From Self-Esteem to God-Esteem: A Handbook for Teens (2018) is authored by Damilola Busari, a teen mentor, life coach and lawyer with passion for mentoring god-fearing young people, especially teenage girls.
From the opening pages of the book, the author avers that “self-esteem issues, if not properly addressed, can shape our life negatively.”
Thus the mandate of the book is to give young people especially, proper perspectives about the theme of the work. So she starts out with some data. For instance, she notes that low self-esteem is recognised as the universal common denominator among people suffering from addictions and substance abuse, and it is linked to violent behaviour, higher school drop-out rates, teenage pregnancy, suicide, and low academic achievement. Also, 75 per cent of girls with low self-esteem engage in negative activities and teen girls that have a negative view of themselves are four times more likely to take part in activities with boys that they will regret, like premarital sexual relationships, which are more likely to be responsible for teen pregnancies than any other single factor.
In the book, Damilola defines self-esteem as “your self-worth”, and “how you see and describe yourself and it is the value you place on who you are”. She predicates this book on the premise that the way you define your “self” is essential to how you respond to esteem issues in your life. Therefore, when you look in the mirror, what comes to your mind about who you see is essential to the impression you make of yourself.
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In the book, From Self-Esteem to God-Esteem, author argues that we either have positive or negative thoughts about ourselves. We may not be aware of this, but we hold an opinion of ourselves: we all have lenses with which we view ourselves. Therefore, low self-esteem springs from constant negative thoughts about one’s self. This is basically about the person holding what she describes as a “less-than” qualified mentality all the time. Thus such persons would constantly hear voices in their heads that speak negative thoughts to them like “I am not good looking”, “I am too short”, and “I am not intelligent”. These are words that becloud one’s sense of appreciation and instead push one to self-devaluation.
But the author believes that the opposite of this negative mind set is true. Thus if you think positive thoughts regularly, your outlook to life will be pretty good! She concludes.
However, for the Damilola, superior self-esteem is not desirable either. For her, superior self-perception pushes you to “place more value on yourself than you ought to.” In the final analysis, people with this perception “find it difficult to appreciate other people …Most of what they think about involves ‘Me, Myself and I’.” (Pp11-12)
In the book, Damilola Busari sets out some factors that lead to superior- or low self-esteem. She identified, among others, the many harsh, negative words that parents utter to their children, which add up to become the children’s identity. She also mentions pressure from friends, which push the person into desperately wanting to fit in with peers, failing which weakens the self-esteem of the young one. Even the media are not left out in this gang up in derailing the self-esteem of young people. The author here believes that the media programme society to accept certain things as the standard and to see anything below those things as unacceptable. The incursions of social media on our consciousness are also said to bring with them heavy demands and commands by content creators. Those contents are said to condition people into behaving in certain ways by what the author describes as media programming.
Having established the environmental factors that influence self-esteem, author reveals that the best way to healthy esteem is to see oneself as God sees one. She boldly affirms that we have issues with self-esteem because we seek approval, validation and acceptance from people, rather than from God. We therefore predicate our estimation of ourselves on how others view us or feel about us. This is how (p18) the author puts it: “If people think highly of you, you find that it boosts your confidence. If they don’t, if deflates your ego; but human beings cannot and should not be relied on for validation. Else, our emotions and esteem will always be like a yo-yo that is never balanced!”
She declares, therefore that: “God, our creator, is the one who defines and validates us, and he ultimately helps us to view ourselves through the lens of His word. Until we realize that it is God’s thoughts that truly matter, we will not have a healthy esteem.”
For the author, self-esteem issues are products of identity crisis. The argument is premised on the position that when you are able to identify who you are in God, you would have solved your esteem problem. Knowledge of your identity as God’s treasure will spur you into telling yourself that you are not just a statistic or your looks, or your grades in school. This knowledge, she maintains, will convince you that you are valued.
So to develop the right self-esteem, which is the God-centred one, the author proposes an intimate relationship with God. The author maintains that “since it is God’s opinion of you that truly counts, you must find out what He says about you,” and recommends that the reader should cement this God-centred esteem by finding from the scriptures, wonderful expressions of God’s opinion and internalising them.
For the author, the next step of building the God-centred esteem is to begin to confess to one’s self those wonderful things God has said concerning you. This is important, because the reader has to intentionally and deliberately create a new belief system. And to achieve this, you have to displace the negative things the world has told you, and replace them with the positive ones God has expressed about you in the scriptures. She also counsels young ones to keep the right kind of company. The idea behind this is that godly friends and family will appreciate you from God’s perspective and encourage you thereby.
In the book, From Self-Esteem to God-Esteem, Damilola Busari believes that everyone can possess the God-Esteem and that it is not too late for that to happen. She concludes the book by stating that sometimes when we make mistakes or poor decisions and choices, we must learn from our mistakes and move on. We are called to chastise ourselves when necessary but acknowledge our abilities and uniqueness always to be able to have good esteem.
In a section of the book, the author addresses how victims of sexual or other forms of abuse can get back their self-esteem. These persons should take courage in the fact that they are treasures in the reckoning of God, and they should remember that they are not what their past circumstances say, but what God says. Their value is not diminished in any way, as far as God is concerned.
Ultimately, the book, From Self-Esteem to God-Esteem, is a 40-page work with messages of hope tucked into virtually all the pages for both young and adult readers. The author intentionally keeps each of the seven chapters short to encourage the reader to keep turning the pages. The work is also presented in very simple language that is tailor-made for young readers, and it is rendered in a conversational style that transports the writer before the reader in a seeming one-on-one situation.
. Olatunbosun is a broadcast journalist, fact checker and book reviewer at Splash FM 105.5, Ibadan. He can be reached via +2348023517565 (SMS only) and [email protected].
