at a time, who you know also cares about you now, or have cared about you anytime in your life. Picture also the faces of the people, one at a time, who you know you care about-from the most important people in your life to the people who you talk to daily who you routinely say hi to, even if you're not close. Let yourself see the expressions on all of these faces as they take a moment to reflect on how it feels to know you and share caring with you. Be aware of the expression on your face as you look into the eyes of the faces of all these people. Imagine these faces joined in a chorus, singing you praises of how much you mean to them, of how much they have appreciated you being in their life, of all the ways they have been touched by you. Now, give yourself permission to feel your pride as you hear this joyful chorus of the people in your life who affirm your importance. Let your own sense of pride fill your chest, and feel that sense of pride rising up inside you until your face beams pride and joy to all of these faces.

In this last minute, allow yourself to put a hand on your chest, and breathe in that feeling of pride as much as you possibly can. You may want to tell yourself, "any time this week that I want to feel pride, all I need to do is put my hand on my chest as I am doing now, and I will be able to feel a deeper sense of pride in myself". And now, let yourself count from 1 to 5, and when you get to 5, you can be completely awake, back in the room, retaining as much of that feeling of pride and safety as you are able.

This month's affirmation is: I can worth risking challenging and changing the internal messages that block my pride. I am worthy of feeling a deep sense of pride today.