Live work with Joshua--

The Secret of Self-Esteem

I was recently a guest on the “Philosophical Weightlifting” podcast with host Joshua Gibson (link). At the end of the interview, he asked if I could give an example of some of the techniques in TEAM-CBT, so I decided to jump right into a live demonstration, in real time, which we are publishing on today’s podcast. I am very grateful to Joshua and hope you enjoy the session as much as we did!

The session covers a number of topics that just about everyone can relate to, including a couple extremely common Self-Defeating Beliefs:

1. The Achievement Addiction
2. The Love Addiction
3. The Inadequacy Schema (“I’m not good enough.”)

It also covers some familiar territory, including the question, “Am I good enough?” It also provides an answer to the questions: “What is the secret of self-esteem,” and “what is the secret of sex appeal?”

To kick things off, Joshua shares an upsetting event along with some of his negative thoughts and feelings. The upsetting event was feeling attracted to a young woman who waited on him in a restaurant, and then going to his car and wishing he’d asked for her personal information for a date. Then he courageously went back and did just that, but got shot down.

Paired with this experience, his overwhelming thoughts and how strongly he believes each one are:

1. I won’t be successful. 85%
2. I won’t get to live the life I want to live. 70%
3. I won’t find love. 90%
4. I’m not attractive. 100%

This is a list of Joshua’s negative feelings, and how strong each one was at the start of the session:

Feeling	% Now	% Goal	% End
Anxious	95%
Sad	90%
Guilty	85%
Inadequate	90%
Lonely	90%
Embarrassed	90%
Hopeless	85%
Frustrated	70%
Angry (with self)	75%

Two things stand out when you examine this list. First, Joshua is an attractive, friendly, and personable young man hosting a popular podcast. If we didn’t have these estimates of his feelings, you would have NO WAY of knowing how he felt inside.

These feelings are all very severe. So many people we greet in our daily lives are similar—looking terrific on the outside, but dying of loneliness and unhappiness within.

Second, he is experiencing nine different types of similarly elevated negative feelings, and not just one negative feeling. This confirms statistical modeling I’ve done with data from the Feeling Great App. There appears to be an unknown “Common Cause” in the human psyche that activates numerous feelings simultaneously.

This is like the “dark matter” of the human psyche. We can prove its existence, but don’t yet know precisely what it is! However, our goal today will be to see if we can help Joshua change the way he’s feeling, regardless of what’s causing his pain.

Positive Reframing Tool

Feeling	Positives
Frustration	It has motivated me to work hard
	It shows I have not given up
Anxiety	Keeps me from putting myself at risk
	It has inspired me to face my fears and grow
Sadness	Shows how much I care about others
	Helps me understand others who are suffering, like my mom
	Shows I have high standards and high expectations
Guilt	Shows that I want to live up to my expectations
	Shows that I have a strong moral compass
Inadequacy	Shows I’m honest about my flaws and eager to improve
	Show I’m humble
	Makes me approachable
Loneliness	Has helped my develop independence and autonomy
	Has motivated me to reach out to close community and to create my own
Embarrassment	Makes me behave in socially desirable ways
Hopelessness	This serves as a driving force
	Shows that I’m a critical and realistic thinker
	Protects me from disappointment
Anger (at self)	Shows that I have high expectations for myself and hold myself to a nigh standard

You can see Joshua’s goals for each negative feeling after we used the Magic Dial. The whole idea was to lower his negative feelings, not all the way to zero, since that would also wipe out all these positives, but lower them enough so that he would suffer less and still preserve all the many positives we listed, and more.

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