Discover Your Innate Self-esteem-Weaverbirds, Peafowl, Wolves

Discover Your Innate Self-esteem

by

John Kuti

Smashwords Edition

* * * * *

Published on Smashwords by:

John Kuti

Copyright 2013 by John Kuti

All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

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For my sweet wife Lynn

I would like to thank my lovely wife Lynn A’Court for her invaluable input and contribution to this book.

Her Weaverbird attention to clarity and detail has made this book so much better than I could have ever managed to do myself.

Her resilience as the sounding board for these new ideas has also been most important in their framing and description.

Her ongoing encouragement and support are fundamental to my work, my life and happiness.

Table of Contents

Introduction

Chapter 1 Weaverbirds

Chapter 2 Peafowl

Chapter 3 Wolves

Chapter 4 Social Self-esteem: The Things We Do For Love

Chapter 5 Friendship, Love, Marriage and Divorce

Chapter 6 Parenting and Childhood

Chapter 7 Work, Culture and Society

Introduction

Most authorities now agree that self-esteem is the necessary base on which a healthy personality and healthy relationships rest. It has come to be seen as the crucial cornerstone of the psyche. Courses and curriculum for both adults and children are continually being developed to encourage the understanding and expression of self-esteem. But where does it come from, and where does it go?

Why does it seem to be unquenchable in some, and such a tender flame in others? Like art, we know self-esteem when we see it, know it when we feel it, but have almost no way of explaining what it is. What this book proposes to do is to describe the three completely different ways self-esteem exhibits itself in people. The root and stalk of self-esteem may as yet be inexplicable, but I propose that its three primary leaves are absolutely distinct and describable.

How well we understand and accept our own particular model of self-esteem will dictate, to a large degree, how we choose to live our life, the satisfaction it offers us, why we will make the choices we do, and how we decide what life means to us. What our marriages will be like, what kind of lover, parent, worker and citizen we will be, the job we’ll choose and how we will feel about it, the car we drive and how we pack our clothes will depend very much on our particular type of self-esteem. The model of self-esteem that will be ours will be determined by how we feel we compare to other people. Some of us feel that our value as human beings is the same as that of others. Some of us just don’t have an internal standard to measure how we compare to others. Some of us feel that we are born gifted and special in some way.

To understand and describe these three separate models of human self-esteem, I have used the behaviour patterns of three animals to represent and distinguish among them. This book is called Weaverbirds, Peafowl and Wolves because these three creatures, in their behaviour, both independently and in social relationships, are very much like the three kinds of human self-esteem. These patterns of behaviour are innate to these animal species, whereas in humans, things are more complicated because we often feel we have to behave in ways that are contrary to what feels true to our own nature.

Before we can discuss such confusion, we have to look at what those three patterns of behaviour are.

Weaverbirds, an Introduction

Weaverbirds look alike and behave in very similar ways. They are conformists. They live in colonies. Security is everything to a weaverbird. The nest and what it represents are the primary focus in life. The male weaverbird wins a mate by making a nest that most pleases the female.

Since a weaverbird nests in great communities, this is no easy task. For responsible, hard working parents, nesting and rearing offspring represent the greatest success and satisfaction in life. To do this, security is what is most necessary to a weaverbird’s life: security of numbers, security in behaviour, the security of hard work and commitment to family.

We all know human Weaverbirds, the silent majority who live in traditional houses, have traditional jobs, take as few risks as possible, and find their greatest satisfaction in providing a secure home and loving environment for their children.

What pattern of self-esteem do Weaverbirds represent?

Weaverbirds see each other as equals. Total egalitarians, they see themselves as basically no better or no worse than anyone else. They believe that all people are created equal, and that one does to others what one wishes others to do in return.

Peafowl, an Introduction

Peafowl have perhaps the greatest challenges in life because, for whatever reason, in their hearts they believe they have no way to measure how they compare in value to others, so they consistently underestimate their value as people.

Peafowl are either unrelenting givers or insatiable takers. Reaction! Reaction! Reaction!

Peafowl live and die in other people’s eyes because they have little intrinsic sense of their own self-worth. No matter how much they give or how much they receive from life, they never feel it is enough for them to feel satisfied with who they are. No matter how rich or how famous or how loved, a Peafowl never believes it is real or could possibly last but a moment. The givers blame themselves; the takers blame everyone but themselves. The Peacock, the taker, believes in style, not substance, strutting, preening, posturing, demanding constant attention, sometimes screaming for it, and at the extreme, even becoming violent to get it.

At the extreme, Peacocks, the takers, whether male or female, are the majority of the abusers in life, the ones who can lose sight of another’s worth because they have no real sense of their own. They see power in terms of bribes or coercion because they don’t understand why anyone would do anything for them otherwise.

Peahens, the givers, whether male or female, defer, placate, rationalize and suffer. Their cries for help are in depression or martyrdom. When Janis Joplin sang, Take another little piece of my heart now, Baby,. . . if it makes you feel good, we saw the irony of someone with so little self-esteem, standing before thousands, feeling glory in her own martyrdom to love.

For a Peafowl, it is either always about me or never about me. And that is a very hard way to find any lasting satisfaction in life.

Wolves, an Introduction

Wolf society is more like our human society than that of the great ape. A wolf’s place in society is determined through individual power, prowess, confidence and authority. Wolf society is hierarchical yet co-operative; there are roles and status as well as responsibilities and interdependency. Innate confidence and optimism are the distinguishing traits of a wolf.

In human Wolves, the desire for individual authority is either seen as an act of willpower or a gift from a higher power, God or Fate. Often, human Wolves see their accomplishments as simply taking advantage of gifts they can’t explain. But, regardless of how they see their special nature, they have an unshakeable belief in their worth and an absolute confidence in what they, can do. The human Wolf extends power and influence over as much of their world as possible, staking territory and defending it for the sake of the group, the greater meaning, the pack, society.

Whether this territory is intellectual or artistic, or real and tangible, Wolves have an overriding sense of a greater purpose. No matter how individualistic, or how strong the ego, human Wolves seek to lead a group to a greater purpose. Wolves are on a mission. Ambition! Ambition! Ambition!

Wolf ambitions extend to far more than personal glory. Whether they are worlds of ideas or practical reality like government and business, new territories call that must be explored and consolidated for the greater good. Wolves inspire. It is how they lead. Bribes and threats are clumsy tools to lead a group to a common good, and Wolves know it.

So those are the three patterns of self-esteem. Recognizing our own can be a long and difficult journey for some, or one that seems effortless to others. That’s why we are so much more complicated than animals.

Why some people see themselves as the equal of others, inferior to others, or superior to others is impossible to say. But it is clear that those are the three patterns people are divided among. And whether it is innate or a product of early development is yet to be understood completely. The few studies that apply seem to say it may be innate.

Recognizing our own kind of self-esteem is something that, as we will see in this book, is invaluable to understanding ourselves, our lives and others as well. We all know someone who, after many years, or a personal crisis, suddenly changes. Hard driving professionals suddenly go back to the land. Housewives start businesses that explode into empires. For some it takes a long time to discover what matters most. And what matters most will come from how we see ourselves, and how we value that self.

Unlike animals, which innately know the rules of acceptance and rejection, people are accepted for being one thing by some, and rejected for the same thing by others. Parents, friends, co-workers, society have such varied and conflicting reaction to who we are, that it is very difficult to understand and appreciate what we should value in ourselves. This Social Self-esteem depends on how the world treats us, how we are accepted or rejected by our world.

This book is about the deeper kind of self-esteem, our Innate Self-esteem that we base on how we feel we compare to others, and how we feel we compare to others will depend very little on how we are treated or the things that we accomplish. None of the three kinds of self-esteem limits what we can accomplish. They do, however, determine how we feel about those accomplishments.

In the last seventy years there have been three Weaverbirds, four Peacocks and four Wolves who became presidents of the United States. Dwight Eisenhower, Gerald Ford and George Bush Sr. were Weaverbirds. They became President because of hard work, a sense of responsibility and a desire to serve. Their ambition began, most especially, in a responsible way to provide for their families. Fate and circumstance, more than ambition, led them to the presidency.

John Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon, and G.W. Bush were all Peafowl. Nixon and Johnson were obsessed with power and ambition because they thought so little of themselves. Power was to give them a place in history, bribes and intimidation their tools of choice to get it. And no matter how high they rose, there was always an enemy out to get them. No support, no loyalty was ever enough. They tried for incredible glory and sank to despicable acts to get it: Peacocks to the extreme. John Kennedy was a pure narcissist, living to satisfy his father’s dreams of glory, even if it had to be bought from mobsters. G.W. Bush needed to be president to be someone that mattered for more than his charm.

Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton and Barak Obama were and are Wolves. Theirs was a grander purpose. Carter’s mission was a moral America. Reagan’s was to destroy Communism. Clinton’s was to balance liberal compassion with fiscal conservatism. Obama’s is to reconcile American ideological differences. Beginning with only their own optimism and confidence, they inspired people to believe they could accomplish such improbable goals. It is truly amazing what they did. It is amazing they would even try to offer Americans the cohesion of a pack with a shared purpose.

Yet for presidents and ordinary people it is hard to know what is at the core of our beings: How we see and understand the strengths and weaknesses, limits and potentials of our true natures. The process of coming to see and understand the way others see and value themselves is just as important as understanding ourselves.

None of the three patterns of self-esteem precludes anything in life. No matter how we feel about ourselves, the source of human nature is predominantly good. Weaverbirds, Peafowl and Wolves can be fine people, spouses, parents and members of society. Each has the challenge of understanding and appreciating how they can make a life that is rich and fulfilling, and that satisfies the deepest feelings and potentials of the human spirit. And that challenge will best be met if we understand that how we compare ourselves to others determines what we believe is true and important and real.

Weaverbirds, Peafowl and Wolves are like three different cultures with their own individual strengths and weaknesses that can either enrich the world or lay it to waste.

We will come to see that any of the three kinds of self-esteem, when taken to an extreme, is dangerous and destructive. We will also come to see that there is no correct way to compare ourselves to others, that we are not equal, inferior or superior in value to others. Our value is as individuals, and that is something beyond compare.

Who I Am and What I Am Worth

Who we are is incredibly difficult to know, and it is even more difficult to express. Great artists, with incredible gifts of self-expression, can be a mystery to others, and even to themselves. All of Shakespeare’s plays and poems display the most incredible understanding of the human spirit. Yet what do all those plays tell us about who Shakespeare was as a person, how he felt about others and how he felt about himself? No matter how gifted we are at self-expression, our self will always be beyond description, and just beyond our understanding.

Nonetheless how we value ourselves is incredibly important. It was important to Shakespeare, it is important to us all. How we value ourselves will determine, to a great degree, how we live our lives, and even more importantly, how satisfying our lives will be to us and to those we touch.

How we value ourselves, and how others value us, is clearly a process of comparison. Is what I am, who I am, better or worse than the people that I meet, the people that I admire, the people that I don’t even like?

We compare ourselves to others from our earliest days. And others compare us from the moment that we are born. Such a good baby: people say such things all the time. Does that mean that there are bad babies? It’s implied that there are; and it certainly says that right from the beginning, we are being judged, being compared.

It is the common belief that self-esteem comes from how others value us in our earliest years. Many studies indicate that a baby that is loved, valued, praised and encouraged will grow up to value himself or herself positively. This is not necessarily true.

Children, who are loved, valued and respected, sometimes grow up to self-loathing and self-destruction. How many fine and well-loved people have moved past the slow self-destruction of drugs to suicide? And how many brutalized, abused children have grown up to be strong, loving people, with a profound appreciation of life?

In a television documentary on Romanian orphans, two cases showed how environment, even one as cruel, harsh, and inhuman as the one in Romanian orphanages, could exhibit profoundly different self-esteem in survivors. One boy was adopted at three, and by the time he was five, was uncontrollable, without any empathy for others, a very young, very violent, seemingly sociopathic child. The lack of care had done its worst. Brain scans revealed that most of these orphaned children suffered abnormal brain development because of their lack of stimulation and care. Yet the majority of these children, when they were adopted, longed for love, and longed to give it. In most, the human spirit seemed to be unquenchable. Despite incredible deficits and handicaps, children who were treated like animals in cages, became loving, lovely children. They had a profound sense of their own value, and the deep longing to have it recognized by others.

Another boy, who spent eleven years in one of the worst of these snake pits, had polio and multiple handicaps, but, after being adopted by a loving family, was on his school swim team, baseball team, had good marks, and wanted to become a lawyer so he could go back to Romania and save those children still in orphanages. Here is a boy who is an inspiration, who does so much more with so much less than many who have had all the care and nurture a child deserves. Why?

Somehow, some children suffer and come to feel and believe that they are worthless. Some children are loved and come to believe the same thing. And some children, no matter how they suffer, or what they endure, shine with a humanity that is both inspiring and humbling to those of us who have never known how brutal and heartless this world can be. Why this happens is awesomely simple. They just never believe it. Some children, no matter how they are loved, never believe it. Some, no matter how they are abused, ever come to believe that their value as human beings is in question. We all have a sense, very early in life, of how we feel about ourselves. When this happens, how it happens, or why it happens, cannot be explained. But that it does happen seems irrefutable. Children judge their own worth, and compare themselves to others, regardless of how others feel about them.

So, is our feeling of self-esteem set permanently inside us at birth, or is how we feel about ourselves something that can be enhanced, developed, or even changed? If our feeling of self-worth is innate, we may have no way to change how we feel we compare to others. There may be no therapy, no attention that can change that underlying feeling. A person may intellectually understand that they are as good as anyone else, but be unable to feel it. Yet many studies and experiments have shown that how a person is treated can profoundly affect how they feel about themselves.

How can both be true? How can self-esteem be innate and yet be something that can be