In my over-twenty-year practice as an outpatient psychologist, I hear a lot from patients or other associates with low self-esteem more or less every day. It colludes with every aspect of their lives, most notably their relationships. Self-esteem surfaces in job performance, raises, promotions, and work locations--the bottom line being quality of life. It is a large matter in our awareness. I think of self-esteem as being made up of four foundation experiences. I call them Powers. They can be found in an online publication I have written about how these are created from our early family experiences and how they pop up in just about every later-life experience. I include a self-test to glean which of the four Powers is a strength and which is a weakness. Often we use the stronger ones to compensate the weaker one(s). Every so often we just focus on remediation of just one Power. In any case, once diagnosed, the psychological work begins. Confidence comes from having a good self-esteem, which can emerge from any one of the four Powers. The first Power is Worth. It usually reflects early-in-life experiences, largely resulting from messages derived from experiences from parents. It ties to religion, philosophy of the world and chronic expectations based upon "how it went" when we were very, very young. This Power, and the foundation concepts to follow from the other Powers carry us through later life events. How we "are" in the middle of any life event largely dates back to how we "were" early on, and how our parents or caregivers nurtured us, or left us to fend for ourselves. Central to these experiences is the surfacing of our core experience of self. It is either worth something or dysfuntional in some way. The sense of self interacts with the environment, nearly one hundred percent in the beginning, less so as we grow up and become psychologically sovereign. At any stage, it has value or is altered by life events. In the latter case, there is doubt about self-worth. Lack of confidence is the subjective experience that comes from lack of basic worth. If we did not manage well in early life, or if we feel that support is lacking in adversity, then there is proportional anxiety about future events. Even in "the present," there is anxiety because lurking in the background is that ever-vague but pressuring feeling that something is incorrect. "Something will go wrong or perhaps it is just me that is wrong," are comments I frequently hear. The former is more of a response to early adverse circumstances. The latter is a direct reflection of thoughts of poor self-worth. This is only one of the four Powers, any one of which can contribute to the experience of poor self-esteem. I picked this one to initially focus on because it is the first in line, so to speak; meaning, the formation of this Power occurs earlier in our developmental timeline and usually forms the foundation upon which most of the other Powers build. In future articles, there will be discussions of the other three Powers. In short, to build confidence, first we need a foundation of self that is worth something. Put negatively, lack of confidence reflects deficits in our early environment, but more importantly, our relationship to the experiences in that early time. What we "came away with" is relatively stable even though the events that formed our impressions have passed. The core of this identity we call self, and its relative value we call esteem.
Dr. Griggs
It has been said many times that if we don't like ourselves it is impossible to really like, much less to love, anyone else. Liking and respecting ourselves is very different from vanity or narcissism, which at their most extreme, can become total self-absorption, selfishness and the inability to consider anyone else's viewpoint or feelings. To have healthy self esteem, on the other hand, is to be comfortable and confident within ourselves, and with who we are as people.
Most people have their self doubts, and may be uncomfortable with some of their personality traits. However, there's no doubt that we can change almost any part of our personality if it is important enough to us and we are prepared to put in the necessary effort. This is actually what self improvement is all about, making positive change to our lives. Making changes requires commitment and can be difficult, but the good news is that there are countless valuable resources available that can provide great advice and guidance.
There are also many people who have self esteem issues due to aspects of their physical appearance. The fast paced, multi media society we live in can build impossible and totally unrealistic expectations of what constitutes the ideal physical appearance.
Probably the best example of all this is weight issues. We're all aware of the almost unbelievable extremes in behaviour this issue can bring about, including the cases of frighteningly young children being affected.
More often than not, the things that cause us to worry about ourselves, physical or otherwise, mean absolutely nothing to anyone else. In many cases, if we discussed the things that cause us concern with friends or loved ones, they would be, if not totally incredulous about our concerns, at the very least surprised. Most of us are much harsher on ourselves that anyone else is, or than we really need to be.
I'm not suggesting that any of these issues are trivial or easy to deal with, rather that they mean a great deal more to us than they do to anyone else. Almost without exception, they will be inhibiting and affecting us, while having little or no impact on how other see us. Much more impact will be caused by the way we let ourselves feel about the issue, which can affect our interaction with other people.
Self esteem is about how we feel on the inside, and how we feel inside will affect how we feel and act on the outside. Our self esteem helps to determine our personality and character, and how we react to the experiences and challenges we face in our lives.
It also affects all of our relationships and how we interact with everyone we come in contact with. And it certainly affects how successful and happy we are throughout our lives. Some people have such serious self esteem issues, that deep down, they feel unworthy of success or happiness. This can even lead to unconscious self sabotage when things are going better for them than they feel they deserve.
Having healthy self esteem is really about feeling comfortable and confident with ourselves as we are, and accepting and appreciating ourselves as human beings. This doesn't mean we think we are perfect, or that we think we are always right. Nobody is perfect, and self improvement is an ongoing journey. The very fact that we are making the effort to improve our lives will help us to feel better about ourselves and boost our self esteem and confidence.
'If you put a small value on yourself, rest assured that the world will not raise your price.' - Source unknown
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