Need Advice On Overcoming Low Self-worth Problem

[Joe Zhou]

Hi,

Whenever I become motivated to do something, usually in 3 days, I start to feel myself being not worthy. When the feeling strikes, instead of focusing on how to do the thing better, I need to go look for motivation again. This condition has lasted for many years. The accumulated result made me fall behind on many aspects of life, such as health, relationship, and career.

It doesn't matter what my rational mind says about the benefit; there is a much stronger emotion just defines myself as worthless. Benefits just don't matter to a worthless person. I have created a lot, a lot of frustration due to the conflict between rational thoughts and emotional drive. 

I asked a life coach for help, what he said was basically I felt insecure when I was really young and that trauma affected my personality. What the coach said kind of fit my experience, I would assume the cause being true at this point. I could not financially afford further coaching for now, so in a period of time I have to deal with the low self-worth problem on my own.

I have been meditating for around 45 days, it helps me to deal with the low-self worth feeling, but won't improve the fact that such feeling frequently occurs. I am still a newbie so maybe things will change after I practice for a long time.

I tried visualization.  In the beginning I had more vivid imagination, but the further I moved, the more difficulty I had to imagine. I simply felt the fuel of my imagination was cut. Perhaps I chose the wrong subject of visualization? I picked the most obvious ones, such as health, money, relationship.

I have seen Leo's video on how emotion were created etc; I am having problem applying though,  the feeling of low self-worthy is like an entire atmosphere, not a bunch of clouds. It's such a big piece that I don't even know how to let it emerge into my awareness. Perhaps my awareness is just too low right now and it will get improved after I practice for longer? In that case, is there any recommendation on raising awareness?

So here's my situation. I don't quite have a clue and wish to be a bit more clear on how to face the issue. Hope I can get insights from other people's opinion or experience.

Thank you.

 

[FindingPeace]

What do you think self-worth is? What would you need in order to feel 'worthy'? And from whose perspective are you judging yourself? From yours or the eyes of others? What criteria are you judging yourself against?

'Worth' is an illusion. You can't 'have' it, or find it, or see it. Imagine that it didn't exist and that you didn't need it. How would you feel and what would you do? How would live from this paradigm?

 

[Capethaz]

@Joe Zhou Find your passion and follow it. For raising awareness? Consistent meditation practice, check the book "The Mind Illuminated" by Culadasa.

[Joe Zhou]

21 hours ago, FindingPeace said:

What do you think self-worth is? What would you need in order to feel 'worthy'? And from whose perspective are you judging yourself? From yours or the eyes of others? What criteria are you judging yourself against?

'Worth' is an illusion. You can't 'have' it, or find it, or see it. Imagine that it didn't exist and that you didn't need it. How would you feel and what would you do? How would live from this paradigm?

 

Thank you for sharing the insights. I have a new question: when I was asked "to imagine", it seemed I have to use existing experience to compose something. But my "existing experience" is highly biased illusion at the first place. The "imagine" you meant was probably different from my common interpretation. Is it possible for you to further expand the notion of "imagine worth didn't exist"? Or, what does "imagine" mean in this context?

[kurt]

@Joe Zhou Dont worry, everyone has low self worth.  Look around you, even on this forum, especially on this forum!  But at least you are aware of it and are dealing with it in a more conscious way.

The feeling does not go away.  Just notice it, dont identify with it and try to let your mind go towards compassion to others and yourself.

See yourself and others as fools who are all equally as lost and were all in this delusion together.  That is a more accurate assessment of the situation I believe.

*

Even those who we look upto and are seeking enlightenment have low self worth.  If they didnt, they would not be seeking enlightenment, would they?

Edited October 2, 2016 by kurt

[Joe Zhou]

19 hours ago, Capethaz said:

@Joe Zhou Find your passion and follow it. For raising awareness? Consistent meditation practice, check the book "The Mind Illuminated" by Culadasa.

Thank you. I will look into it.

[FindingPeace]

19 hours ago, Joe Zhou said:

Is it possible for you to further expand the notion of "imagine worth didn't exist"? Or, what does "imagine" mean in this context?

I meant it quite literally. To try and imagine that you didn't need to worry about having or not having self-worth. And if you didn't have to worry about that, then how might your motivations and actions in life be different. But don't worry if you find this hard to do. More importantly, consider the questions I asked previously:

What do you think self-worth is? What would you need in order to feel 'worthy'? And from whose perspective are you judging yourself? From yours or the eyes of others? What criteria are you judging yourself against?

The point of this is to try and pinpoint what you are feeling and why. And to question what it is grounded in. This, in itself, may bring you to some realisations. We often get caught up in concepts of 'worth' and 'esteem' without really knowing what they are and why they are. We take them as being 'something' when perhaps there is more going on beneath the surface than we realise.

I could give you my take on 'self-worth' and what it means or doesn't mean to me, but that won't necessarily help you see and understand this for yourself. I could tell you that 'worth' doesn't fundamentally exist and that it's an illusion. A fiction of our ego trying to assert an identity. But these are concepts that need to be discovered through introspection and contemplation.

19 hours ago, kurt said:

The feeling does not go away.  Just notice it, dont identify with it and try to let your mind go towards compassion to others and yourself.

This isn't true. Beware of believing this and telling other people this. Things like self-worth and self-esteem are functions of insecurities and fears. They are not inherent components of our psychology. They are conditioned. But through the process of raising awareness and consciousness these things become 'irrelevent' and in fact can stop being factors in our lives. The concept of 'worth' become meaningless.

It isn't something to be ashamed of or to fear. It's fairly common in human psychology. The important thing is to not identify with it but to see it as something that can be worked upon and grown out of. In time. It can take several years for this to happen.

 

[kurt]

1 hour ago, FindingPeace said:

I meant it quite literally. To try and imagine that you didn't need to worry about having or not having self-worth. And if you didn't have to worry about that, then how might your motivations and actions in life be different. But don't worry if you find this hard to do. More importantly, consider the questions I asked previously:

What do you think self-worth is? What would you need in order to feel 'worthy'? And from whose perspective are you judging yourself? From yours or the eyes of others? What criteria are you judging yourself against?

The point of this is to try and pinpoint what you are feeling and why. And to question what it is grounded in. This, in itself, may bring you to some realisations. We often get caught up in concepts of 'worth' and 'esteem' without really knowing what they are and why they are. We take them as being 'something' when perhaps there is more going on beneath the surface than we realise.

I could give you my take on 'self-worth' and what it means or doesn't mean to me, but that won't necessarily help you see and understand this for yourself. I could tell you that 'worth' doesn't fundamentally exist and that it's an illusion. A fiction of our ego trying to assert an identity. But these are concepts that need to be discovered through introspection and contemplation.

This isn't true. Beware of believing this and telling other people this. Things like self-worth and self-esteem are functions of insecurities and fears. They are not inherent components of our psychology. They are conditioned. But through the process of raising awareness and consciousness these things become 'irrelevent' and in fact can stop being factors in our lives. The concept of 'worth' become meaningless.

It isn't something to be ashamed of or to fear. It's fairly common in human psychology. The important thing is to not identify with it but to see it as something that can be worked upon and grown out of. In time. It can take several years for this to happen.

 

No, you're right.  Thanks for pointing that out.

I think my actual approach was an invitation for radical acceptance. Don't worry, my wording was probably not helpful.

You're halfway there, you have some knowledge of the truth, but you dont see at this point that "self worth" is still another object to chase and has a zero sum nature.

Anyway, 

Good work

Edited October 3, 2016 by kurt

[kurt]

You cant fix low self worth because there is nothing wrong with you in the first place.  So, no need to buy into the paradigm youre sold by society and psychology that there is something to fix.  All you need to do is be with the feeling and go towards compassion, then you will understand.

 

[Joe Zhou]

4 hours ago, FindingPeace said:

I meant it quite literally. To try and imagine that you didn't need to worry about having or not having self-worth. And if you didn't have to worry about that, then how might your motivations and actions in life be different. But don't worry if you find this hard to do. More importantly, consider the questions I asked previously:

What do you think self-worth is? What would you need in order to feel 'worthy'? And from whose perspective are you judging yourself? From yours or the eyes of others? What criteria are you judging yourself against?

The point of this is to try and pinpoint what you are feeling and why. And to question what it is grounded in. This, in itself, may bring you to some realisations. We often get caught up in concepts of 'worth' and 'esteem' without really knowing what they are and why they are. We take them as being 'something' when perhaps there is more going on beneath the surface than we realise.

I could give you my take on 'self-worth' and what it means or doesn't mean to me, but that won't necessarily help you see and understand this for yourself. I could tell you that 'worth' doesn't fundamentally exist and that it's an illusion. A fiction of our ego trying to assert an identity. But these are concepts that need to be discovered through introspection and contemplation.

This isn't true. Beware of believing this and telling other people this. Things like self-worth and self-esteem are functions of insecurities and fears. They are not inherent components of our psychology. They are conditioned. But through the process of raising awareness and consciousness these things become 'irrelevent' and in fact can stop being factors in our lives. The concept of 'worth' become meaningless.

It isn't something to be ashamed of or to fear. It's fairly common in human psychology. The important thing is to not identify with it but to see it as something that can be worked upon and grown out of. In time. It can take several years for this to happen.

 

I contemplated on the questions regarding self-worth. I noticed that the answers vary from time to time. For example, sometimes I feel need achievement to feel worthy, yet when I actually achieved something I suddenly would feel I need something else. Same goes for perspective, criteria, there isn't any solid ground.

So, my self-worthy concept is a collective of little judgements based on different criteria; these judgements are simplistic statements of what "the problem" is. Because there are so many different answers to "the problem", I don't know which one is true. I end up with a simplistic conclusion: I have so many problems. I must be very low worthy for having so many problems.

The real problem seems to be just a sense of insecurity. All the answers I come up with are rationalization of this feeling, trying to make it tangible/external. When the problem is tangible/external, it looks easier to be solved. For example, achievement is at least attainable via action.

Even though I have reached this point, there are still strong objections inside my mind. I have these almost mad voices shouting for focusing on the external problems.

So can I say that my ego is inherently insecure, and it just wants to create distractions to protect itself? And everyone who has an ego all have this sense of insecurity, unless they work on the ego? If I want to stop the suffering, I need to stop distracting myself with external works and focusing on the awareness of ego?

 

[kurt]

17 minutes ago, Joe Zhou said:

The real problem seems to be just a sense of insecurity. 

Your thoughts and feelings have no power over you, its all about how you interpret these feelings.  They are interpreted by your values.  If you interpret them as a problem to be fixed then they will disturb you.

That is how to disidentify from them, they are not your thoughts, they are the thoughts of the collective that you have chosen to make your own.

So you have a values problem, and a control problem.  You cannot change something that is, but you can change your relationship to it.  

 

Edited October 3, 2016 by kurt

[Joe Zhou]

7 hours ago, kurt said:

That is how to disidentify from them, they are not your thoughts, they are the thoughts of the collective that you have chosen to make your own.

 

Does the thoughts of the collective mean the common values in the society?

Today I had a moment that might be a disidentification: I had some tasks I decided to finish today. When I had little time left, I became anxious. I suddenly asked myself: did the situation "make me anxious"? Or did I make a rule to feel anxious whenever similar situation happens?

I realized that the situation might had absloutely no relation to my feelings. At that moment, I felt it's prosperous to think a situation have power over me.

So can I put it this way: all the situations I believed that caused me emotional changes, positive or negative, had actually no influence on me at all? And all along it was me deciding how I should feel? And I can be free from my own rules by recognizing them as my rules rather than the "objective rules"? Furthermore, there were never "objective rules" at first place, all the rules are human fabrication? 

 

[Christian]

I think low self worth can come from many different sources and places in life. For me personally, my low self esteem is connected to being a complete perfectionist. I literally criticize so much it is ridiculous - probably between 100-500 times per day. It has held me back in life because the energy could have been used constructively to build my life purpose. Also, I could have used it to focus on meditation and focusing on the achievements in my life which would have increased my self worth.

My advice for you is to do the things that I describe here. Meditate (like everyone says), but daily and focus on your strengths. Leverage and realize them. That will probably help you to see yourself in a different light and your self esteem issues will dissolve over time if you do the work.

[Joe Zhou]

1 hour ago, Christian said:

I think low self worth can come from many different sources and places in life. For me personally, my low self esteem is connected to being a complete perfectionist. I literally criticize so much it is ridiculous - probably between 100-500 times per day. It has held me back in life because the energy could have been used constructively to build my life purpose. Also, I could have used it to focus on meditation and focusing on the achievements in my life which would have increased my self worth.

My advice for you is to do the things that I describe here. Meditate (like everyone says), but daily and focus on your strengths. Leverage and realize them. That will probably help you to see yourself in a different light and your self esteem issues will dissolve over time if you do the work.

Thank you, I would like to ask for  more detail regarding meditating on my strength. Currently I meditate by do nothing and not interfer emerging thoughts. I don't know other methods.

[Joe Zhou]

Hey everyone, after processing what you said and did some experiment on my own, I had personal insight to the question I asked. I want to share with you.

The reason I felt having low self-worth was the failure of recongnizing values. I could not see value in pain, confusion, nervousness, all the commonly known "negative feelings". For instance, when I read a book, I didn't get it, I wanted to quit reading because there was confusion. I defined confusion as a bad fruit in the basket. What I failed to see was, confusion could be the fundation of read again and find out! I always desired long lasting motivation; yet I didn't link motivation with the "negative reactions". I thought motivation only came from " positive feedback". Naturally, I could never have full motivation since life didn't give 100% "positive feed back". I didn't even feel living full life, since I only granted meaning to a portion of my experience, and I denied the rest. 

The more accurate way of looking at my life is, life gives me 100% feedback, all I need is to accept all of them, so I live a full life. The postive negative differentiation was ridiculous. Read a book and felt confused? Good! Then I'm more likely to find out the true meaning. Rather than attempting to drive the confusion away, I can choose to welcome it as a guest, let it stay however long it wants to. 

In conclusion, my low-worthy complex, sense of insecurity was due to self- denial and rejection of reality. In Leo's word, "neurosis". In order to completely dissolve this issue, I not only need to accept what I am akready aware, but also need to fundamentally expand my awarewness to be closer to the reality.  It's a long journey and I have just started.

 

[FindingPeace]

32 minutes ago, Joe Zhou said:

The more accurate way of looking at my life is, life gives me 100% feedback, all I need is to accept all of them, so I live a full life. 

This is a profound realisation. This is good work.

34 minutes ago, Joe Zhou said:

In order to completely dissolve this issue, I not only need to accept what I am akready aware, but also need to fundamentally expand my awarewness to be closer to the reality.  It's a long journey and I have just started.

And you're making good progress.

But you've nailed it: every experience in life is feedback. Feedback allows us to learn. So every experience is a learning experience whether it is 'positive' or 'negative'. Experience is essentially neither of these things. It is just...experience.

[Xpansion]

On 3 October 2016 at 9:32 PM, kurt said:

You cant fix low self worth because there is nothing wrong with you in the first place.  So, no need to buy into the paradigm youre sold by society and psychology that there is something to fix.  All you need to do is be with the feeling and go towards compassion, then you will understand.

 

I understand this concept and i even believe it to be true however the 'being with the feeling and going toward compassion' can take a long time to help undo a lifetime of conditioning. For people such as the OP and myself these beliefs are so deeply entrenched that it can feel impossible to rise above it. The feelings can completely swamp you, like the OP said they are like an atmosphere. It's like asking a fish "how's the water?"  The fish answers "what water?"  We become so used to being a certain way that we cannot see the forest for the trees.

However, for me personally I don't see any other way but to "be with the feelings" and hope that gradually my meditation practice will create a fundamental change. It's been 5 years and the change is happening but it feels very slow sometimes.  I'm starting to think about doing something much more powerful and apparently life changing such as an ayahuasca retreat. 

Edited October 6, 2016 by Xpansion

[Joe Zhou]

16 minutes ago, Xpansion said:

For people such as the OP and myself these beliefs are so deeply entrenched that it can feel impossible to rise above it.

I started this post by thinking of "how to overcome" as well, but now I don't think "over" or "rise" is the correct attitude to resolve the problem.

FindingPeace gave me some clues to introspect the foundation of my belief, so I went into it, looking for more details in a humble manner rather than standing above and look at the outcomes. And I made some discovery quite soon. I could never discovered more details by an attitude of wanting to overpower the problem. The eagerness to overpower is blinding. 

Think of the overcoming mindset as a local governor inspecting the town, and think of the  introspect mindset as a tourist talking to local people. The governor holds power thus the town folks are afraid to reveal the truth, whereas the tourist holds little power so the folks don't mind reveal more. Even if the governor tries for 10 years, as long as he holds the power, folks won't talk. This is at least why I couldn't have some insights earlier, and it might apply to you at a degree, too.

I think it'll be useful to contemplate on the questions FindingPeace asked me, "What do you think self-worth is? What would you need in order to feel 'worthy'? And from whose perspective are you judging yourself? From yours or the eyes of others? What criteria are you judging yourself against?

 

[kurt]

On 10/3/2016 at 11:01 PM, Joe Zhou said:

Does the thoughts of the collective mean the common values in the society?

Today I had a moment that might be a disidentification: I had some tasks I decided to finish today. When I had little time left, I became anxious. I suddenly asked myself: did the situation "make me anxious"? Or did I make a rule to feel anxious whenever similar situation happens?

I realized that the situation might had absloutely no relation to my feelings. At that moment, I felt it's prosperous to think a situation have power over me.

So can I put it this way: all the situations I believed that caused me emotional changes, positive or negative, had actually no influence on me at all? And all along it was me deciding how I should feel? And I can be free from my own rules by recognizing them as my rules rather than the "objective rules"? Furthermore, there were never "objective rules" at first place, all the rules are human fabrication? 

 

How are you getting on?

Sorry for the delay in replying... 

There are no rules except the ones you make for yourself.  If you have a value of right vs wrong, then youre going to impose that value onto your thoughts and feelings.  So become aware of the values you have made up, or have been sold to you and that you bought and then see if they are serving you.  Thoughts and feelings are just collective stuff, they are the things of the mind, objects that are useful for getting stuff done.  If you believe that you are your thoughts, then create a bunch of values that superimpose projections onto those thoughts, then you are going to have low self worth, because not only have you made a false identity out of inert objects that appear in your mind, you have also created a values system that judges the imaginary person that has been created by this system of thoughts and feelings and past experiences.  

Nothing has actually ever changed you, the only problem is you, in the sense that you have all these value judgements that you project onto everything.  This work does not take years, it just takes a little "knowhow" to do.  Make an inventory of all your values and throw out the values that make you feel bad.  You preferably want to get to the point where you dont see anything inherently wrong with life itself, because there isnt anything wrong with it, you only make it wrong by not examining your assumptions.

Thoughts and feelings are fine, thoughts and feelings are the mind, the mind is fine, its your values that you want to look at.  Do that work and things will quickly turn around for you.

[kurt]

On 10/6/2016 at 2:20 PM, Xpansion said:

I understand this concept and i even believe it to be true however the 'being with the feeling and going toward compassion' can take a long time to help undo a lifetime of conditioning. For people such as the OP and myself these beliefs are so deeply entrenched that it can feel impossible to rise above it. The feelings can completely swamp you, like the OP said they are like an atmosphere. It's like asking a fish "how's the water?"  The fish answers "what water?"  We become so used to being a certain way that we cannot see the forest for the trees.

However, for me personally I don't see any other way but to "be with the feelings" and hope that gradually my meditation practice will create a fundamental change. It's been 5 years and the change is happening but it feels very slow sometimes.  I'm starting to think about doing something much more powerful and apparently life changing such as an ayahuasca retreat. 

See above comment.  You need to examine your relationship to your feelings, then the feelings will change by themselves, because the feelings are not the problem, its how you relate to them thats the problem.  You just need to know that the feelings and thoughts are just patterned objects, they are not self, the self is watching all of this.  But youre not going to understand this until you clean up your mind and it stops disturbing you.  So work on your values, your rules about what should be vs. what is. This doesnt mean being a douche, it just means discovering your own douchery towards yourself that seemed so virtuous.  Its not a virtue to try to be perfect or a better person.  Just learn to accept yourself as you are with all your flaws.  Convert your need to experience enlightenment into a need to understand what your mind is doing, how it functions, and how to work on it.  Things will quickly change for you if you.

Edited December 10, 2016 by kurt