Good With Me: A Simple Approach to Real Happiness from the Inside Out

by Patricia Noll

Overview

Is Your Self-Esteem Other-Dependent?

Are you unhappy and don't know why or how to fix it?

Do you compare yourself to others and end up feeling bad about yourself?

Do you worry about what others think about you?

Is being successful and having it all not enough?

Have you given up on yourself?

If your answer is yes to any of the above, you may have other-dependent esteem. According to licensed counselor and self-esteem expert Patricia Noll, other-dependent esteem means that our happiness and self-worth depend upon something outside of ourselves, such as:

• what we have, do, and know
• what others think about us
• looking good
• being right
• achievements and accomplishments
• being the best
• and more.

The problem is that nothing outside of ourselves can truly make us happy-at least not for long. Other-dependent esteem creates a cycle of stress, addictive behavior, dependency, and ultimately deep unhappiness.

In Good With Me, Noll presents the same revolutionary approach that has helped her clients at Focus One shift from other-dependent esteem to true, self-dependent esteem-and experience freedom from crippling effects of other-dependency. This simple, practical, step-by-step solution will also help you finally achieve lasting happiness from the inside out, regardless of circumstances.

Patricia Noll is a licensed mental health counselor, certified addictions professional, and acupuncture physician. As the founder of Focus One, an outpatient substance abuse program licensed by the stat

e of Florida since 1989, Noll specializes in addressing self-esteem as the root of all addiction. She has appeared on television as an addictions expert, and her addiction treatment manual has received endorsements from Deepak Chopra, Larry Dossey, Jack Kornfield, and Jacquelyn Small. Her mission is to help build a society based on true self-esteem, solving the global challenges created by our other-dependent society one person at a time.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781614488736
Publisher:	Morgan James Publishing
Publication date:	11/04/2014
Pages:	286
Product dimensions:	6.30(w) x 9.30(h) x 0.90(d)

About the Author

Patricia Noll is a licensed mental health counselor, certified addictions professional, and acupuncture physician. Founder of Focus One, a state-licensed outpatient substance abuse program, Noll has specialized in addressing self-esteem as the root of all addiction since 1989. She has appeared on television as an addictions expert, and her addiction treatment manual has received endorsements from Deepak Chopra, Larry Dossey, Jack Kornfield, and Jacquelyn Small.

Read an Excerpt

CHAPTER 1

So You Want to Be Happy

You do want to feel good, right? You're not alone. I seriously doubt there is anyone on the planet who doesn't want to experience happiness. With that in mind, Good With Me is not just another book to read and put on a shelf to be dusted off every now and then. It is a guide for living to be used every day and to be experienced for a lifetime. Why? Because this book will provide real answers to real-life issues that real people experience in their quest for the good life.

With that in mind, what will you gain from this book that you haven't already found in all the rest? Why bother reading another self-help book or attending another self-help seminar when you always end up in the same old familiar place after you leave the pages of the book or weekend retreat? Why bother when nothing changes — at least not long-term?

The reason to bother reading this book is because it is different from all the rest. It defies many concepts of traditional psychology. It might be compared to learning a foreign language. You may think you are walking around freely in life, but many of you will discover that you are actually trapped in a box. This box has a name: other-dependency. The confusing thing is that most of us call this box "self-esteem" and even "high self-esteem." But it is a box just the same.

Every single person who wants to feel good by achieving real happiness, no matter what, can do so! But let's be honest. Most Aof us were not taught how to make ourselves feel good. We weren't taught how to make ourselves feel happy either. In fact, we have been taught just the opposite. We were taught by our parents, grandparents, older siblings, aunts and uncles, schoolteachers, religious leaders, advertising media, social media, and just about anyone else we can think of to expect that someone or something outside of ourselves would make us happy. We were taught to be other-dependent. That's why most of us depend upon someone or something outside of ourselves to make us feel good. And you know as well as I that this kind of other-dependency doesn't work. Having other-dependent esteem is the root of unhappiness, discontent, addiction, anger, rage, violence, and even criminal behavior and suicide. It's a box we must free ourselves from if we truly want to be happy.

For example, were you one of those babies who walked earlier than your mom's best friend's baby? Did you know your ABCs before you began preschool? Did you know how to write cursive in kindergarten? Could you read better than the rest of the class? Were you the best in academics or athletics? Were you popular at recess? Did you wear the right tennis shoes or blue jeans? Did you graduate with honors? Why was any of this important? What message did it give us about how we should be? Are you beginning to get the picture? Are you starting to see how we have been taught to be other-dependent and to worry about what others think of us? How many people do you know who are worried about what others think of them? How many people do you know who are waiting for just the right someone or something to make them happy? Are you one of them?

Even though we haven't all had the same expectations to live up to and we don't all depend upon the same person or thing to make us feel good, the end result is always the same. It doesn't work! And even when someone or something does seem to make us happy, the happiness is only temporary. The happiness doesn't last so we have to look for someone or something else to make us happy all over again.

So who was this book written for? I wrote it for everyone who wants to be happy and doesn't know how, no matter your age, race, or skin color. No matter where you live, how educated you are, or who your parents are. No matter who likes you and who doesn't, no matter what you have or don't have, no matter what you've achieved or haven't achieved. It is for people who come from every social class, every culture, and all educational levels. It is for those who dropped out of school as well as those who have earned a doctoral degree or two. It is for individuals who are independently wealthy and for those who live from paycheck to paycheck. It is for those who have successful careers and for those who can't even find or keep a job. This book will show you that the type of esteem you have, other-dependent or self-dependent, determines whether you experience real happiness that lasts or not.

Now, do you remember that right from the start I said this book is to be experienced? Experiencing this book includes reading the Introduction, completing all Exploration and Discovery assignments in the order they are given, plus downloading and reading the free bonus articles that are offered throughout for maximum results. Completion of the Exploration and Discovery assignments is crucial to a positive outcome. They are designed to initiate change through new and intentional experiences. They will guide you through your own personal self-exploration about how you were taught to be other-dependent instead of self-dependent. They will help you discover who and/or what outside of yourself you depend upon to make you happy. They are designed to clear up the confusion about what you think you need and what you believe you must have to be happy — and why it keeps changing. And they will help you understand why once you have what you think you need to be happy it doesn't make much difference in the way you feel. Ultimately, these assignments are designed to help you discover how to be self-dependent and experience real happiness from the inside out. They are designed to show you how to be Good With Me.

You won't always know exactly what to do with a particular assignment. If that happens, just do something. There is no right or wrong way to complete it. A website has been created to assist you with your Exploration and Discovery. You can go to www.goodwithme.com/resources/explorationto receive guidance.

It is important to make your Exploration and Discovery assignments your own personal experience and to complete them as honestly as possible. Remember, it's all about experience, experience, experience and practice, practice, practice. No shortcuts allowed!

If you skip over any of the Exploration and Discovery assignments, you will cheat yourself out of an opportunity to make the life changes that lead to feeling good and being happy for real. Don't do what you have always done in the past — saving your Exploration and Discovery assignments for later when you think you will have more time to complete them. You know what that usually means. You won't do them at all. And nothing much will happen for you other than you will have read another book, acquired more left-brain information, and your life will remain the same. You undoubtedly have already experienced plenty of that.

So let's get started! By the way, don't be surprised that you experience plenty of "Aha" moments and insights as you complete the Exploration and Discovery assignments. Here is your first opportunity to experience self-exploration and discovery.

EXPLORATION AND DISCOVERY:

What do you want to gain from this book? That's right. What do you want to get out of it? What is your reason for picking it up in the first place? Write it down or make a list so you don't lose focus of your purpose.

Another important feature of this book is that there is plenty of space in which to complete your Exploration and Discovery assignments. Feel free to write in the space provided. Feel free to write wherever you want. Take ownership of it by making it yours. Through self-exploration:

1 You will discover what you already think and believe about happiness.

1 You will discover what you have been taught about happiness.

1 You will discover the difference between self-dependent happiness and other-dependent happiness.

1 You will discover that no person, no material possession, or anything else outside of yourself will ever make you happy for real.

1 You will discover that you don't have to live up to everyone else's expectations for you in order to be good enough.

1 You will discover that you don't have to put your life at risk to feel better.

1 You will discover how the Four Attachments affect your life and interfere with real happiness.

1 You will discover how your thoughts create the way you feel: happy or unhappy, good or bad, glad or sad.

1 You will discover how to be happy whenever you choose.

Through self-exploration you will discover how to:

1. Monitor and change your thoughts to change the way you feel and behave.

2. Manufacture good thoughts about yourself that are not dependent upon anyone or anything outside of you.

3. Have fun without engaging in your addictions and other risky behaviors.

You must master these three skills to achieve the results you desire. So if for any reason you think you can get what you want from this book without engaging in your own Exploration and Discovery process, think again. If you have not already completed your first Exploration and Discovery assignment, go back and complete it NOW.

Once that is complete you are ready to continue. But before continuing on, here is a brief preview of what is waiting for you in the pages that follow.

Part One: Life Inside My Box. This section describes how limited life becomes for individuals who are other-dependent. You will learn that there are two esteems: other-dependent esteem and self-dependent esteem. You will have the opportunity to explore the Four Attachments that result from other-dependent esteem and how they are responsible for a lot of unnecessary worry and stress. You will discover how to recognize your other-dependency and the Four Attachments and the way they are playing out in your own life by paying attention to your thinking. Recognition of your thoughts is the first step to making the shift from unhappiness to real happiness.

Part Two: How Did I End Up in My Box? This section provides answers to any questions you may have about how you ended up with other-dependent limitations and unhappiness. It defines what it means to be happy or unhappy and explores the price of other-dependent unhappiness and addiction. It makes the distinction between the real problem and symptoms of the real problem. It addresses the need to escape from unhappiness and shows you how to identify the abnormal escape mechanisms you have normalized in your quest for happiness. It explores what you are doing now to feel good and how you have learned to pretend that you are happy just like everyone else.

Part Two provides a foundation for identifying your own poor choices as a result of depending upon someone or something outside of yourself to feel good. It reveals a step-by-step process that leads up to coming out of your box in Part Three.

Part Three: Coming Out of My Box. This section reveals how to celebrate yourself for who you are! It shows you how to make a shift in the way you think about yourself. You will discover that a single thought makes a difference. When your thoughts about you change, the way you feel about you changes too. You will be given strategies to practice thinking good thoughts about yourself to feel good about you for the long haul. You'll be given techniques to build your own self-dependent esteem by relying upon yourself instead of depending upon others to give you esteem. And you'll be given a formula to measure your success.

Part Four: I'm Out of My Box! This is the finish line to becoming a self-dependent Good With Me person. It defies conventional conditioning by teaching you healthy selfishness, shows you how to stop resisting inner peace, and outlines a plan for moving forward by letting go of any other-dependent residue that still remains — the ideas you have been taught about who you should be, what you should be, and what you should have in order to be okay. It reiterates that the way you think about yourself is the real secret to happiness and shows you how to be your own cheerleader. It provides you with a strategy to reinvent who you are so that you are out of your box for good!

CHAPTER 2

The Two Esteems

The way you feel about yourself is commonly referred to as self-esteem. Let's begin with a simple definition. Esteem as a noun means respect and admiration. Esteem as a verb means to respect and to admire. With that in mind, a simple definition of self-esteem would be self-respect and self-admiration.

In the broadest sense, self-esteem is that which encompasses both self-worth and self-confidence (Hierarchy of Recovery by Robert S. Helgoe, PhD). Trzesniewski, Donnellan, and Robins define it as an individual's subjective evaluation of their worth as a person. They further state that, "If a person believes that she is a person of worth and value, then she has high self-esteem, regardless of whether her self-evaluation is validated by others or corroborated by external criteria."

It has been thought that your level of self-esteem determines your overall experience of life. However, what most people don't realize is that there are two kinds of self-esteem and they are not equal.

If self-esteem is self-worth and self-confidence, it's very important to determine the source of this sense of worth. Do you feel good about yourself just because you're you, or do you feel good about yourself because of something outside of you? In other words, is your self-esteem self-dependent or other-dependent? The fact is that what we often call self-esteem is usually other-dependent esteem. Other-dependent esteem is entirely dependent upon others or events outside of you. This kind of esteem can depend upon how much people like you, getting good grades in school, having a successful career, being a good parent, having the right relationship partner, and much more. In other words, you feel better about yourself only when others feel good about you or when you can take credit for something good that occurs.

True self-esteem, or self-dependent esteem, is not dependent upon the way others think about you. It isn't dependent upon your accomplishments and material possessions either. You feel good about yourself simply because you are you. It is based on your self's intrinsic value.

EXPLORATION AND DISCOVERY:

Is your self-esteem dependent upon something outside of yourself? If so, what is it? Make a list.

Although most of us have heard of self-esteem, few have heard of this distinction between other-dependent esteem and self-dependent esteem. Including therapists! While most therapists, counselors, teachers, and other professionals have thought they were focused on building self-esteem, they have typically been focused on building other-dependent esteem without realizing it. We have been promoting the wrong thing without knowing it. That explains why most of society relies on someone or something outside of themselves to have any kind of esteem at all. To continue building other-dependent-esteem is a poor substitute for having self-dependent esteem from the inside out, and it results in dependency.

Current research indicates that only 10 to 15 percent of our society has "high self-esteem." The astounding discovery that what we call self-esteem is actually other-dependent esteem explains why so few have it. Almost no one knows what real self-esteem is, nor do they know how to have it. As a result, it eludes almost everyone who seeks it. Those who think they have it usually don't. As you know, it's almost impossible to acquire something when you don't know what it is or how to get it.

Anyone without self-dependent esteem knows how crucial it is to be getting plenty of other-dependent esteem. At least you have a reason to feel good about yourself for a little while. But what happens when there is no self-dependent esteem and no other-dependent esteem either? This is the perfect recipe for disaster! This recipe for disaster is being evidenced over and over in our society on a daily basis and will be explained in detail later on.

EXPLORATION AND DISCOVERY:

What is your idea of self-esteem right now? Write it down so you can compare it with any changes that occur in your idea of self-esteem as you move forward.

Now get ready for a deeper exploration of self-dependent esteem and other-dependent esteem in the next two chapters.

(Continues…)

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Excerpted from "Good With Me"
by .
Copyright © 2014 Patricia Noll.
Excerpted by permission of Morgan James Publishing.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

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Table of Contents

On a Personal Note
Acknowledgments

Introduction

Chapter One: So You Want to Be Happy

Part One: Life Inside My Box

Chapter Two: The Two Esteems

Chapter Three: Self-Dependent Esteem

Chapter Four: Other-Dependent Esteem

Chapter Five: The Four Attachments

Chapter Six: Attachment #1: The Need for Approval from Others

Chapter Seven: Attachment #2: The Need to Look Good

Chapter Eight: Attachment #3: The Need to Be Right

Chapter Nine: Attachment #4: The Need to Control the Outcome

Chapter Ten: Thinking Makes It So

Chapter Eleven: So You Think?

Chapter Twelve: Sick with Worry

Chapter Thirteen: My Stress Is Killing Me!

Chapter Fourteen: Don't Manage the Damage

Part Two: How Did I End Up in My Box?

Chapter Fifteen: The Two Happys

Chapter Sixteen: Unhappiness: The Price of Other-Dependent Needs Chapter Seventeen: I Don't Have an Addiction, Do I?

Chapter Eighteen: What's My Problem?

Chapter Nineteen: The Escape Artists

Chapter Twenty: The New Normal

Chapter Twenty-One: The Feel-Good-Now Syndrome

Chapter Twenty-Two: The Great Pretenders

Chapter Twenty-Three: Different Just Like You

Chapter Twenty-Four: Get in Where You Fit In

Chapter Twenty-Five: It's All About Me

Part Three: Coming Out of My Box

Chapter Twenty-Six: What a Difference a Thought Makes

Chapter Twenty-Seven: Celebrate Me!

Chapter Twenty-Eight: Positive-Up!

Chapter Twenty-Nine: Practice Makes Better

Chapter Thirty: Deliberate Intentional Practice Makes Better Faster Chapter Thirty-One: Repetition Works

Chapter Thirty-Two: The Measures of Success

Chapter Thirty-Three: Word Power

Part Four: I'm Out of My Box!

Chapter Thirty-Four: Me First, You Second

Chapter Thirty-Five: What Fun It Is!

Chapter Thirty-Six: It Is What It Is

Chapter Thirty-Seven: Happy, Happy, Happy!

Chapter Thirty-Eight: Go Me!

Good With Me Resources

Exploration and Discovery

Index

About the Author

Notes