The method I used to help people overcome low self esteem is called Clean Language.  The facilitator (me) helps a client explore what’s happening for them.  We focus mainly on what they would like to have happend and resources that help that.  The Clean Language method is so good at focusing on the good stuff and the exploring that helps find the good stuff, that powerful results can happen.

I won’t be blogging about self-esteem any more but I continue to develop my skills at Clean Language which can help in a variety of areas.  If you have an issue you’d like to work on, you are welcome to contact me and we can talk about me or another coach using Clean Language to help you.

I use metaphor in my Clean Language coaching to help people overcome low self esteem.

Clean Language draws meaning from my half dreams in the morning and helps me understand the forces that drive my day.

It lets me understand people in places governed by assumptions, perspectives and connections that I don’t wish to hold.

It helps me travel to people I cannot agree with but can now understand

It is better than the smartest of smartphones for navigating through strange, changing territories

It shows the best next step to scared inner children, lost souls, hesitant daredevils and raging anger.

It connects resources to problems, lets warmth beat scared, transformation beat sinking and shows that taking off a silver red teapot top is all you need to do to stop things boiling over.

It connects you to metaphors as bizarre as Willy Wonka’s golden ticket but more real and supportive than chairs.

It can find a desired outcome in expression, then trust, wonder, learning and change.

It helps me as facilitator to monitor my role, play my part and notice the consequences.

It is the quickest way to difficult places, the most appropriate suit, the most respectful holding, the longest lasting gift

It fits when I don’t.
It leads me while giving me the reins.
We shine as we share.

I’m exchanging emails with a journalist who is talking about low self-esteem and gave this example.  I’d like to use it to explain the Clean Language way of coaching.

“In my experience as a college student, I’m surrounded by girls who act irrationally, especially involving men. An example of this type of girl would be one that calls the guy she’s interested in 20 times, only to leave him another voicemail. It’s obvious he’s not interested in talking to her. However, she doesn’t have the sense of pride in herself to stop chasing and embarrassing herself. In my mind experiences like this go hand in hand with low self-esteem. Men tend to treat women with low self esteem worse than those confident in themselves because they know they can get away with more. They know that no matter how badly they treat this specific girl, she’ll be back at their side the moment they need them.”

Let’s say I was talking to the girl who did the phoning.  I’ll imagine the conversation and make annotations. Let’s call her Jo.

Jo: I’ve called this guy and he didn’t respond.

Coach: What would you like to have happen?  [This invites her to state her goal or desired outcome.  ]

Jo: How do I get him to call? [At least it's clear what she wants. Knowing some context, we strongly suspect it's not realistic, but it's Clean Language and we leave our assumptions and interpretations out of this coaching.  Sounds daft, bear with me.]

Coach:  I’m here to help you find out what to do.  [I won't give direct advice]

Is there anything else about him calling?

Jo: Maybe he’s away.  [Likely to be some sort of denial]

Coach: When he calls, what happens next? [I'm going with the story she gives me]

Jo: We’ll go out and everything will be fine.  Fun, a little romantic.  [She is in full flight of denial. Bear with me]

Coach: And you called and when he calls, things will be fun, a little romantic.  Is there anything else about “when he calls”?

Jo: My friends don’t think he’ll call.  [At some point, the extra information she knows challenges her self-denial story ]

Coach: And you called and when he calls, things will be fun, a little romantic.  And your friends don’t think he’ll call.  Is there anything else about “when he calls”? [I focus on an area for a while to see wht she knows.  I'm not using my own ideas and am using her words, so there is no incentive to emphasise her point as if I'm not listening; I clearly am.]

Jo: He will call.  [Rigid denial]

Coach: And you called and when he calls, things will be fun, a lttle romantic. And your friends don’t think he’ll call.
And what would he like to have happen? [I keep returning her undeniable words to her and make her increasingly aware of how solid the story is she is constructing.  She would now be very aware her friends dont' think he will call and she can't think why he wouldn't. ]

Jo: He won’t call. [Actually, she might carry on for longer, but she will see a purer truth of the situation, a recurring pattern or a habit of hers after a while]

Coach: And you’d like him  to call and he won’t call.  What would you like to have happen now?  [We've reached a dead end on what I can achieve.  Either she wants nothing, something else, or finds a way to have him call.]

Jo:  I want him to call.

Coach: And you’d like him to call and he won’t call.  What kind of “I” wants him to call when he won’t call?  [She's persistent and I'm wondering where the real goal is.]

Jo: I’m scared of failing my exams.

Coach: And you’re scared of failing your exams.  And what would you like to have happen?

Jo: I’d like to be proud of myself. [A much wider goal, but something we would work on.  In another case, it might not be self-esteem, but might be about the exams themselves and the task of studying.  At this point the exact nature of why she was chasing him is open to speculation, but I focus on her and her present goal.]

Coach: And is there anything else about being proud of yourself?

…

For more about Clean Language, follow this link.

For more about self-esteem, please contact me.

Whether you are overcoming low-self esteem or not, check out these videos to understand more about Clean Language and Clean Space.

Clean Language taster session – free
Clean Language training

How is Clean Language used by different people?

How to use Clean

What draws us to Clean?

Clean Training is like what?

Clean in Business

Wendy Sullivan

Metaphor

Eddy Smerdon’s Clean Language Summer School testimonial

Clean Summer School Introduction

Whether you are overcoming low-self esteem or not, I hope you enjoy understanding more about Clean Language and Clean Space.

While answering low self-esteem questions on a forum, one questioner was wondering how to not get angry when people make assumptions and are judgemental when they answer his questions.

My answer:

I think the quality of listening and advice varies hugely, amongst novice and so-called expert contributors.  I think a good answer talks to the questioner where they are and doesn’t make any (significant) assumptions or judgements.  A good answer does not contradict information the questioner gives.  A good answer isn’t about the answerer either; it is about or at least clearly for the questioner.

I’m a self-esteem coach and I am answering questions to help me tune in to people’s real needs.
I use “Clean Language” as a coaching method and this method allows virtually no assumptions about a person’s situation.  If you say you’re hungry, I won’t assume you want to eat now (you may not want to drink for religious reasons or you may be saving your appetite).  So I can pick out loads of examples where people presume things.  I can pick out so many that I also realise it’s almost impossible to not make assumptions.  It requires a lot of brain power to remember that other people have different needs, resources and abilities to you.  So that last realisation is how I deal with it.
That last paragraph was for you, but it so easily becomes about me.

“You have low self esteem” is sometimes used to manipulate, as an easy answer or because the person doesn’t want to help/ solve the problem.

I can validly see you want to “deal with it” but I can’t be 100% certain of what you want.
It makes you angry and seems to make you lose your cool, but if you’re a thick skinned, high energy person, it’s possible that’s not a problem.  It’s not reasonable for me to assume you want to priest level serenity all the time; maybe you accept a few dubious comments when you get some good experience too.

I don’t see people making assupmtions as a problem.  They are going to do it, you can ask them not to but they may not be able to help themselves.  You can’t fully control it, but you can control a lot of your reaction.  You can become more observant, see what’s happening in detail and this can help you react in a different way.

Does it help to consider what people say to be a reflection of what’s happening for them rather than defining what’s happening for you, or objective reality?

OK, I’ll ask some no-assumption questions (okay, assuming you’re alive, have a need etc).
- What’s the relationship between people making assumptions and having false ideas and you gettting angry?
- What happens just before you get angry?
- What would you like to have happen?
- How will you know that is happening or has happened?
- What needs to happen for that to happen?

I was stuck on a self-esteem issue and found it hard to get myself unstuck.  I asked a fellow coach whom I had work with before and within minutes i was reorganising things in ways I could not only cope with them, but start having thigns as I wanted them.  Once you have this experience,  you wonder why you allowed yourself to stay stuck for any length of time at all.  I was the “client” below.

With ten minutes and two questions, Judy Rees facilitated a change with a client who felt disorientated and was experiencing low self-esteem. The client was practised in Clean Language, but it can be very difficult to coach oneself well and quickly.

9:00 Client’s situation:

I was overwhelmed with multiple situations where I felt responsible for rescuing people, fixing things, correcting interpretations by other people, planning the long term future and making people happy. My self-esteem was suffering because I expected more of myself. After several hours of chasing my tail trying to coach myself, I had a metaphor for only one part of the problem; swimming with weights attached. I had previously done sessions with Judy and feeling bigger than the problem had helped, but that wasn’t helping this time.

Then I spontaneously contacted Judy as she happened to be on Facebook. We used the text-based chat function. We could neither see not hear each other, but it’s easy to imagine one is in conversation. The transcript below was copied by the client from Facebook with minimal editing so it makes sense and removes unnecessary detail. The times are real.

Client says:

The new website looks beautiful.

11:42

Judy says:

thanks!

11:43

Client says:

Your CL sessions are now £x for 3, is that right?

11:43

Judy says:

…why do you ask?

11:44

Client says:

I’ve spent the last few hours [coaching myself using Clean Language and Clean Space]; it’s slow [to coach yourself when you feel disorientated]

11:45

Client says:

[I’m in]a bind; I’ll feel bad if I get a concession and I can’t afford a proper rate.

11:48

Judy says:

and when a bind, what would you like to have happen?

[Judy initiates a quick Clean Language question with an occasional client]

11:48

Client says:

…

that much I finally got, kind of

I want a metaphor to encapsulate my many things going on

one is swimming but being dragged down by a weight

11:49

Client says:

and being blamed second hand for swimming badly

11:50

Judy & client arrange a price and time for a session that afternoon.

Judy says:

meanwhile, consider “and when swimming and weight and being blamed… what would you like to have happen?”

[By giving two outcome oriented questions and the promise of her usual excellent attention later and the illusion of it now (this was all on Facebook chat with text only), Judy facilitated a change in the client.]

11:57

Client says:

I’ve since got a metaphor of a circus ground with lots of traps in it; one probably being the swimming/ weight area. Being big doesn’t stop me being trapped. I’ll work on all that

11:57

Judy says:

grand, speak at 3

11:57

The conversation ended.

Within 10 minutes, the client had been able to expand on his metaphor himself. He was a circus owner. The customers weren’t happy and wouldn’t sit down. The animal owners hadn’t secured their animals. They were roaming around and people were unnecessarily scared. We needed more customers, animals and money. And the big tent had holes in it letting in rain and wind.

The metaphor gave an experience of the multiple, tricky problems that the client was experiencing. When trying to fix one thing, something else would need one’s attention more.

Yet the metaphor also contained an empowering perspective. It made it very easy for the client to survey the scene (get an overview) and know that his self-esteem was okay (he wasn’t directly responsible for everything). It was much easier to sense what was important and urgent as well as what was feasible today. It was a matter of holding people to their responsibilities and ensuring procedures could be enforced. An appealing offer could then be made to the customers for the show to go on.

15:00

The client felt unstuck and empowered. He didn’t need the session that day and agree a rate with Judy for the 10 mins coaching earlier as well as terms for future impromptu facilitation sessions.

Contact Judy Rees here

I coach on self esteem and couldn’t resist commenting when someone on twitter wrote:

• Gunna just become a contained bottle and not show anyone how i feel it would be best that way (Author withheld for privacy)

Avoiding contact with people can be a sign of low self esteem.  Let me stress that from one comment, I can’t tell much about this author’s self-esteem and it may not be reflective on them or how they see themselves.   I’m just using it as a real life example.

Nathaniel Branden in 1969 briefly defined self-esteem as “…the experience of being competent to cope with the basic challenges of life and being worthy of happiness”.  Other authors talk about it being linked to having unrealistic expectations of yourself and others; not trusting others and not opening up to others.

Several clients of mine have talked about difficulties about feeling adequate and worthy of the love or affection of others.  For people who don’t love themselves, it’s hard to believe that others like them and so interacting with others can be very painful.

I know my coaching approach works.  It was developed by psychotherapists and I’ve seen dramatic changes in one or a few sessions.  In a first session, one client told me things she said she had never told anyone, just after telling me she didn’t open up to people.

My coaching method uses very open questions to firmly keep the focus on what the client says.  On the quote above, I could ask:

• Is there anything else about “not show anyone how i feel”?
• What kind of “contained bottle”?
• What would you like to have happen?

Notice that I haven’t offered advice about what I guess the situation is.  I don’t believe I’ll know with any real certainty and depth.  The questions flexibly follow the client to keep discovering about their situation, their strengths and their opportunities.  Because of the right focus on the right things, gradually or suddenly, the client’s world becomes better, opportunities are clear and choices are possible.

It’s important that a coaching approach provides benefits that last.  Too many self-help or coaching ideas are quick fixes that turn out to be short-term highs.

I’m not sure there’s a quick way for me to convince you that help is available if you want it.  Telling you to “Trust me” can hardly be expected to when you’re not sure whether to even trust yourself.  So please think of what would help you choose a good next step.  What would help make sure you overcome your low self-esteem a little bit more each day?  If you’d like more ideas, my introductory video is a good place to start.

In response to a comment on this website, I’ll address this question in the context of overcoming low self -esteem.

I believe it is a very successful technique for a variety of coaching issues (my role) and psychotherapy issues (not my role).

Clean Language uses a small set of simple questions to focus the conversation on to the client’s perception of the world, how they see things working and perhaps personal symbols and metaphors.  It is better than other techniques about going deeper into their issues without the questioners assumptions and perspective (cleaner).  Please click here to see other posts about what Clean Language is.

Clean Language was developed mainly by the late David Grove who used it to treat people with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.   It is used by trained consultants in business, health-care, psychotherapy and coaching.

After one or just a few sessions, I’ve been told that it has started changes that years of psychotherapy didn’t address.  One woman who wanted to trust people more, told me secret details that she hadn’t told her therapist.

One guy had poor confidence with women and felt he wasn’t important to them.  By the end of two sessions, he felt like a ray of sunshine in their lives.  Symbolically he transformed from something unnoticeable to something fundamentally warm and worthwhile in their lives.

I don’t use it in a psychotherapy setting but that’s because of the limits of my training, not the technique.
For low self-esteem, it allows the coach to more directly access issues that are real for the client and to address what’s happening there and what could be improved.

Research is being conducted to evaluate its value with more scientific rigour.

Clean_Language on Wikipedia