Many people accept what they have been told about themselves. If it’s been complementary and supportive then it’s easy to think well of yourself.
However, when you’ve been ill-used and abused all your life it’s easy to reach the conclusion that there must be something wrong with you, that you are worth less than other people.
You may even have a critical voice in your head that tells you how stupid and worthless you are.
If you are a person that believes that you are a little (or very) worthless because of your experiences and what you were told then you might like to try this little experiment:
- Take a brand new bank note: £20 (or whatever your local currency is).
- Examine it closely … How much is it worth?
- Now scrunch it up, then throw the scrunched up note on the floor.
- Stamp on it a couple of times, grind your foot into the money to squash it into the floor.
- Pick it up again, then spit on it, throw it down on the floor and kick it about for a bit.
- Pick it up again, then curse it, swear at it, call it a fool, useless, worthless and beneath contempt. Be as creative and nasty as you like as you damn this piece of paper.
- When you have finished abusing this piece of paper, un-scrunch it, smooth it out and look at it.
- Examine it closely … How much is it worth?
UPDATE
I just realised that I hadn’t given credit where credit was due. This exercise is a variation on a technique from Impact Therapy created by Danie Beaulieu a very skilled and inventive therapist from Quebec.
Apologies for not making that plain in the original post.
