I watched my father for fourteen years battle cancer and the 4th time it finally took his life. His cancer began when he was 70 and ended at 84 years old. Soon after he retired was when he as diagnosed, until this day I believe it was this sense of lost lowered self – worth that caused his cancer. He was a machinist by trade: that was what he loved about his life and that is how he identified himself!!!!
Healing the Roots of Low Self-Esteem
Past experiences and environments have created the self image we hold today. Learn how to heal the root cause of your low self-esteem.
There is always a root to a problem, and there is a root to low self-esteem, but without identifying why or how it got there, we don’t have the tools to eradicate it for good. The struggle with developing unshakable confidence and self-esteem is like a battle with annoying ivy covering a beautiful home. Perhaps you have been used to the vines, even embracing them on occasion, but at the end of the day they are more problematic than positive, and they destroy the foundation.
I used this analogy just today with a beautiful young woman who felt anything but attractive. “I am trying, and I practice the tools, it just seems like I am not getting far; I am always struggling with the way I look,” she said.
“So, its like you are cutting a small leaf or branch off, but still feel like your covered in vines. Some of the tricks and tools we have used work but they don’t seem to be fixing the root cause—the reason these toxic thoughts developed in the first place.”
Even if we have done deep work in the past, when we thought we had eradicated those low self-esteem beliefs for good, the root can keep growing and the right circumstances can make it feel like the weeds are taking over your mind.
How to Get to the Root of Low Self-Esteem
Think of the ways your self-image, confidence, and self-esteem developed. These could have been thoughts you have had since childhood, early experiences, or circumstances you encountered through life. The beliefs stemmed from somewhere.
- Invalidating environments: an overly critical parent, lover, or friend. On the flip side, it could have been a person in your life behaved in a way that made you feel incapable of making your own decisions or trusting yourself. An overprotective parent or someone who made you feel fragile and that alone you couldn’t handle the demands of the world.
- Loss or trauma: feeling out of control, death of a loved one, divorce, feeling abandoned, abuse
- Rejection: this could have been from a loved one or a group of kids at school, not getting into a program or holding on to feelings of perceived inadequacy.
- Unspoken pressure: from peers, friends, even society, giving you standards you tried to live up to but always felt like you were coming up short.
- Mistaken beliefs: these come from our own experiences, attempting to make sense of the life circumstances and feelings we encounter. However, they hold us back and keep the roots from healing.
Common Mistaken Beliefs that Lead to Low Self-Esteem
Do any of these feel true for you? If so, get curious and look for the roots or experiences that made these come about.
- I am powerless; I am a victim of circumstances greater than me.
- Life is not easy; it’s always a struggle
- If I try, I will fail.
- I don’t matter.
- I should always look good and put together for others to like me.
- I need to be a certain size or weight to be worthy.
- I need to have X, Y or Z to feel successful.
- I can’t cope with the demands of the outside world.
- I am not good enough and I never have been.
- I will never be worthy of love or respect.
As hard as this may be to admit, there is power in recognizing where your mistaken beliefs come from. When you can identify, to the best of your ability, the ways the root may have formed, and the toxic thoughts of low self-esteem that keep it growing in your mind, you have a much better grasp on how false they really are.
For my client, we examined that many of her mistaken beliefs came from her peers, the media, what she was told was “pretty” by television and the images she saw. She has supportive parents, but had highly critical grandparents who made confusing comments to her about weight, appearance, and the need to be attractive. She also had friends who placed a lot of emphasis on outer appearance.
When you also become aware of how these thoughts became stuck in your mind, you are better able to attack them when they come up. The more and more you practice, it’s like treating the ivy with chemicals. Each time you spray, it may not go away, but it is slowly killing the root. Overtime, the real you, the empowered you, becomes more visible. When you catch a new bud or leaf starting to grow, you can stop it in its tracks. Knowing and understanding the root cause of your pain or mistaken beliefs is the best way to rid yourself of toxic thoughts and low self-esteem for good.
Emily is the author of Express Yourself: A Teen Girls Guide to Speaking Up and Being Who You Are.You can visit Emily’s Guidance Girl website. You can also find her on Facebook, Google+ and Twitter.
Emily Roberts MA, LPC
Emily is a psychotherapist, she is intensively trained in DBT, she the author of Express Yourself: A Teen Girls Guide to Speaking Up and Being Who You Are. You can visit Emily’s Guidance Girl website. You can also find her on Facebook, Google+ and Twitter.
Preview The Importance of Self Esteem
The Importance of Self Esteem
Self esteem is crucial and is a cornerstone of a positive attitude towards living.
It is very important because it affects how you think, act and even how you relate to other people. It allows you to live life to your potential. Low self esteem means poor confidence and that also causes negative thoughts which means that you are likely to give up easily rather than face challenges. In addition, it has a direct bearing on your happiness and wellbeing. Read more about why self esteem is so important to you.
Get some extremely helpful tips for improving your confidence – read this page now
“What is the most important thing for a person starting out on the road to success?”
What is Low Self Esteem?
Low self esteem comes from a poor self image. Your self image is based on how you see yourself. Do you think you are a good, reliable, hardworking, honest or friendly person? Do you like what you see when you look in the mirror or do you believe others look better and dress better than you?
Low self esteem also depends on other factors like your job. For example, do you value the job you do? Does the job you have help you be happy with who you are? Do the others in your office respect you?
Low self esteem feeds your negative thinking and causes you to believe the critcism others make of you. Do you take what others say and not speak up? This can cause you to lose confidence so it is vital to end negative thoughts if you want to build your self esteem.
Want to discover how you can build your esteem, confidence and inner power in order to achieve success? Then you have to see my free CD “A More Confident You”
What is High Self Esteem?
High self esteem is the opposite of the above! If you have a high level of self esteem you will be confident, happy, highly motivated and have the right attitude to succeed.
We all know that self-esteem can be an important part of success. Too little self-esteem can leave people feeling defeated or depressed. It can lead people to make bad choices, fall into destructive relationships, or fail to live up to their full potential. But what about too much self-esteem? Narcissism can certainly be off-putting and can even damage personal relationships.
A Breakdown of Self-Esteem
In psychology, the term self-esteem is used to describe a person’s overall sense of self-worth or personal value.
- Self-esteem is often seen as a personality trait, which means that it tends to be stable and enduring.
- Self-esteem can involve a variety of beliefs about the self, such as the appraisal of one’s own appearance, beliefs, emotions, and behaviors.
Components of Self-Esteem
According to one definition (Branden, 1969), there are three key components of self-esteem:
- Self-esteem is an essential human need that is vital for survival and normal, healthy development.
- Self-esteem arises automatically from within, based on a person’s beliefs and consciousness.
- Self-esteem occurs in conjunction with a person’s thoughts, behaviors, feelings, and actions.
Self-Esteem Theories
The need for self-esteem plays an important role in psychologist Abraham Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, which depicts self-esteem as one of the basic human motivations. Maslow suggested that people need both esteem from other people as well as inner self-respect. Both of these needs must be fulfilled in order for an individual to grow as a person and achieve self-actualization.
Factors That Can Influence Self-Esteem
As you might imagine, there are different factors that can influence self-esteem. Genetic factors that help shape overall personality can play a role, but it is often our experiences that form the basis for overall self-esteem. Those who consistently receive overly critical or negative assessments from caregivers, family members, and friends, for example, will likely experience problems with low self-esteem.
Self-Esteem Synonyms:
- Self-worth
- Self-respect
- Self-value
The Importance of Self Esteem and Self Worth
by Karl Perera
I think the importance of self esteem cannot be underestimated. It affects your behaviour and thoughts. It changes how you feel about and value yourself. It affects your confidence, and that can affect your success and thinking in a big way.
Can you imagine anything else so important?
Why Should Self Esteem Matter to You?
- Self esteem can be the difference between success and failure
- Esteem can affect your thinking, causing your outlook to be positive or negative
- Esteem affects your confidence
- It affects your self image
- If you do not value yourself how will you be able to value others?
- Self esteem enables you to have the right attitude to succeed at work
- It affects your happiness
Let’s take a moment or two to look a bit more closely at what I’ve said above – and then I hope that you will appreciate just how important self esteem is to you.
Your potential to achieve what you most desire is directly related to your self esteem. On the other hand, failure is much more likely when you suffer from low self esteem because you will believe others when they tell you why you cannot succeed. LOw self esteem will affect your motivation and make you more likely to give up on anything that seems difficult. So, work on building your self esteem and success will be that much easier.
I’m sure you realise the importance of positive thinking. Increase your esteem and you will become more positive. This will benefit you in every area of your life.
Read more about optimism here.
Do you Have a Problem with Self Confidence?
Self esteem affects your confidence, how important is that? If you want to rise to any challenge you must believe in yourself. Without confidence in what you can do, and in who you are, what chance do you have of happiness or success? And if you can’t believe in yourself, how will you be able to trust and believe in others?
Want to increase your confidence and feel much better about yourself? Then go download feel better about yourself hypnosis audio now.
Self image is another important part of how you feel about yourself. Low self esteem means that you will have a poor image of yourself and this will result in a loss of confidence. Your social skills will also suffer and you will find it harder to socialize because others will respond negatively to your lack of confidence. With some effort though you can improve your self image so that it helps you.
To learn more, read this page about feeling good about yourself.
Self esteem will also help you at work. Your confidence and positive attitude will enable you to look and feel your best. You will have no trouble presenting yourself in a favourable light because you will be full of self respect and comfortable with who you are.
Confidence in one’s own worth or abilities; self-respect.
| synonyms: | self-respect, pride, dignity, self-regard, faith in oneself; More
morale, self-confidence, confidence, self-assurance
“the best thing I ever did for my self-esteem was to divorce Roger”
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Do You Value Yourself?
Value yourself, your ability and your contribution in the world because you are unique. Do you understand this? You cannot value and respect others unless you first value and respect yourself.
Finally, one last reason why your self esteem is so important. It will help you be a happier person. To find out why read this page about moods and how they affect your thoughts and behaviour.
I hope that this short article has been helpful to you. Take a look around at the rest of the site which is filled with information about different aspects of self esteem.
Next article – Enlightened Feelings
