If you were famous enough to have YOUR OWN ACTION FIGURE would you have Self Confidence and Self Esteem?  More to nail on the Psychobabble Wall of Things that Aren’t True:  If you get enough Praise . . . you will have SELF CONFIDENCE  and SELF ESTEEM. 

But wait!  Praise is a good thing, right? After all, praise makes us FEEL good. We’ve even told parents and teachers that praise (social reinforcement) is the way to get kids to accomplish tasks. We’ve told husbands and wives that praising their spouses can MAKE THEM FEEL LOVED.  Can’t get too much praise, can’t give too much praise . . . right? 

Maybe.  But, What is, “Do these pants make me look fat?”  but one more attempt to suck approval out of another person and duck responsibility for ourselves? (By the way, you regular readers know and have taken the pledge to never, ever, ask anyone that question, or any similar question. You guys remember that any part of your body or personality that you complain about grows to enormous proportions in the eyes of the other.) 

The problem is, if you buy that enough love and praise results in Self Confidence and Self Esteem, it follows then that, if you DO NOT FEEL loaded up with these feathery showstoppers, self-confidence and self-esteem, you must have–somewhere along the line–missed out on sufficient praise.  Now, I wish the worst part of this misguided notion is that we will overblame others (See “What’s Love Got to Do With It?)  . . . but that’s not the worst part.  The most damaging result of this belief is believing –   “I don’t have self confidence and self esteem because I did not get the love and praise I needed AND I did not get the love and praise I needed to be a person with self confidence and self esteem BECAUSE I’M NOT DESERVING OF LOVE and PRAISE”.  And that’s just not right. The whole chase approval, get praise routine is a dead end.  The movie The Wrestler speaks to this issue with clarity, pain, and beauty.   

Warning:  Plot information to follow.  If you haven’t seen The Wrestler and you want to be surprised, stop now. Also, you probably want to avoid the movie if a lot of nudity, a lot, is going to bother you. 

The Wrestler, Randy the Ram (Mickey Rourke), reaches physical maturity to discover he doesn’t know how to participate in adult relationships.  At about the same time he starts spending hours at the gym and learns what body-building enhancing drugs can do for him.  Wha-la!  The Ram is getting noticed.  Being admired.  He even has his own Randy the Ram action toy on the market.

Tomorrow:  Is having an action toy in your image the same as being a real person?

  
 
 
 
 

 

 

 

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