Good post cms. I spent a lot of my time in therapy learning more about myself. It's my belief that we need to understand ourself before we can understand others. For example, what causes me anger, sadness, happiness, etc.

Something else I've really worked hard on has been figuring out what I really think about things. Once I do that and know where I stand on something, I feel confident to take the appropriate actions for myself.

I'm convinced that knowing myself well helps my self esteem a great deal. If I see things I don't like about myself I can make changes and I can feel good about the things I do like about myself. Seems as though I am continually working on making changes. lol.