Is it sensible to be too nice?

I’ve called this video “Is it sensible to be too nice?”

And I suppose I need to add the caveat, “if calmness and durable mental health is important to you.”

Why? Because, in my experience, the majority of people with anxiety and OCD are nice people, often too nice, perhaps?

They put the needs of others above their own, are often people-pleasers, typically worry about what others will think, and stress about doing the wrong thing, breaking a rule, or letting other people down.

And I know this, as this was me twenty years ago, so I’d like to share with you what happened to me as I awoke to this trait within myself and what I did about it.

The first realisation I’d like to share with you came early in my process of escaping my OCD – from one of my first mentors who said to me, “John, all your suffering is caused by you! But, you are blaming everything (and everyone) else and not taking responsibility for your life experience!”

To which I replied (something like), “of course, it’s not! I’m not making my employer mistreat me or making my anxiety hijack me, I’m not causing my intrusive thoughts, or price rises, traffic jams or people dying!”

And he just smiled at my ignorance and said, “Can you not see that you have been programmed into the perspective that you feel like a victim to what your brain and body do – and what life throws at you?

He went on to say, “It can be very different! However, you will need to see all that content from a new context, and you’ll need a new perspective to live your life from.”

I said, “Can you give me an example?”

And he said, “Yes, let’s talk about fairness and being nice. You keep telling me that life isn’t fair, it’s not fair that you have to work so hard and be nice all the time, and that you have depression – and nobody knows the inner pain you are going through. And it’s not fair how much sadness and pain there is in the world.”

“But John – why does life have to be fair? And why is being nice so important to you?”

“What if fairness was just a concept programmed into you – and what if I were to tell you that the world isn’t fair, never will be fair, and that is absolutely fine, why should it be fair, that is just your expectation?”

“What if you are wrong? Therefore, your suffering is caused by you wanting everything to be fair!” He said, “How might your life be different if your need to be nice, have fairness, justice, righteousness, decency, politeness, appropriateness, and other similar expressions we no longer quite so important to you?”

“What if you didn’t have an opinion about those things?”

I replied, “Well, you can’t just be horrible to a work colleague even if they are incompetent.”

And he said, “Why do you use the word horrible? Surely, it is only being honest and truthful if you were to say this work is not of an acceptable level, and it took you far too long to complete, let’s explore how you might become more proficient, therefore of more value to the organisation and me!”

“And, what if how that person reacted no longer bothered you? Because if you think about it – you are responsible for what you do and say, but you shouldn’t take responsibility (or take personally) how they might respond – as that is their responsibility!”

What he said did make sense, though (at the time) I couldn’t see how this would be possible for me!

He went on to say, “your problem is you feel you need to be nice, you think you need to be fair, you feel you need to be liked, you think you need to avoid conflict or hurting other people’s feelings – and these are just your programming rather than the truth of who you really are (or could be)!”

I asked him, “What do you mean, rather than the truth of who I really am?”

And he asked, “Sometimes, when you are being nice and polite, would you rather be telling them bluntly that you are unhappy with their behaviours, you don’t agree with them, and you wish they would just bugger off?”

I said, “Yes, sometimes, but surely everybody feels that way, and they just put up with it? Surely, it’s wrong to go into conflict with, or judge, criticise or belittle others.”

He said, “I don’t dislike conflict. I don’t even call it conflict. I call it asking for what I want, or standing my ground, or being honest! And what is wrong with any of those behaviours?”

And he was right – what is wrong with being honest, standing my ground, speaking up for myself or putting my needs first? They were the perspectives and behaviours of a person with high self-esteem.

Looking back on that conversation in my mid-thirties – it was almost as if that was a different lifetime. My naivety and degree of programming to be nice, follow the rules, fit in and avoid upsetting others was almost unbelievable (compared to today).

You might say my self-esteem was very low, causing me to please others in a vain attempt to be liked – as I didn’t really like myself.

Up until that point in my life, nobody had ever taught me that it was OK to be nice to myself, that it was my duty to love myself and that it was OK to put my needs first – and silly me, if I didn’t!

Upon reflection, I see now that those behaviours generated the repressed levels of anger, frustration and exhaustion – which underpinned my anxiety and depression at that time.

My concept of self-esteem was driven by how others valued me rather than how much I valued myself.

I unknowingly needed external validation to justify my worth – measured against an internal and ridiculously moral programmed story of who I thought I ought to be!

But as I keep repeating – self-esteem is an attitude – it is the learned ability to respect yourself and not let others be disrespectful to you!

Which is achieved by exploring what you want from life and consciously, positively and lovingly talking yourself into doing it!

It is further enhanced by accepting others for who they are and not taking their comments or actions personally, or by changing yourself (or them), or by removing yourself from that person or situation.

People with high self-esteem are reasonably comfortable speaking their minds, and (typically) their thoughts and behaviours align with who they authentically are – rarely do they get anxious or depressed unless they are exhausting themselves by working too hard or are bored.

Therefore, we can learn much from people with high self-esteem and self-worth. So, that is what I did. I copied their behaviours and investigated who I might be beneath all my childhood conditioning and the various environments I was living and working in.

And know this, anybody can have high self-esteem, no matter, how clever, funny, tall, fat, thin or however they are – it is just the attitude of being nice to yourself and accepting yourself regardless of anything! Surely, if you had a child, you would want that for them? So why not yourself?

As I keep saying, you’ll not be able to escape anxiety or depression without becoming a new person because it is being your current self that caused these mental health conditions in the first place!

And one more very important observation – the world we live in seems to be designed to discourage healthy self-esteem thus rendering individuals easier to persuade, control and manipulate through fear, regulation and marketing.

This low self-esteem sector of the population are often referred to as sheeple, a combination of the words sheep and people and describe, “people who are docile, compliant, or easily influenced,” of which many are awakening to how fearfully they were programmed and are looking to escape that anxious way of living – which, of course, is what I am teaching here.

OK, so let’s bring in another important concept about chemical imbalances within the brain as being the cause of depression or certain anxiety disorders.

And if you have ‘stories’ that your problem is genetic or due to your brain not making the right chemicals, this must be revised immediately.

Since my early forties, I’ve deeply questioned the fifty-year-old medical world’s – Serotonin Theory of Depression – which proposes that the diminished activity of serotonin pathways plays a causal role in the patho-physiology of depression.

This theory had driven pharmaceutical companies to develop Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors (SSRIs), which we call antidepressants – to remedy this condition.

However, my experience was that as people thought and behaved in new ways, their depression and OCD backed off, which demonstrated (to me) that nicer thoughts, more rest and a deeper connection with life were the key ingredients to chemical balance and regulation – not antidepressants!

Now fifty years on, Scientists at University College London have concluded that the serotonin theory cannot be supported by scientific evidence and that placebo seems to be the most likely factor controlling the limited and variable effectiveness of antidepressants.

They also commented that pessimism and an unfulfilled lifestyle seem more likely to be the cause of this lack of feel-good chemicals in the individual – which, of course, makes complete sense to me.

Once again, big pharma was implying we can fix you with drugs rather than you fixing yourself by living life in the manner you were biologically designed to live it!

As I said, this had been obvious to me for over two decades. I had even stopped trying to convince those who clung fiercely to their “It’s genetic” or “it’s just the way my brain is” stories – as it would exhaust me trying to get them to at least check it out!

In my therapy practice, I don’t take on clients who believe their problem is due to a chemical imbalance or genetics.

And I do this out of respect for my well-being. I don’t want to waste my energy on those individuals who fight to retain their own limitations!

In addition, many of them were already heavily medicated, likely causing more of a chemical imbalance within them!

I hope you can see what I am pointing to?

It’s through living a calm, connected and optimistic life (you might say a balanced life) that will rebalance your brain chemistry and the subsequent expression of your appropriate healthy genes.

Now, I’m not going to expand on this topic any further, but I will put a few links in the notes below this video for you to go and do the research for yourself.

But, know this, pessimism is clinging to a story that you are broken. And optimism is clinging to the story that there is hope you can change yourself; therefore, it behoves you to try.

This shift of context to a new focus of content, along with new attitudes, is what this course is all about.

Observe, too, that as you see that change is possible, and as your focus moves away from anxiety or depression toward who you want to be – often, big changes may be required in your life that the anxiety is currently masking.

Moving house, ending a relationship, getting a job, coming off of benefits, standing up for yourself, becoming more social, starting to say no more, becoming more selfish, helping others because you desire to rather than feel you ought to, and retraining those around you to treat you differently – and I am encouraging you to embrace these changes rather than to fear them.

As I have said in earlier videos, a great tip when embarking on new adventures is to adopt the “I don’t know story!”

Will it work? I don’t know! Can I do it? I don’t know!

How can you know until you try? And your ego, which is trying to stop you, doesn’t know either. It just thinks it does!

It’s like the famous hockey player Gretzky’s famous quote, “You’ll miss 100% of the shots you don’t take.”

I spoke with a guy last week who has seriously adopted my teachings and is radically changing his life – and he said.

“John, I was so nervous standing up for myself and honestly asking for what I needed. However, it was surprisingly simple once I got going, and none of my ego’s catastrophising stories actually happened. In fact, things went so much better than I could have imagined. It’s so much easier to live like this than ever it was living with anxiety and fear!

Good for him, he broke free, and I believe you can too.

OK, back to self-esteem.

So, we are looking to explore what our authentic self may be beneath our conditioning, or we simply decide how we would like to be and begin to think and behave that way to see what happens.

In my recovery, there was a phase where I chose to become Selflessly Selfish, meaning I’d selflessly do anything for anybody (including myself) if I selfishly wanted to, and if I didn’t want to, I selfishly wouldn’t!

This model did wonders for my self-esteem. It broke my conditioned story that it is “bad to be selfish” and forced me to be honest about what I truly wanted to do. Plus, it taught me how to speak with much more honesty and integrity.

I remember an incident when I first chose to try and live my life selflessly selfishly. It was a Friday afternoon in January, and I had taken the afternoon off work to do some research, which is something I love to do.

Outside, it was cold, intermittently snowing, and I was in the warm, doing something I loved. A friend then telephoned me and asked if I could pick him up from the train station, about fifteen miles away, as his car had been stolen from the station’s car park.

He said, can you take me to the police station and then home?

I looked out at the cold weather, and my honest and truthful response at that moment was – I didn’t want to do it! It wasn’t a life-threatening situation – and I selfishly just didn’t want to do it.

Previously, old me would have just reluctantly (but pretending it was OK) said yes and jumped in my car, whilst mumbling under my breath that my afternoon was ruined.

But new me was different he was OK putting his own needs first. So I asked him if I was the first person he had called and if he had other people he could call?

He laughed and said I was the first, and there were four other options. So I nervously said, I’m a bit busy. Can you try those other four on your list, and if none of them can do it, I’ll come and get you.

He said thanks and hung up. I felt a fleeting moment of pain from my old guilt story about letting someone down, then switched to my new conscious internal story that I had selfishly (in that moment) put myself first, and that was a kind and loving thing to do for myself and a whole nice feeling came over me.

He rang back a few minutes later and said, “don’t worry, my wife will pick me up and thank you so much for being a good friend and being there for me!”

Just out of interest, I said, “Why did you ring me before your wife?” And he said, “Because you wouldn’t be grumpy and lecture me about the car being stolen!”

Can you see that the old ‘nice me’ had unknowingly trained him to call me, who lives fifteen miles away before his own wife, who was only four miles away!

Can you see that being nice may saddle you with requests for help just because of your approachability and caring nature?

Interestingly, even though I had effectively said no to him through my new behaviour. He wasn’t upset, he didn’t feel let down and he even thanked me. Plus, I had updated the story in his mind about how I might behave in future interactions.

Can you see how behaving with healthy self-esteem can be quite simple? We just need to become more authentic.

Authenticity may be defined as ‘being in touch with ourselves’ and not denying our intrinsic needs like love, connection, creativity, relaxation, health, security and purpose.

This is why in videos 32 parts one and two, I spend a lot of time detailing a process that will help you to decide who you wish to be – and if you haven’t done that work yet, get on with it, stop sabotaging your own growth!

And as we become this new and more authentic person we must recognise that our family or ‘tribe’ will likely try to stop us, or may react uncomfortably to our new behaviours, which makes sense – as, often, they were the group that initially programmed us!

So, what can we do about it?

As ever, we need to jump back to my story about content and context as discussed in Video 33.

Over ninety per cent of the thousands of anxious people I have worked with have been people (who from my perspective) were too nice.

Most of their issues were not their issues they were somebody else’s. Let me give you some examples.

I can’t tell you how many conversations I have had where the anxious person was obviously in an abusive or unloving relationship – and when I said, “Have you thought of ending that relationship and spending some time on your own to recharge?”

And they replied with comments like, “They won’t be able to manage without me”, or, “I’m not the type of person to walk away,” or, “I was brought up with loyalty as a core value,” or “I don’t want to have failed in my marriage.”

Then I would say, “But are you happy? Is this what you want? What is best for you?”

And they’d say, “It doesn’t matter what’s best for me, this is who I am, so there’s not much I can do about it!”

I’d say, “But isn’t this exhausting you, making you angry and frustrating you?” And they’d say, “Yes, but what can you do?”

A little tip here – watch out for times when you might use (or hear) that language pattern, “Yes, but what can you do?” Because it is unconsciously abdicating responsibility to the person without the problem whereas saying, “What can I do?” accepts responsibility for where the issue truly resides.

Either way, there are many things you can do! Firstly, you can stop taking responsibility for a person who won’t take responsibility for their own life or who is being abusive to you!

I believe that most’ nice person’ behaviour was installed during childhood as a coping mechanism to avoid upsetting others and thus they develop an external validation process because their own ability to self-validate was compromised.

Of course, if a person can learn to self-validate by learning how to like themselves and be nice to themselves, this old program can be changed, and with the need to please others lessened, a more authentic view of self may begin to emerge.

I believe this one-word ‘responsibility’ is key to growing self-esteem – what are you responsible for? And, what are you not responsible for?

Where are the boundaries where your sense of responsibility begin and end?

Many people with anxiety (and OCD) seem to unknowingly take responsibility for things they don’t need to.

A good example of “taking responsibility for others” was seen around covid and all the measures people were asked to adhere to.

Those with high self-esteem chose what actions or inactions were right for them, whilst those with lower self-esteem did what they thought was right to keep others happy.

And ironically some anxious individuals flip-flopped by having high self-esteem by saying yes to what was right for themselves during the pandemic, however, still had low self-esteem and said no to changing their lives in other ways like getting a job.

So, this concept of how much responsibility we take for another person (and why) is an interesting concept.

In my relationships, I try to take responsibility for what I say and do – however, how the other person responds is mostly their responsibility.

A person with high self-esteem might say, “You have your perspective and I have mine, I respect your point of view, however, I respect mine too. I won’t be doing XYZ, but I am very comfortable with you doing as you wish.”

For those looking for a calm life – accepting that you are not responsible for everybody’s happiness – but you are responsible for yours is a powerful new attitude to explore.

Others are responsible for themselves, you are not responsible for them!!! Unless they’re children. You are not even responsible for your ageing parents, they are responsible for themselves until such an age that their faculties may be compromised and even then if you choose to take responsibility for their well-being, it should be on your terms, not theirs, although in line with their needs.

Are you caring for somebody because you want to – or because you feel you ought to? One comes from love and the other from the pain of guilt for not living up to who you feel you ought to be, which is primarily your conditioning.

Now I know these are touchy subjects and very specific to each individual situation – however, can you see that what you take responsibility for and how you take that responsibility is a very big subject – especially if calmness and happiness are your new goals.

I usually do a practice run before I film each video with my partner Jen – and when we reached this part she said, “you are so right, what we choose to take responsibility for is so important – can I share what happened with my mother?”

She said – as her mother (who was elderly, disabled and living alone) approached the end of her life, this is what unfolded.

She said, “I felt I was doing everything I could for my mother by shopping, ensuring she was eating, taking her out for meals, to doctor appointments, arranging home helpers, dog walkers, and medical assistance.

However, my mother grew increasingly frustrated with me, she would cancel arrangements, refuse to go out, antagonise home helpers and then fire them.

I felt exhausted, torn between my work, looking after a foster child, my dying father and an estranged husband.

I felt bad when people praised me for being a wonderful daughter when I knew I often resented having to do everything for her, especially when she would be so dismissive of my help and sometimes really rude to me when I felt I had absolutely done all I could do.

It was only very near the end of her life (and by then too late) that I realised that the things I was doing for her were not what she really wanted of me and therefore an absolute waste of my time and effort.

It dawned upon me that if I hadn’t taken her to the doctors and hospital appointments, her GP or local charities would have arranged transport.

If I had not arranged her care and home assistance – trained organisers or social services would have done this.

If I had told my brothers how stressed and tired I was they may have helped more, but I didn’t tell them as I didn’t want them to be stressed as they were busy in their lives too.

How my mother would have loved it if I had spent half that time sitting by her side, listening to the stories of her life, going through photos, hearing what was really important to her, what she was proud of and reliving her happy moments.

She tried to tell me when I was visiting her in the hospital one day. I had spoken to the consultant and was arranging her care for when she returned home, it was her last and prolonged hospital stay after a fall and her lungs were not good, she was barely eating. She grabbed my hand and pleaded with me “Just let me die Jennifer”.

I listened in so far as I signed the ‘Do not resuscitate” form, but I felt a pang of guilt doing it even though it was what she wanted.

If I had spent more happy time with her, all the ‘other stuff’ would have been done one way or another, and she would have had a much happier end of life and my levels of stress would have been dramatically reduced.

If I had given her my time instead of my organising skills, she would have loved that – she didn’t want to eat anyway, she just wanted to be listened to and to have a friend or loved one by her side.

If could go back I would do it in a completely different way, but I won’t beat myself up because, in truth, her parting gift to me was this realisation (my own growth) of what real compassion might look like, which can now be used for the remainder of my life…”

Can you see what a change in responsibility might look like? ——–

I know too that there are many generational and cultural concepts of extended family responsibility that may have been passed down over the years. And it may be that you will need to consider deeply if you wish to modify those old traditions for these busy

times, your emotional well-being and so your children’s future experiences may be different?

So, can you ask yourself – how might my primary responsibility be to myself?

Then, where do my boundaries of responsibility begin and end with the people, the organisations and the environment around me?

Let me share some more concepts that worked for me, but, as ever, you need to explore and see what might work for you, we are all different and one size does not fit all!

These days I believe we should take full responsibility for the children and animals in our care, and that responsibility ought to be based on what is best for them and not necessarily for us – for example, the dog should be taken for a walk even if you feel too tired.

I think too, we ought to be living our own lives in such a manner that the children in our care can see (and therefore become programmed) by our new behaviours.

As I said in video 29, it seems to make sense for us to behave now in the ways we would hope for our children to behave when they are adults, even if it causes us discomfort now.

Often this will entail interrupting and breaking the old family traits programmed into you – like being nice, helping everybody, avoiding conflict, putting others first, following rules that don’t serve us well, and the huge misconception of thinking that if you were a caring person you ought to feel other people’s pain.

We don’t need to feel another person’s pain, we can acknowledge it, but we don’t need to feel it. We can be lovingly detached. It is their pain to feel, not ours. We are responsible for our half of the relationship and they are responsible for theirs.

I had to really consider at what stage of my son’s life would I relinquish responsibility for how he would live his life! This was a tough one for me, I could see that there was a fine line between telling him what to do and letting him find out for himself.

Ultimately, I decided that I would live my life in the manner I hoped for him to live his – regardless of how he did choose to live his life – and to open a non-judgemental space

he could safely step into – to ask me any question or receive help in ways that might suit him (rather than me).

Letting go of responsibility for a person doesn’t mean you don’t care – just that you have considered where your responsibility ends and theirs begins, you might even say you are becoming more respectful?

I know many people who are quite negative, complain about everything and do a lot of drama, you might say they have a victim attitude. With these individuals, it’s unlikely they’ll ever change as often they don’t even think they need to change.

So, when I am around them – I choose to be responsible for being optimistic, hopeful and of high energy – but I don’t take responsibility for how they react to that high energy – and I don’t take responsibility for their happiness, that is down to them.

Or, I just save my energy and am very quiet, as nothing I can do will stop their self- induced negativity so I protect myself from it!

Now, as I keep saying, this course is about living with calmness, it is about becoming your authentic self and it is about avoiding unnecessary drama. It is about becoming

lovingly detached, it is about finding a gentle inner courage which enables you to live your best life.

How you choose to live may differ hugely from the way I do, all I am saying is – who is the authentic you? And how can you learn to positively self-validate rather than needing external validation through being a nice person or a people pleaser?

Consider this, you are a person, therefore as a people-pleaser, you should be pleasing yourself too.

I’d rather be an honest person who chooses where to focus his helpful energy, than a nice person who depletes all their energy helping everybody (including those who can’t be helped).

One of my early mentors told me, “You can’t help a victim, but you can love them and accept them for who they are, not who you wish them to be!”

That’s very clever advice which certainly helped me to use my own limited reserves of emotional energy wisely, thus recharging my emotional battery which ensures enough

energy to feel good on the inside and enhance my decision-making abilities as I discussed in video 4.

I read somewhere that people pleasers are liars (perhaps that is too strong a word, maybe fibbers) because they are frightened of the views of others so they deny their own needs in order to please others.

And by pleasing others and ignoring your own true needs you will diverge from who you really are and erroneously try to live up to the stories others have of who they want you to be.

The Italian philosopher Machiavelli said something like; “Be as nice as you wish, but never be overly devoted to acting nicely… And learn how to borrow (when need be) all the tricks employed by those around you…”

He also said, “Everyone sees what you appear to be, though few experience what you really are.”

This is why I introduced to you the concept of Virtual Reality stories back in video 22. Where I said that people treat us in line with the Virtual Reality story they have in their

mind of who they think you are – which is what you programmed into them via your words and actions.

So, if a person is asking you for help and you say yes, when truly in your mind you mean no, they will keep on asking for your help because their Virtual Reality story is that you want to help!

But, in your head, you are saying, “I do all of this for them, why can’t they see how tired I am.”

But in reality, it was you who trained them to keep asking – and you who is not telling them how exhausted you are, by saying to them ‘I’m fine’ when they ask!

So, how can we update their virtual reality stories about us through new more authentic words and actions?

Another concept worth exploring is… Many ‘nice people’ have strong values such as loyalty, being helpful, being nice, not letting others down, compassion, empathy and the like.

These values act out via their words and actions to other people, yet (often) do not play a significant role in their own inner dialogue and self-behaviours.

Like a person helping others but not helping themself.

If you have those values for others, then surely they must apply to you too, in fact, they should start within you, and then (if you have enough time and energy) spread out to others.

Any resistance you may have to – being loyal to yourself, caring for yourself, having compassion and loving yourself – will likely be driven by internal stories of not feeling good enough, low self-esteem, low self-worth guilt and shame.

But, rather than addressing those painful inner facets of themselves, nice people attempt to feel better by helping or pleasing others.

So, we take back control by consciously talking to ourselves in a nicer fashion. A client recently said to me, “I guess I just need to tell myself nicer lies!” And I said exactly!

If we want to be happy and calm, we must make our conscious internal dialogue (about ourselves) kind and loving!

The two biggest barriers to finding more self-esteem are guilt and not feeling good enough which we may equate to your feeling of self-worth – and I am going to dedicate a whole video to the complex and massive topic of guilt very soon.

Until then here are some more ideas you might want to consider.

Can you change some of the words you use to define yourself? Let me give you some examples, I have no current desire to be a nice person, I see myself as a good person.

I have no desire to help everybody, I desire to help those who are prepared to help themselves.

Outside of my work, I have no desire to change people, I aim to accept them as they are.

I try not to judge people – as it is none of my business how others choose to live their lives. And even if my conditioned brain is judgemental of others it doesn’t mean I (the Observer) need to believe it or act on it!

I try not to let my emotional reactions govern my behaviours, I try to align my behaviours with my intentions for who I wish to be and how I desire to live.

For many years I was a big fan of the Stoics from third-century Greece who learned to be indifferent to their emotions and saw everybody as equal.

You might want to check out their teachings and use them as part of detaching from your current hyper-sensitive emotions, until such a time that you can re-engage with them on new, more calmer terms.

Another thing to consider – if you are a people pleaser -can you ask the person you are trying to please exactly what they need – rather than doing what you think is best for them – and if they say “I don’t know” just say, “OK, when you do know, let me know!”

And move away. You are not responsible for making their decisions, or the outcomes in their lives – they are!

I’d also like you to consider that you asking for help is not a sign of weakness it is a sign of strength – learn to ask for help and to allow people to help you.

Remember that your words and behaviours are defining their virtual reality of you and as such how they will treat you! So mix it up a bit, if you are tired say so, and occasionally say no to others to lessen their dependency on you and encourage them to expand the group of people supporting them.

Now, I am not saying become a cold and unhelpful person, quite the opposite – I am saying if you only have 100 units of energy each day, try to go to bed having only used 90 of them so 10 units go to beautifully and lovingly recharging your emotional energy battery.

The first 80 units of energy should be for your life – then the next 10 units of energy are available for you to be nice and helpful to others should that energy be available.

Amongst other things, I hope this course is gently guiding you to look at life in terms of energy transactions – are those around you sucking the energy out of you or do they recharge and inspire you? Might you need to change who you hang out with?

There is a funny comedy series called What We Do In The Shadows on Netflix about a dysfunctional family of vampires. Of the four vampires, three are conventional but my favourite is Colin Robinson who is an energy vampire and the writers cleverly parody his ‘feeding of the emotions’ of his work colleagues.

There is usually quite an energy-sucking emotional relationship between victims and people-pleasers that often needs to be broken. And certainly, I will be making a few videos about energy very soon.

OK, lots of things to consider as you work on increasing your self-esteem.

Let’s finish with a quick bullet point summary.

• Is much of your exhaustion coming from you trying to be too nice??

• Can you wrap your brain around the fact that you are creating all of your suffering?
• The Serotonin Theory of Depression has been proved to have no scientific basis.
• Can you become selflessly selfish?
• Are you taking ownership of managing other people’s Virtual Reality Stories of you?
• Where do your boundaries of responsibility for yourself and others begin and end?
• And finally, do you currently have enough energy to be a nice person? Perhaps you need a break from it to allow your emotional battery to recharge?
  So, let’s get working on self-esteem, which is basically learning how to be nice to yourself!
  

Thank you all for your support.