Low self-esteem a myth?

Saw this in a news alert today... "Single women often have low self-esteem about their single status... [but] Research shows that employers view single people as more career-oriented and hard working than their..."--presumably the next words are "married counterparts."

Unfortunately, I can't give you the lowdown on the rest of the article. It's from an Irish news website that makes you register--but then doesn't send you a confirmation and a password--even when you ask again. Makes you wonder if it's legit... So I pasted into the Google searchbar - "single women low self-esteem" to see what else would come up.

Found some old material from 2001--some guy wondering where all the women with abysmal self-esteem were since the single women he knew were all busy, successful and going to grad school or engaged in some exciting career move. UNLESS, he said, they're really crying inside and don't want to reveal their vulnerability to guys-who-are-predators-anyway. And a response from a couple of young women helping the guy out by telling him where to look--basically everywhere.

I vividly recall a time--was I divorced or just working up to it?--when I studied the book called "Creative Visualization" by Shakti Gawain and practiced what it preached for many, many months. Write down the positive things you want to believe, to have happen, it said. Those are called affirmations and you're supposed to write them down in first, second and third person forms (that's "I am" "You are" and "[YOUR NAME] is"...loveable, a beautiful person, deserving of a good job, etc. etc.). They explained that this helps re-program your brain away from the negative beliefs you might be holding about yourself.

I can vouch for the fact that using positive affirmations is a powerful technique--it helped change my life dramatically. So if you ever have those down days or you struggle to feel worthy of the wonderful things you want to accomplish, get out your journal and start writing: "I deserve to earn $200,000 a year!"

Of course, first make sure you've got the necessary brains, training, experience, and guts to carry it off... " )