I haven’t used formal neurofeedback techniques, but I used to have poor self esteem which stemmed from domineering parents, so I thought I’d share my experience addressing this. As background, during childhood and adolescence, I was always acquiescent and even allowed myself to be shepherded into a profession to which I had no inclination, so I passively ended up juggling a busy career and parenthood, feeling that my life was just an endless series of external crises and demands from others.
Then one day, on my usual long daily commute (habitually spent stressing about how late I would arrive at the child care centre to pick up my eldest), I reflected back on my day and had an epiphany - I had accomplished a lot in a much broader range of activities than anyone else and whilst many were well versed in their area of expertise, I was actually a Jill of many trades and my role was integral to the work of a lot of people. I was always quick on the uptake and that’s why a high workload was always directed at me from different directions (a ‘go to’ person by default) and my struggles to keep up with the demands had made me feel inadequate when the reality was that others were, perhaps unconsciously, taking advantage of me. This led me to start a new habit of reflecting, with gratitude at the end of work each day, on my accomplishments, which has given me a better sense of self worth and from this, stronger self esteem.
My husband who has been practising deep meditation for years is interested in neurofeedback and recently bought an EEG headset to monitor his patterns during different activities. He also tried his new toy out on a range of family and friends and the results were interesting. The patterns of members of our immediate family are qualitatively quite different to others who were observed by the same gadget.
