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Low self -esteem: Symptom and causes
Self-esteem is a fundamental pillar for your personal development and your general well-being. It is your own assessment and esteem, your care, your self-respect.
What is healthy self-esteem? It is what makes you bring out the best in you, value you, respect yourself and respect others. It's about feeling capable, valuable, prepared and confident, but not feel better than others.
It's the way in whichI think and feel about myself.
When the self-esteem is affected in all areas of your life, because you are going through a bad time or in a specific area due to particular situations such as a separation, a traumatic experience, a job frustration, disappointment in love... The assessment you make of yourself is affected and this limits you, It makes you question yourself and makes you feel that you do not have the necessary resources to be able to face certain situations., to distrust you. It generates many fears and insecurities in you.
How to improve and work on self-esteem
Self-esteem is appreciation and consideration for you., everything you tell yourself, what you think about yourself… The set of beliefs you have towards yourself. Everything you think you are, what you think you should be, what you think you are worth, what you think you think about yourself, what you think your capabilities are. Imagine a pyramid with its steps:
6 A U T O E S T I M A
5 A U T O R E S P E T O
4 A U T O A C E P T A C I Ó N
3 A U T O E V A L U A C I Ó N
2 A U T O C O N C E P T O
1 A U T O C O N O C I M I E N T O
1. Self-knowledge. It is the most important step, if you don't know yourself, you can't accept yourself, you can't evaluate yourself, nor love you. Self-knowledge is in continuous evolution, you never finish knowing yourself. Now you are not the same as you were a few years ago, you are changing and evolving.
Self-knowledge is knowing your behavior patterns, values, strengths, weaknesses, qualities, How do you react to certain circumstances?, How do you face adversity?, when you set yourself a challenge, what are your talents, purposes…
2.Self-concept is the concept of what youyou believe about yourselfThey are those beliefs that you have about yourself, how you talk to yourself, tu internal dialogue, For example: how bad you do something, how badly you dress, how poorly you express yourself in public and how others do it better or dress better than you or behave better than you in front of others
The internal dialogue that you silently whisper to yourself, but it's going to hurt you a lot.
It's where those appeardestructive criticism which consist of beating yourself up for that mistake you have made, for what you have said or have not said...
Here we would also talk about the“tags” what do you wear, I mean thosewords that define you globally, I am “clumsy”, “sociable”, "intelligent", “stupid”… if you give yourself a label it is because at some point in your life that word was repeated to you and you finally believed it and repeated it.
3.Self-assessment In order to have an evaluation of yourself you have to know yourself, cknow both the good and the bad. Whynormally soloyou focus on the bad, Then it may be that the only thing you are going to realize is that you don't like anything about yourself and you are only going to see the bad.. If you don't know yourself, you won't know or be able to evaluate what your talents are., potentials, your strengths and weaknesses, How good or bad you are at something... When you don't like something or you don't know if you like it, the first thing you tell yourself is: "you don't know", "you can't", "You should know this and you don't know it". When you're not good at something, you criticize yourself., but you should also know thatThere are many other things that you also do well. and you must take it into account to grow andvalue yourself in that, the most important thing isrepeat it to internalize it.
4.Self -acceptance It is achieving harmony andwell-being with your body and way of being. In people who are not happy within their body, in others that have some aspect that they do not like, whether physical, emotional, spiritual and are constantly told you must accept yourself, finally what they connect with is frustration, getting worse day by day. If you have the option to change something you don't like, so go ahead, but if there is something that you cannot change because it does not depend on you, then we enter a path of acceptance, to let go of control, I can't do anything with this and I have to live with it. There are things that we cannot change about ourselves, such as height., have wide hips...I cannot transform my physical characteristics that are given to me by my genetics. Y, therefore, I must accept it, but there are others that you can improve if you work on it. It is important to understand that human beings cannot accept anything that we do not previously understand..
If there is something you don't like about yourself and you can transform it, do it, taking action. go that way, for example if you want to lose weight, look for a way to improve yourself, be with eating habits, better nutrition, exercise…, if you want to do something but, you think : "With my age where am I going?"?, can, hang out with people who have achieved it.
We also findnon-acceptance of one's own physical appearance due to emotional deficiencies, disapproval and lack of recognition by our closest environment, causing a non-acceptance of how we are. In these cases, a process of introspection will have to be carried out to get to know you., understand yourself by working on your self-concept, among other things, to be able to reach acceptance of your physique.
It is also important to talk aboutself care. Many people, when I have asked them how do you take care of yourself?? They tell you : "I put creams", "I exercise", …This is great, but we speak on a physical level and most people when we talk about taking care of ourselves mean taking care of the line, the diet... but in this case I want you to reflectHow do you take care of yourself emotionally?, that is, in what practical ways do self-care:
- If you are sad or angry, you allow it
- When you need a hug you ask for it
- If they disrespect you, express it
- If you've had a difficult day at work, when you get home you make up for it, taking a hot bath with salts, cooking something that you really like...
- If you don't know how you feel, you stop to identify it
- When you are tired you relax ( with relaxing music, meditating, with breaths...)
It is good not to act like a robot in your daily life because daily chores do not allow you to stop., think, relax, cry, rest…
Sometimes you think that complaining about how you feel ,It is already a form of self-care because you are expressing how you feel and NO.Complaining fosters discomfort.It is important that you identify what is happening to you and what you need to take care of yourself., have your pamper time that will help you improve your self-acceptance, since you are going to improve your relationship with yourself.
5.Self-respectIt's the respect you give yourself.Your ability to set limits, know how to say NO, attend to and satisfy your own needs and values. If you respect yourself, you will be able to give your opinion, even if it is contrary to that of others, You can respect others because you respect yourself. You will be able to give your opinion freely, being able to defend what is yours without feeling bad or guilty about it.
If you try to please because you don't like yourself, you strive to please others so that they are happy with you and continue choosing you (This way you feel safe and calm) you hate being alone because you can't stand yourself, then someone will come and not respect you. We have to be assertive, have assertive communication.If you don't set limits, the others will impose theirs on us and this finally ends up making you feel bad. When you do what others want and not what you really want, you end up losing yourself..
Assertiveness is, be honest and sincere with you without stepping on anyone, respecting others and yourself
Saying NO is telling you YES.
Finally, we come to the top, aself-esteem, This is the sum of all the previous steps. It is a process that requires time to come to love yourself., be aware of who you are, valuing you, accepting and respecting you.
You must be aware that self-esteem is not something stable, you can have days when you have strong self-esteem, good and other days when it is low or weaken depending on the situations you have experienced throughout your life, that you are living. But you have always acted that way... The important thing is that when you realize that it is weakening you know how to act to strengthen/improve it.
Consequences of low self-esteem
Affected self-esteem is like driving with the handbrake, put as Maxwell Maltz said.Doesn't let you move forward, limits you, That's when doubts appear, the insecurities, the fears, the comparisons, the feelings of inferiority and all those shadows that block you, they paralyze you or lead you to give up your most desired dreams.
Characteristics of people with low self-esteem
When faced with people with low self-esteem, they feel that :
- They never do anything right
- They feel useless, incapable. With a feeling of not being enough.
- They get very nervous when they are asked for their opinion in case it is not what they want it to say..
- They always compare themselves to others (others are better than me and I must imitate them)
- They find it difficult to make decisions due to their insecurity, they don't know what to decide, will it be right?
- They care a lot about what others think of them.
- They don't like how they are (physically)
- They go into a loop with their negative thoughts about them (I can't, I'm going to do it wrong for sure, How am I going to like that person?, yo, my opinion doesn't matter to them, everyone is better than me...)
- If they change jobs they are going to fail so they don't even try anymore. (They are afraid to start something new)
- They always say yes when they should say no because it goes against them and it's not what they want.
- They have quite a few difficulties when it comes to relating to others because they do not know how to do it or what to say to them to please them..
As you see, These phrases show an affected self-esteem and a devaluation of our person.. Althoughthe problem arises when everyonethese messages/affirmations, beliefs towards yourself you tell yourself day after day , They stretch out over time and give you a feeling of worthlessness. , limiting your life more and more.
Some of the factors that may have influenced unhealthy self-esteem:
–The constant use of the word NO in your childhood, adolescence or even at some specific moment in your life, with a couple... “Don't do that”,"Don't go there", “Don't dress like that.”, "I don't like that you study that.", “Don't go with menganita/o”, “Don't play that”. This way your mind concludes that we are doing too many things wrong..
-WhatYour parents gave you contradictory orders when you were a child or teenager, who do I believe, Who do I decide for if they tell me this… creating indecision, insecurity
– That they haveoverprotected or overly pampered (They take away basic tools to grow, since your parents make decisions for you, they solve your problems... that is, they veto your initiatives, desires... because they are dangerous for you and in the long run this creates fear in you, anxieties, and inability to make decisions, making you able to become a dependent person and not suffering from anything due to overprotection (because they solve everything for you) you get frustrated when you don't get what you want.
– Haberlived in a competitive environment, where they are always trying to pretend.
– Having grown up in atoo rigid and conservative environment.
So as you see, our self-esteem, just like your personality, It is built progressively in the stage of childhood and adolescence due to the experiences that you are living and those that do not allow you to live.. everything you see (behaviors, reactions…)what they tell you... you insert it into your computer's hard drive (your brain, mind) which is what makes each of us tick.From the programs you install (what we experienced at home, school, with friends…), you will feel, you will think and act/behave.
How to help a person with low self-esteem
When you have low self-esteem it is recommended that you do a process of introspection, that is to say, that you connect with your interior. Some of the things that are good to help you improve your self-esteem:
– Make alist of qualities/virtues you have and defects you haves (8 of each one minimum) reflecting and pointing out when you demonstrate these virtues or defects
Example
Qualities: honesty, patience, responsibility… Defects : authoritarian, irresponsible…
Stand up because you are honest, in which you demonstrate it... is to make you aware that many times you do not know what qualities or what defects you have and you believe that you are in a way that it is possible that you are not.. If you do this exercise consciously you can discover things that will surprise you. You also have to think about whether what you think you are is real or is something that you have been made to believe you were and in the end it has nothing to do with you or see, If these qualities, you have made them as your own, since you would really like to have them, but you are totally different.
Example: A patient who came to consult when we were working on the qualities told me that he was generous, When he was consciously reflecting on it he realized that it was not., since he did many things for his friends with great generosity, but then he complained that they didn't do anything to him, He got angry because they were not what he expected, since he expected them to do the same as him. Summing up, I did things expecting something in return and that is not generosity.
– Write the activities that make you enjoy, vibrate, that make time fly by and why they do that to you.
Example:
Dancing because I don't think about anything while I dance and I focus on the music, in my body and it feels free dancing.
- How manypractice days this activity, If the answer is few, why do you do it so little?. And if that's the case, that you practice it little, I give you a challenge, that you are able to dedicate yourself to this activity that you like 2 days a week, since it is something you like, it makes you feel good and is part of your essence. don't forget.
- Work on your internal dialogue and your thoughts in writing, because it is a very useful tool. Write down in a notebook daily for a few days (minimum one week).
- What things do you repeat to yourself? (whether things are good or bad, since we never value good things and we don't congratulate ourselves. We only give importance to the bad and we must see both the good and the bad).
For example: My boss tells me I have to do something at work and I tell myself, it's not going to come out, I'm clumsy, later, They call me to propose an activity with friends, the same thing is not going to work for me, I'm clumsy... write it down and when did they appear?. Since we will see that these are usually common situations.
good things: how well I cook, How well this exercise turned out for me, How well do these pants fit me?, how I like to be with my dog... things that may seem silly and that have their importance, Because if we repeat them so much it means they are important to me and they want to tell me something..
What thoughts always appear to you constantly?. Example: This is not going to work for me, I'm worthless, They don't even listen to me...
How you feel in certain situations that make you feel small, for what you tell yourself.Example: I'm at a family reunion, of work, with friends… and I have to give my opinion and I feel insecure, highly strung, nervous laugh..., since I think my opinion is not valid or you will not like it...
After these days pointing, relélo, and if you always repeat the same thing, for example “I'm stupid, nobody loves me, nothing goes well for me... like negative thoughts, You should reflect on these negative phrases where they come from:
- When was the first time you heard it,
- It arises from some concrete experience...
- Someone told you that when you were little (some family member, some teacher, some friend...) and I internalized it.
It's about analyzing your speech (what do you say how you talk to yourself) to then be able to see how to improve it, if there is any belief, some irrational idea behind. AlthoughThe first thing is to listen to what you say to yourself and how you say it.
It is very important that you stop judging yourself and telling yourself what you should have done but didn't do..
- Practice changing SHOULD to I WOULD LIKE. I understand that changing your internal dialogue is not easy or quick., but it is a start to be able to treat you and talk to you better. By saying I would like you, you are not censoring yourself
Example:
I should have said something else / I wish I had said something else.
I should have behaved differently / I wish I had behaved differently.
If you want to start a therapeutic process to work on or strengthen your self-esteem online, You can contact us by private message, We will be happy to accompany you.
