Episode 46: How to lift your Low Self Esteem

Today’s episode of the podcast is about How to lift Your Low Self Esteem

KEY TAKEAWAYS COVERED IN THE PODCAST

In today's episode, we're going to talk about how you deal with your low self-esteem during Alopecia. I know how it feels... It is devastating and traumatic to lose your hair especially when you're exposed to a lot of people because of your career or profession. So let's dive in to discover self-worth and self-esteem so you can lift yourself up during your Alopecia and finally reach your goal to grow your hair back.

HIGHLIGHTS YOU CAN'T SIMPLY MISS

• Low self-esteem is somewhat
  automatic when you are going through something.  0:39

• Self-worth is the value that we give ourselves.  2:36

• We need to take control of our own health and what we're
  putting in our own bodies and what we're using.  7:53

• We need to eliminate the self-criticism and the self doubt. 20:25

• Building upon those skills creates bigger self-esteem. 23:26

• Surround yourself with positive people. 27:30

• Do not doubt yourself. 32:35

   

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Transcription

Awaken to hair growth, Awaken to hair growth because there is possibility to get your hair back. Awaken to hair growth because we're not told that we're able to conquer and overcome alopecia. Awaken to hair growth because I wanna be a positive light and beacon for you because I've healed my alopecia and now.

Others do the same with different types of alopecia. Men, women, children of all ages, of all races and ethnicities. Hello everyone and welcome back to the Alopecia Change Podcast, Awaken to Hair Growth. I'm your host, Johanna Doman. Today we are talking about low self-esteem and what you can do about it.

 Low self-esteem is somewhat automatic when you are going through something. Traumatic as hair loss when you're going through something as devastating as alopecia, and depending on the age of when you are experiencing alopecia, this might affect you more or less. Right? Um, for those of my adult clients who I see.

It affects them more if they have a profession where they have to be doing public speaking, right? Like a teacher or a professor, and let's say there's spots for alopecia that they can't cover up or that they fear that let's say the bandana or the wig will be noted or you know, they might be GED at right?

Or heck. When they're trying to teach or when they're trying to do their work. Uh, for a lot of people it affects them and I see it in my clients. It affects them in their work, in their activities in dating. It affects them in their relationships. It affects them not wanting to be as social, not wanting to go out, not wanting to do a lot of things.

And it even inhibits them. And even the children who I see as well as clients, it inhibits them to not take up swimming to. Do the sports that they would normally do, let's say like cheerleading, because they would have to do flips or run or jump or potentially their wig or bandana or scarf or turbine would fall off or they would look different from everybody else, or they already do look different because they're experiencing alopecia and or significant hair loss.

And so this is causing trouble to them and to everyday. To my clients and to those of you who are just listening and finding out about Alopecia Angel. And what I would say is a lot of times our self-worth is mixed in with self-esteem. And it's actually two separate things. Self-worth is the value that we give ourselves.

No one else gives us that value. And as a person of. To me, everyone has value to me. Everyone holds value and absolutely because you are a child of God because you are, You came from a higher source universe, a higher being. You are that much special. You are that much more important as equally as important as everyone else, regardless of age, race, ethnicity, where you come from or where you're listening and tuning in from.

Regardless of your alopecia, diagnosis or not. I know that you are. Still have lots of value and you will always hold value. That's me in my opinion, and, but my opinion doesn't really matter. What matters here is your opinion of yourself. That's where the self-worth comes from, and kind of like self-esteem, it can ebb and flow, especially when you're going through something as devastating as alopecia.

Now, when it comes to self-esteem and low self-esteem, let's look at the signs of it because, so, As parents or as friends or as family members with let's say, someone who is going through apec. Uh, on the outside end, or let's say on the inside out, right? We don't see self-esteem as being low or maybe we don't recognize the signs.

And so this is where I also wanna decipher a little bit about this. And what comes to mind is, is a couple of heartfelt situations and really painful situations for some parents, because recently in the last maybe six, eight months, there was a couple of news. In the US about this little girl. She was 12 years old.

She had alopecia universals and forwardly outwardly on social media amongst her friends, amongst her circle. She demonstrated that she was very confident and very accepting, quote unquote, and very okay with her diagnosis of alopecia Universalis. And she, you know, had on this face forward, Being bald and brave and et cetera.

Right. Well, lo and behold, she committed suicide and she was just 12 years old, and so I wanted to bring this to light only as an example of how we as a community, how we as parents, how we as friends and family of those who we may know, who have alopecia or who are going through something similar. That's very challenging.

To our mental health, to our emotional health, to our physical health, so that we can see the signs because it's not always apparent. And many times for those of us who want to show like, nothing's bothering us, I'm okay. Leave me alone. I can handle it like, I got this. I don't need you. That type of personality can show one thing, but internally can be something completely different, right?

As as the case. Potentially this little girl or maybe other people who have gone down the wrong path to end their lives. Unfortunately, because of a situation that for all intense purposes, has a solution for all intense purposes, has an outlet, has results, has another way of dealing with it, healing from it and reversing it because that's the key to this and.

The more we talk about it, the more we can spread the word, because I think that's the key to helping others heal and helping, helping families get the resources they need. Cuz a lot of families in particular are. Probably in the dark when it comes to not realizing what their options are. Um, as a parent now, this looks a little different on the decision making.

What that would go along with, with me just being as a single person, right? Or me just being as a female, uh, with no kids and not being a mom. I think the decision making process is very different for me personally, as, as an adult. I wanted a natural way cuz I already saw that the results. Were not going to happen and didn't happen with the medications or the prescriptions that were out there.

And unfortunately the prescriptions that are out there on the market, you have to use them. Until the day you die for them to keep working. And even then there's no guarantees. And even then, you know, they could still fail and backfire on you. And so a lot of times you gotta think twice, What is it that I'm taking?

What is it that I'm doing for myself that potentially will harm me in 10 years, in five years and three years, et cetera? And what other health concerns could arise because, Because every pharmaceutical, every medication has a risk to it. Even if it's just a plain headache medicine, there's a risk to it.

And sometimes we overlook these things, not realizing that there's so much more to it that could be hindering us. Even if it's something like the birth control pill, there's risks, there's side effects, and they need to be considered and talked about because no one is doing that for us. So this is where.

We need to take control of our own health and what we're putting in our own bodies and what we're using. And so to move forward with self-worth and self-esteem, here are some of the signs that could potentially look like for somebody with low self-esteem. So just to, let's say, scoot back a little bit, let's identify what.

Really is defined as so self-worth is the internal sense of being good enough and worthy of self-love, of love, and belonging from others. Self-worth is often confused with self-esteem, which relies on external factors such as success or achievements to define worth, and can often be inconsistent leading to someone struggling with feeling worthy.

So alopecia, hair loss, diagnosis, disease of any sort is not tied to your self. It's not tied to it because you are worthy, period. You are absolutely worthy of everything that you want. You are absolutely worthy of all your desires, of all your goals, and all your things that you know you set for yourself and that you want for yourself.

At any age, it's never too late. That's what I truly believe. It's never too late to want to set a new goal. To want to create a new challenge for yourself. And alopecia is a challenge. It's a challenge for all of us, and it's a challenge that you can overcome easily. Now with self-esteem, a lot of times we do tie in our hair loss with self-esteem.

Why is. It's because of what the society sets as a norm of where you live in terms of beauty. So for example, in India, you know you have the beautiful dark hair. It's rich, thick, and lush. And this is kind of like your stars for Bollywood, right? These are your celebrities that are in India. They have rich, thick, gorgeous hair.

Beautiful. You know, eyebrows, long lashes, and it's just gorgeous women showcasing this Maine, this massive, thick Maine. That's the typical, right, The Indian culture of hair. When you come to the US it's a mixed bag, right? You have. A cosmopolitan mixed bag of ethnicities and, and race. And depending where you live, whether it's Idaho or Florida or Seattle or la, it's all gonna look different to what your community looks like, to what your community appreciates.

And so it's all very different, but. Our self-esteem stems from our low self-esteem, I should say, stems from our feeling of lack, our feeling of not being good enough because we have hair loss. And really we can change that mindset. We can change the way we look at things because instead of seeing the disease as us, we gotta say, Okay, no.

I am who I am. I am Johanna, and I have all. All these characteristics, these great characteristics, and all these great achievements that I've done, and you can do the same. You can write this long list of achievements that you've done and accomplished. You can write down all these great qualities that you have and that you know that you have, and even you can do this, this exercise with a child.

And even if your child is 2, 3, 4 years old and they're starting to understand what alopecia is and what's going on in their body, once you feel it's, it's appropriate, you can do this exercise with them and show them they color well. They are a good friend. They cooperate, they help at the house. They are very kind to their siblings, et cetera, et cetera.

And you can, you know, list out all their wonderful personality traits. And the same goes for adults. We need to really focus on the positive. And say, Okay, alopecia is something that I'm going through, but it's not where my destiny ends. It's not the end all be all. It's not where everything stops. It's not where you know, this is it.

This is the only option is to lose my hair, go bald, et cetera. No, we have choices in life and we can choose to look for alternatives. We can choose to heal. We can choose. Continue to lose our hair and continue to, to not do anything about it. We can choose so many things, right? So we have options when it comes to self-esteem in particular, there are many ways to, to help increase it.

Some of those ways in which we can nourish our self-esteem is when we use positive affirmations, right? Instead of saying, Oh, I'm not good at golf. Say I'm going to get lessons at golf, and I. You know, practice and continue to practice and continue to do my best at golf. And granted, not everyone's gonna be Tiger Woods.

Not everyone's gonna be the next golf star. However, we can continue to work at it. We can continue to do our best at it. And maybe what I'd like to say is we can choose activities that we do love and do it for the love of it, even though you're not good. So for example, I love ping pong. I love ping pong because it gets me moving.

I'm on two feet. I move from side to side, and it's a challenge. It's a challenge for mind, body, and, and even spirit and enthusiasm and energy levels. It's a challenge. I love ping pong. Now, you know. My future self is gonna say, I want a ping pong table and I wanna play, you know, five times a week with, uh, with friends and family.

Um, and right now I don't play right now. It's not one thing that I have access to, but at the same time, it's something that I love to do even though I'm not good at it, even though I have no hopes, dreams, or desires to get to a tournament. But I definitely love it and I definitely. Enjoy it. And so it's really about looking at things that you enjoy, even if you're not good at it, you know.

I also love pottery, and I've been doing pottery on and off for so many years, probably since I was in seventh grade. On and off, I'll take classes, I'll come back to it, I'll let it go, come back to it, let it go. And there's some things I'm really good at. I'm really good at yoga. I'm really good at Pilates.

I'm really good at lifting weights. I'm really good at teaching apec. And how to heal from it and how to reverse it. I'm really good at getting results when I want. Right, but it depends how bad you want it, right? And how much you want to invest your time, your money, your energy, your resources into all these activities or, or things that you like to do.

But using positive affirmations goes a long way. And in the midst of so many trying situations in my life, I have used positive affirmations and they become stronger. When you look at yourself in the mirror and it. Eye to eye and it's yourself. You can't run away from your eyesight in your eyes, and you're like, I'm gonna make this happen.

Look, I'm gonna heal my alopecia, Johanna. I already said it. We are going to overcome alopecia. I'm gonna get my hair back. You know, and sometimes it's that nudge that we have to give ourselves and we need to self propel and self-motivate. And for some of us, maybe our, our self-esteem is so low or we are so fatigued, or we're so tired, or we're so down in the dumps where we need some encouragement.

And this is where I hope that I'm giving you that encouragement through these podcasts. I hear it from clients all the time who listen to me and they tell me that they love my podcast because I inject them with positivity and with like a can-do attitude. Cuz that's, that's what I'm all about. I'm an action-oriented person and I believe that if I can do it, you can.

The only differences is you have to want it. That's the only difference You have to want it. Just like if you were to tell me, Hey, let's go learn to knit and crochet, I'd be like, uh, I'll skip that. I don't wanna learn to knit and crochet. No, no offense to anyone who knits and crochets. Uh, I've already learned it, by the way.

I learned it back when I was nine years old. But I've tried it. I'm open minded. I've tried it and I don't want to do it anymore cuz I prefer something more active like ping pong. Right. That's me and. I think to also boost self-esteem, we also need to identify our competencies and develop them. So for example, if you are a fantastic volunteer, How about we expand the volunteering range?

I used to volunteer myself for people in food kitchens or organizations that donated and got people up back from, let's say, from not having a job or a career to lifting them up, to getting them dressed and a haircut and shaved and just kind of like a makeover essentially. To putting them back onto, you know, resume helping and helping them get that next job or that next lined up career.

Cause at the time I was very career focused and then, you know, when I moved to Denver, I started, uh, working at food banks and I started working at. Um, other things that was more focused on food, because at the time I was really heavily into food and cooking and this and that, and so go with what your interests are, but then also expand.

I've also, you know, volunteered in different places and so identify your competencies and developed them. So let's say if you're a good writer, continue to write and continue. Continue to push yourself. And maybe you can write, be a ghost writer for others. Or maybe you can start to write copy, or maybe you can go into marketing or maybe you can write.

Or a novel that will help somebody with whatever you're going through. You know, there's ways to, I identify what you're good at and to help others, and maybe tutoring could be a great alternative to that. Um, I used to also mentor people who were in a certain industry. And then tutor them. They were already in college.

And so we would have these monthly and weekly calls so they could see and understand a little bit what it looks like to be in a certain industry and then guide them from there. So this is a another way to identify your core competencies, to identify what you're good at and to develop them, and that creates more self-esteem because Grant,

You know, we're not all going to be good at everything. What we need to hone in on is what you're good at and develop that because that does create higher self-esteem. But that also, it helps others when you do good. And so this is why I brought in the volunteering, because you can do so much good by giving to others, even if it's something that you didn't necessarily.

Do. So for example, like Meals on Wheels, you deliver food. And so maybe you deliver the food. You didn't make the food, but you delivered it, and you got to see someone smile and you got to see someone be extremely appreciative of that. And so, This is another way to, to help out, is to volunteer and that creates higher self-esteem.

Another way is to learn to accept compliments. And I know women are, in general are very, we in general, we don't accept compliments so easily. It it, you know, it takes a minute, uh, for that to happen or to say, or to recognize ourselves and be. Yeah, I do have a pretty sweater on today, or yeah, uh, you know, yellow does look good on me, or whatever it is, right?

And so learn to accept compliments from everybody, and I think that's, that's key. I would also expand on this and say give compliments. I absolutely love giving sincere compliments to people when I see them on the street, especially when I haven't. When I don't know them and I haven't met them, and they're just absolutely utter strangers, and I love doing it.

It, it just, it warms me, but it also, it's a manner of giving back to somebody and, you know, saying something positive, because again, I feel like the world needs more positivity and there's never enough. Right? The next thing to nourish your self-esteem would be to eliminate self-criticism. To eliminate self negative talk, to eliminate the negative.

Chatter that goes on in your mind and to be compassionate of when you feel like you're failing. And you know, I will say that this is a hard one for everybody, including myself. This is a hard one because sometimes, sometimes you, you're, you're trying your best, you're trying your hardest to accomplish something or to do something and it's not coming out right, or it's just not working.

And a lot of times we have to encourage. Our loved ones. We have to encourage and, and say, you know, there's another way you're doing a good job. It's just, we need to figure this out. You know, whether it's, um, whether you see that your child is not being able to do their homework, or maybe it's because your spouse is struggling with something, or they're, or you're struggling with something and you're not able to achieve the solution that you're looking.

We need to eliminate the self-criticism and the self doubt, cuz a lot of times our intuition does know more than we like to believe. Our intuition is so good at directing us and directing on to the next step of where we need to go. And it's us actually. That inhibits, that hinders our growth when we don't listen to our intuition.

So eliminating the, the excess noise, the blah, blah, blah, eliminating the self-criticism, the self-talk is key to that. And we can stop that for ourselves. We can stop that completely. And when people start talking to us and maybe telling us negative things, we can also stop that and put boundaries. And so this is where that's key because you are.

So much. You're worth positive light. You are worth, and you're so valued by your friends, by your loved ones. And let's say if you have no one in the world and you're saying to yourself as you're listening to this, I have no one in the world. I live by myself. All my family and friends are gone, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

This is where you come in, you set the tone for your life, you. The worth for yourself. And you can create higher self-esteem or low self-esteem. And we can all use a boost. And this is great when we have friends and family to support us, but if you don't, you need to learn to support yourself. And it comes a time where no one can do the work, but you, It comes a time where we need to do the work ourselves and.

This is a key ingredient because if you want change, if you want to see results, you gotta do it. No one can do it for you. I've said this a lot to my clients too. It's like if you want to achieve and go to go and do a marathon, you have to train for it, right? You have to train for the marathon, you have to get your shoes on, and you have to start running, whether that's you start walking and then you start jogging, and then you start running.

Or whether you start. And you do five miles one day, 10 miles, the next 20 miles in three months, and so on and so forth. You have to train your body. And not only that, but it's only you. Who's gonna be running that 26 mile marathon? It's only you who's actually gonna be doing it. No one can do it for you. I can't run for you.

Your personal trainer, your coach, et cetera, can't run for you. Your friends and family can't run for you. If you wanna do the marathon, you gotta do it. Simple as that. If you want your hair growth, you gotta do it. You have to do the work. And yes, there is work involved and we all have to do it for each other.

You know, you have to do it for yourself. No one else can do it for you. And so this is key where you gotta do the work, you gotta own up to it. We have to take responsibility. And this is where, you know, the rubber meets the road. And then also, it's also where the change happens. It's where the magic happens.

And building. Those skills. Building upon those skills creates bigger self-esteem, creates better knowledge, creates a better life, creates more happiness, creates the hair growth that you want. And so you know, there is work to everything, whether it's better self-esteem. Higher self-worth because the higher self-worth has a trickle down effect.

The higher self-esteem has a trickle down effect in every area, not just in the hair, hair loss, hair growth situation. It, it affects your relationships, right? It affects the activities, as we already mentioned, it affects maybe that promotion that you wanna get or maybe the job change or maybe getting into the school that you want or.

Creating a better presentation that you have to do for work or school, right? This affects you in so many ways. It also affects you when you're dating because essentially when you're dating, you're getting to know the other person, and you also want the other person to know the best version of yourself.

I always thought that that was probably the key ingredient to dating and to long lasting relationships. You have to be the best version of yourself to attract the partner that you want, right? If you want somebody who's going to love and respect you unconditionally, then not only do you have to do that too, but then you also have to be the best version of yourself because loving yourself means setting boundaries means when someone's disrespecting you, you walk away or you shut it down, or you, you put a block there.

It's not right. It doesn't fit your values right? And so this is where only you can impose and say, Sorry, I'm gonna hang up the phone now because you're disrespecting me and I don't appreciate it. Talk to me or call me when you've cooled your jets. And we can speak like adults. Thank you. Click. Right. This is where you have to set boundaries.

And this is important including, uh, I think for, for women. And, and I think a lot of times, you know, it's, um, it's interesting how, how alopecia affects 80% of women and you know, 20% of men. And then also it's the self-esteem issue that, not to say it doesn't affect men, it does, I'm sure, but a lot of times men have better coping.

And I, I will say, you know, seeing it with my, with my clients, they have a, almost like a stronger mindset of how things are and, and even when I've talked to parents, both husband and wife, it's so interesting to see the dynamics there because the husband is kind of like, It's gonna happen, don't worry.

Give it time. Do this, do that. We'll follow the directions, we'll get to the program and you know, they're kind of like, they get it, it's like A to Z, you know, follow the steps one by one. And it's the mom or the wife who's a little more preoccupied and concerned and has a gazillion questions. And, you know, I get it.

I totally get it. But I love seeing the dynamics because it's part of our DNA as women, and it's part of our DNA as, as, as men, right? That, that we function differently. But it's also, it works together, right? They work off one another, they balance each other. So I, I find it very interesting. That's all I had to say, but increasing your self-worth increasing, your self-esteem is paramount, and we can do this.

And there's many ways to increase our self-esteem. And as I mentioned before, We can pay attention more to self care. We can stop comparing ourselves to others. We can stop belittling ourselves and we can create boundaries of others who are disrespecting us and belittling us or bullying us. We need to use more positive affirmations and build our self-esteem with activities that we like to do, even if it's just for fun.

and to, to do more things that create better self-esteem, right? If you're good with, um, cats and dogs, well maybe, uh, pet sitting would be a nice alternative or volunteering at a shelter, uh, pet shelter, right? Or doing things of this nature. Surround yourself with positive, supportive people, people who love you and who love you back.

You know, surround yourself with positive people. Take away all the negativity from your life as much as possible, and dwell on your positive qualit. And giving back is a huge, huge bonus to this. I will say that sometimes the situation is hard when it comes to positive people because I've experienced it myself.

Just like I've, I've had clients talk to me about their toxic relationships, their toxic work environment, let's say with a boss or with coworkers who were just absolutely mean and uncaring in many. Or, you know, you could find this in, in a school setting too. Uh, I remember being picked on myself by, by a teacher in elementary school, and sometimes it's, it's not, it's not you at all.

It's them. And many times I would have to say, actually, it's not you, it's them. And for some reason they've, they've targeted you for whatever reason. But it's, when people treat you badly, it's because they're projecting something about the. So, for example, when someone criticizes you, more than likely it's because it's a projection of themselves.

So, for example, if they say, Oh, your teeth, your teeth are crooked, uh, you know, Johanna, why don't you get your, your, your braces? Why don't you, you know, get those straightened? Well, maybe it's. It's not a situation that I really care about. And maybe it was more or less a projection of themselves because they too also have crooked teeth or ha triggered teeth and they, you know, got it taken care of later on in life.

Or maybe they didn't, but at the same time, it's a self projection. Uh, it's, it's something that they're projecting onto you. And a lot of times the negativity that we hear or that's thrown at us is also a projection off of somebody. So for example, let's go to straight to pregnancy because I also experience this where in the us, not in the rest of the world too much, but in the US after the age of 35, you're looked at like a grandma if you're having a kid or if you're pregnant.

I got pregnant at 40, 39, 40 and had my kid out like 40, 41. And so that was my first child, by the way. And so when I was living in Europe, I had my baby and it was, they treated me like no big deal. Like I was nothing special. I was not geriatric, I was not, you know, a special condition, nothing. They treated me the same as everyone else.

This could be a good and a bad thing, but we'll talk about that in another episode. But in any. They didn't see me as anything different and I asked them, Do you see this as like high profile or you know, high emergency or anything of this nature? They're like, No, you're just pregnant. Period. And a lot of times, It's the fear that others put into us too.

That creates doubt. That creates a lack of self-esteem, right? Because if we were so confident in our own bodies, you know, there's women today that you, you see almost weekly or monthly that they've gotten pregnant at 50, they've gotten pregnant at 60, they've gotten pregnant, you know, sporadically at like, you know, in their late forties and.

I trust and believe that my body can get pregnant naturally as it did, and I trust and believe that everyone else can also get pregnant naturally. If you have right mens, if you have a cycle, if you have like the things like the, the prerequisites to have this right. But I believe it's possible, and I think sometimes the way we see things or the way others impose their beliefs on.

Makes us doubt ourselves. So for example, in the us, like I would say, you know, if I was gonna be pregnant at 40 years old or 41, they would've seen me as geriatric. They would've had probably other tasks and other protocols that I would've had to go to go through. But in Europe, that wasn't the case because they just saw me as pregnant and that's it.

And so a lot of times, What society is trying to dispel on us that we need to decipher and see if we agree with it or don't agree with it, to see if we wanna take it or not take it to see if it's actually beneficial for us or not beneficial for us. And even though I was in Europe, I was still thinking to myself, Hmm, do I need to consider myself geriatric?

Do I need to take certain precautions? And so of course the research. Person that I am, I started researching a bunch of things and programs and da, da, da, da, and at the same time, I didn't see a need because I knew my body. I never doubted my body because I knew I was healthy. I knew I, I had a great understanding of nutrition, diet, lifestyle, exercise, and literally the intuition that we have and hold within us is so much greater if we can just trust it.

If we can trust our intuition, there's no reason to doubt ourselves, our self-worth or our self-esteem. There's no reason to. Our value. There's no reason to doubt what we can bring to the table, and that's in any setting, that's in our health setting, that's in our relationships, that's in our careers at school, and in so many areas of life.

Do not doubt yourself and sometimes. When we do, or when you do, or when I do, it's a test. The universe is testing us. It's testing us to see, okay, which route are we gonna take? Right? Because that's what this is. Life is about taking action. It's about taking different options and taking responsibility for those actions, for those decisions, and for this consequences.

Cuz each one will lead us down to another route. But at the same. Our routes can come back full circle, and they do. A lot of times they do. And I will say that going with your intuition is huge. It really is huge. But believe in yourself, first and foremost. Believe that you are worthy, valuable, and you have so much to offer.

And it may not be the same thing as your brother, your sister, your mom, your dad, or your aunts or your uncles. It may be very different, but you always have something to offer. Even if it's just lending an ear, even if it's just a hug, even if it's just a warm caring card, even if it's, you know, a thought or a prayer or a good deed, you have and hold so much value.

And so there's many ways to lift our self-esteem. I've named many here. And at the same time, no one can take away your self-esteem. No one can take away your self worth. That's up to you to keep. And that's up to us as. For our children who are going through alopecia to cultivate, we need to cultivate that.

As parents, if you're a parent listening to this for your child who's going through alopecia, it's our job to cultivate that. It's our job to cultivate that. And even if your child isn't going through alopecia, I would say still, it's our job to cultivate that because you want to create self confidence.

Children who. Grow into global citizens, understanding that they can go for the goal, they can achieve and do what they want. And at the same time, if they miss the mark, if they come in third place, if they don't get straight As, if they're not valedictorian, if they don't make it into the schooler of their choice, if they, um, you know, don't get the job that things are happening for us, things are.

For our best interests. And that's also a big, big, big, big life lesson, a big aha moment. Because a lot of times people think, especially, I see it in forms a lot, a lot of times people think, Oh, alopecias happening to me. Woe is me. Uh, I'm gonna go bald. I'm going bald, or I'm already bald and there's nothing I can do.

And that's it. And you know, this is my life. It's not. Instead of taking that route, take the other route of, okay, Alopecias happening right now. What is this teaching me? What is alopecia teaching me? And I gotta tell you, for me personally, I was diagnosed in my thirties and it taught me a lot. And it taught me that I couldn't just skim by with the current lifestyle that I was having and it was going to hit a wall and it.

It hit a massive law and it was a huge wake up call. And for you guys, it's also a wake up call, but it's a wake up call to, it's a wake up call and an invitation. It's an invitation to develop yourself, to heal yourself, to learn the skills and the life learnings that we need to learn now for a better health, for better hair, for a better life, for better.

Because I gotta tell you, I'm a different person today than I was while I was going through alopecia and even before alopecia. My focus, my priorities have changed and shifted dramatically, dramatically. Even the way I spend money, the way I save money, the way I, I, I use money the way and in what I buy the products, everything is so different.

So different. The mindset has changed and shifted. When I go into a store, it it's, it's just so different from the way I would go into a supermarket before and now it's just so different. Everything is different and a lot of times that's necessary and it's needed. Because we're at alopecia, we have alopecia.

We need to do something about it, and the only way for that to change is for us to change. And so this is what's needed for us to get over that hump, to get over this challenge, to see what the universe is trying to tell us and teach us to see. How we can better ourselves to really put the kibosh on this and put this to sleep and not have to worry about it ever again.

And guess what? Not only do you get the hair, but you also get high performance health. High performance health, where I was able to get pregnant on the first try at 40 years old. I don't know too many people who can say that, you know, not using, I. A hundred percent natural. And, and, and this is only supported because of that, of all the learning lessons that alopecia taught me, of all the things that alopecia and I went through together, and you can heal and you can do this in less time.

So just to recap, self-esteem a lot of times is tied to alopecia. A lot of times we can cultivate that. I would say a hundred percent of the time we can cultivate that. It's just putting it into action, right? Just like if I want to be a better marathon runner and my goal is to come in first, it's something you gotta cultivate.

It's something we we need to put into practice and this is where the rubber meets the road. We need to put into practice. If we want something, we gotta go for it. Cuz you're worth it. You are worth the investment. You are worth the time, you are worth the energy, you are worth everything. And when it comes to dating ladies, please, same thing.

You are worth everything. You are worth it. And my husband actually said that to me the other day and it was, uh, a refreshing reminder, right? Cause one thing is to innately know. And kind of just innately know that you're worth it and you have and hold value. But then he said it to me the other day, he's like, Joanna, you're worth it.

You're worth it. Everything. You're worth it. And I'm like, Oh, damn. Right. I am . You know what I mean? And it's just like, it's refreshing. Not only that I know it, but that he knows it and the world know. And I want to give that to you too cuz you are worth it. You're worth everything. You are worth the life lessons that Alopecia is teaching you.

This is a challenge that the universe has given this to you and it's a blessing. It really is. I have another podcast episode about how alopecia is a blessing in disguise cuz it truly is and it's the only way to really. And be the high performance person, and to be the healthiest person and the happiest person that you wanna be is to invest in ourselves, invest in our health, to get the hair growth and to move on from alopecia.

Alopecia is just like, to me now, it's just a situation that happened. It's something that was there and it doesn't have to come back and haunt you. It's, that's it. The storm is over. It's nothing but sunny skies from here on. And really, once you understand, once you have the life lessons and the skill set, you're set for life.

You really are. So thank you so much for listening and for tuning in. Please rate and review the podcast. I would love to see your reviews. And if you have any questions or feedback, feel free to get in contact with us. We look forward to helping you take care. Thank you for listening to the Alopecia Angel Podcast, A positive light in healing alopecia.

You can do this and we can help spread the word that reversing alopecia is possible by telling your friends and family.