Hello,
I've taken several shots at improving my self-esteem and other stuff over the years but find myself digesting the principles and arguments but not actually making any changes!

So maybe what I read was wrong for me, or maybe I am cr@p?

Two things provided me with a hint of possible change. But I got no further than that. One was an exercise in the book 'The Artist's Way' by Julia Cameron, in which she tells you to write down an extremely positive statement about yourself and immediately write everything that comes to mind afterwards - which is inevitably negative - and do that 10x for each positive statement. Then afterwards she asks where did those negative reactions come from? It was then that I realised all my self loathing was programmed into me by my mother and father and grandmother. Followed by my siblings. That was a big lesson!

I should have done something about that. I should have realised that my self esteem wasn't theirs to mold. But for some reason I didn't and simply carried on - except from then onwards I knew where it came from!

The other thing that helped was some self esteem gurus. You know the thing, they make a great argument for you being a unique individual and one in a million and inherently worthwhile/ Sometimes when listen to this stuff I get carried away and believe them for a while and feel all optimistic and positive about the huge change that I'm going to make in my life. Then when I try and do something all the cr@p comes back and I feel like I've wasted my time again.

The other problem is that as I read self-help stuff I begin to realise just how screwed up I might be if I think too hard about it. I mean, today I did a BPD test, got a high score, and now I think I have BPD. I don't know if I do or not. Maybe tomorrow I'll think about becoming an astronaut again and believe I can do it for a day and the day after, maybe I'll...

I feel like if I pull on one thread a bunch more come out and before I know it I'm inundated with possible problems I might have and my reading list grows to 100+ books and the problem can't be solved today or tomorrow but I'll need years of counselling or a degree or something. I was simple answers!
- that work!

So does anyone here have any suggestions for any kind of 'self-esteem bullet' in the shape of a book or course or speaker or injection of some kind?