Getting over low self esteem and insecurity

[PepperBlossoms]

What worked for you?

[Eph75]

@PepperBlossoms

Without a doubt managing self-talk, cutting out everything negative about yourself, minimize the need for self-criticism/judgment, which also stretches to the criticism of others. Often we criticise others to indirectly meet a need to lift ourselves. Know when you judge, and try not to. 

Even smallest and seemingly benign self directed comment like thinking "cluts" when dropping something. 

Don't. 

When seeing yourself in a mirror, there should be zero judgment. The mirror is just a reflection, make it functional.

Be very careful what you say to yourself, because you're listning. 

The second thing I'd say to make sure that you're being authentic. If you're not allowing your authentic self to shine through, then you are literally faking life. Be authentic as much as possible, minimize personas/façades.

Feeling fake is detrimental to self-esteem. Authenticity allows for confidence in self, and helps bringing a stronger positive self-image. 

Edited March 22, 2022 by Eph75

[Preety_India]

I'm still struggling with this. 

I think what is currently working for me is thinking that I deserve love. 

I felt deep down that I didn't deserve love. 

 

[Preety_India]

Miss Pepper

I don't wish to deal with people who are cold to me. That doesn't serve my purpose. So I eventually cut them off. You need drastic measures to feel better

 

Be around supportive people. It's a huge boost to self esteem. 

Learn to cut out people who don't serve your purpose. Brutal truth. 

Its not about self love. It's simply about cultivating general love within yourself. This love will then water the plants of your body and mind. 

You're a beautiful soul Ms Pepper. The only thing is you are horribly misguided. 

And that's not your fault. You haven't been prepared for your best role and best potential. This could be the society you live in that simply doesn't try to bring out the best potential from you and rather sabotages who you truly are

 

I say seek answers within you Ms Pepper and you will find that you deserve so much more than what you have been given. 

There is deep deep love to be found Ms Pepper and that love is within you. 

 

[Asayake]

Lions mane mushrooms water & alcohol extract, after a few weeks seems to have started helping me open up to others a bit more. This has in turn created more honesty between e.g. me and my parents which gives me more emotional stability, which gives me some increased confidence. I also started putting myself more in social situations because of the effects of Lions Mane, it sparked an increased interest in others. 

Working out is another thing that gives me confidence, because when I'm at the gym I can feel that I am doing something that will improve on some aspect of myself. When I'm in the gym I feel confident because I know I'm doing something worthwhile basically. I can then look myself in eyes more easily, knowing I did what I could to improve myself, at the very least physically. Post workout I feel probably most confident in the entire day. It's just the knowing that I did go to the gym for myself which carries me. And the fact that when you're done with your workout you know the rest of the day will feel easier in comparison to the workout where you have to tough it out a bit.

Another way to think of it is create suffering in a productive manner such as doing something which is challenging like reading, meditating, yoga, working out, working towards some important goal in your life, practice an instrument, write a poem, write a book. And carry that suffering like Jesus carried the cross. In a sense we need to take on suffering to transcend it.

Edited March 23, 2022 by Asayake

[Breakingthewall]

Fight. step completely out of my comfort zone over and over again, as much as possible, thousands of times

[hyruga]

Believing in God. God gives me strength, love and a sound mind.

[Raze]

Try self therapy by Jay Earely

[Mz Hyde]

22 hours ago, Breakingthewall said:

Fight. step completely out of my comfort zone over and over again, as much as possible, thousands of times

..until I finally owned everything that I am

Amen ?

[flowboy]

If you struggle with low self-esteem and insecurity, I'd invite you to ask yourself the question:

When did I last have it?

You can't permanently solve a problem in the present when the origin is not in the present.

Common advice like talking nicely to yourself, "stopping" negative self-talk, practicing loving yourself, and giving yourself other ego boosts like buying a new dress or a new haircut, it is like mopping with the faucet still open, as the Dutch proverb goes.

Children are born with healthy self esteem. It is the default state.

Then shit happens.

Sometimes that shit is being denied love and attention from mum or dad when you needed it. Not being listened to. Being forced to listen to them, make them feel good, or even take care of them instead, whilst you needed to be a child. Anything that didn't give you all the space to be yourself and get all the loving attention and listening to that you needed, creates the instilled message: "I am not good enough to be loved in the way that I apparently need".

This core "not-enoughness" later manifests into different insecurities, like insecurities about your looks, or your capabilities at work, or whether you feel good enough to get a love partner to not leave you. Whatever it is. The root is all the same.

It doesn't have to come from the parents, sometimes we are getting plenty of loving attention from the parents and allowed to be ourselves, but then we go to school and our peers reject us completely, or force us to be something else than we are if we don't want to be ostracized. Bullying is another common factor in low self esteem. That was the one that was the biggest contributor for my low self-esteem personally.

It wasn't until I found and addressed the root cause, that my life profoundly began to change. I've seen this in others as well.

Self-esteem is not something you have to "get". It is your birthright. Sometimes you lose it along the way, and if you are willing to go back and fully feel and thereby heal that experience, you are worthy and enough once again.

[BuddhistLover]

Yeah, finding the root cause of poor self-esteem can change someone's whole life. But the hard part is finding what is causing the low self-esteem. 

[Eph75]

It can be helpful to find a root cause, but it's as often is with trying to find the reasons why things are, that we look externally to find a justification or blame as to why we are the way we are. 

There's something here right now that is maintaining that low self-esteem, and it's ultimately not going to be out there, in the external world, it's going to be found within yourself, and that's where the change needs to happen. 

Changing ourselves is easier when we have a fuller back-story, but at the same time, we're much more likely to justify why we are the way we are, and to assign blame to those external factors.

Focusing on what it is we are doing right now that maintains low self-esteem, and changing that behavior so that we promote self-worth is most important. And as we do that, the way we think and the way we see ourselves will change, and with that our view of and the meaning we attach to the past also changes. 

A god place to start is to become aware of what the self-talk that we're subject ourselves to looks like, and then manage self-talk, by having less of it, breaking negative self-talk and bending ourselves toward positive self-talk. 

It takes time and consistency. It's not easy. But it does work. If it took you a good portion of your life to get here, to dig your own hole, we have to accept that it will take time to climb our of it. 

We are in full control of this inner world of ours. 

Once we stop looking for external reasons, letting go of what was/is, and make it an internal journey of growth, that time can be dramatically reduced.

So what is it that is holding on to "what was/is"? 

Where are you holding yourself back? 

What are you not doing that you want to do, that you are insecure about? 

When do you get anxious? 

Challange that, consistently, repeatedly and you will get more confidence in yourself, and build self-efficacy, a belief that you can succeed if you try. With that confidence that you can pursue whatever you want, and with reaffirming self-talk, self-esteem and self-worth will rebuild.

Edited April 22, 2022 by Eph75

[RickyFitts]

I think what probably helped the most for me was simply recognising that I wasn't the person I'd imagined myself to be, which came as a huge relief (mind you, it was very disorienting,too, because then it was like, 'Okay, if I'm not that, what am I?' I still haven't figured that one out, ten years later ).

Low self-esteem was something I suffered with for most of my llife, I'd come to believe a lot of very negative things about myself: 'I'm stupid', 'I'm ugly', 'I can't do anything right', 'I'm useless'. This was mostly due to a combination of me just being a very sensitive, troubled kid anyway (stress and depression run in my family, largely on my mum's side), and my relationship with my dad, who could be incredibly insensitive and tactless, and it left me with the following core belief, which was what really ultimately broke my heart: 'I am inherently unworthy of love'. Because I think the thing we humans long for the most, when you get right down to it, is love, and acceptance, and so to feel yourself fundamentally unworthy of these things is so painful that it feels utterly, unfaceably painful. So you end up doing everything in your power to not feel that pain.

But the cure for the poison is IN the poison, as they say; you really have to allow yourself to feel that pain in order to heal it. But that's easier said than done, mostly because we build up so much unconscious resistance against it, and so you have to become conscious of that inner resistance first, and allow it to release. Then everything you'd been repressing can surface, which is good, ultimately, but it can be a very challenging, very painful process. Developing presence in my body has been most helpful for me personally, because it's in our bodies that we store these traumas and emotional wounds - this is where practices like yoga and meditation are so important I think.

[Gianna]

@RickyFitts Bookmarked! hehe. Such a great response Ricky. Thank you for sharing.?

[RickyFitts]

@Gianna You're so welcome, and thank you too.  

[hyruga]

Talk yourself up.

[Gianna]

Realizing that it was an unconscious strategy to stay safe socially.