Meditation Articles Series

God in Self Esteem studies

In my last blog I wrote about growing up in a religion where I was taught, and conditioned to believe that God was a punitive and vengeful patriarch. And yes, he also sat on a big white cloud in heaven. A Michelangelo, Sistine Chapel painting must have become hardwired into my neurological pathways at an early age. Other people in the same religion, however, viewed God as divine, merciful, and loving.

Studies have shown that the higher one’s self esteem, the more people see God as loving. The lower a person’s self esteem, the more self punishing that person is, and the more they project an image of God in the same way.

We all have self esteem issues at some time in our lives

From all that I read and research, and listen to others, there would be very few people in the world who didn’t have self esteem issues at some time in their life. If you are besieged with guilt and shame, or if you blame yourself for whatever goes wrong, and you’re always apologizing, the chances are a positive view of yourself will be almost non-existent.

Meditation and how it can restore a positive self-esteem

Meditation could help to restore your self-esteem, as you become more and more aware that you are not our thoughts. How else do we arrive at this concept called high or low self esteem? It is simply through the sixty thousand or more thoughts that pass through our minds daily. These thoughts create our reality. Meditation allows us to observe the thoughts that arise, fall, and pass away. Thoughts are simply thoughts, but it is our attachment to the thoughts that create who we think we are, and should or shouldn’t be. Meditation can bring us to a deep inner knowing that we are simply pure consciousness. As pure consciousness we rest in stillness and silence; that is our natural state of being. This allows us to reside in a friendly, safe universe where we intrinsically know that we are okay just the way we are.