Self Esteem

I’ve been thinking a lot about people lately – it’s never ending for me. I’ve been noticing patterns that people get into in their lives or relationships or in different forms. How they love, or don’t love, are attached or detached, selfish or altruistic, those sorts of things (mainly in the sense of how it relates to people in their relationships, friendships, families, jobs, etc.)

So then I got to thinking quite a bit about insecurity and self-love, and self-esteem.

Alright, we all have insecurities. No doubt. We are all human beings and none of us are perfect. It varies a lot from person to person but there is no one out there who feels 100% great about themselves 100% of the time. But, we CAN feel very good about ourselves and be confident about our abilities/skills/talents/appearance. But that involves acceptance of those things. If we are always trying to change things or wishing they were different or pushing them away it’s a sure recipe for feeling crappy about yourself.

Hard for me to admit now, but most of my life I had fairly low self-esteem. I was often told that I was attractive, smart or talented by my peers or people within an academic realm (“Your hair is gorgeous!” “You have the highest grade in class” “That was an amazing project” “I wish I could sing like you!”) Yet despite the positive messages I received from peers, in my personal home life, I really got none. It was sort of like a complete discredit to anything anyone else said. Why didn’t anyone in my actual life notice that I was smart? Why didn’t they tell me I looked pretty? Why didn’t I ever get told they were proud of me? I believed that it was because I really wasn’t any good and felt a sort of paranoia that the nice comments others made were somehow false or just lip service. So, really they wound up doing nothing for my self-esteem and it remained very low even into my adult years.

Having low self-esteem caused me to get into a lot of bad relationships and have bad experiences in general. In ways I’m sure I (subconsciously) allowed myself to be treated in a poor manner because I BELIEVED that I didn’t deserve any better. Sometimes the people actually told me that I didn’t deserve any better. It became this lifelong message drilled in – you’re not any good, you have too many flaws, no one is going to want to be with you and if they do you should consider yourself lucky.

Yeahhhhhh, not exactly messages conducive to feeling good about oneself, eh?

I’m not sure when the real turning point came. I think I simply had some realizations and insights into things after years of talking in therapy, discussing feelings and life experiences with friends and family and just stepping outside myself and DISTANCING myself from my feelings and taking a cold hard look at the reality of the situation.

Awhile back I came across some old papers I had from grade school. Report cards, projects, the works. I looked through them and was amazed because everything in there had positive comments, teachers singing my praises, high marks and just an overall glowing portrayal of me. I never ever saw myself that way and I think it really hit me then, wait a second. Why have I thought I was no good all this time? Why did I listen to the bad messages instead of the good ones? Maybe it’s because of conditioning. Maybe because as I got older the positive messages became less and less as I entered the adult world of work and relationships. I had forgotten all that stuff from childhood. But it came back to me and made me rethink things I previously thought about myself.

Most of my life I viewed self-esteem as something that needed to be bolstered by someone outside myself. I needed someone to like me to feel good, I needed someone’s praise to feel good. I was always a sensitive person and in ways I think that was more of a personality trait than anything. But it became completely maladaptive. It got to where I just internalized everyone else’s view of me and that is who I became. If someone thought I had done a nice job on something, then I was good. If someone thought I looked terrible, then I was ugly. It was the exact opposite of self-esteem. It really had nothing to do with self and everything to do with others.

When I finally started realizing all these things, I knew that in order to feel good, and I mean TRULY good (and not the fake front that you put on so that others can’t see your insecurities) you have to learn to LOVE YOURSELF FIRST. You have to love yourself even if no one else does. It’s very hard at first because you don’t believe it. You have to dig down, (sometimes wayyyy wayyyyy down) and find those things that you know make you special. Everyone has them. I do believe that everyone has something worth celebrating, whether that be that they are a great listener, a stellar cook, good with animals, a generous giver, or whatever. Everyone has something within them to celebrate, regardless of what those outsiders say. Loving yourself means holding onto those things and allowing yourself to revel in them. Don’t listen to the naysayers if they think your talent is useless or that you are just “no good”. What do they know? Generally, not much, especially if they are the types of negative people who would make such comments to begin with.

Now, my self-esteem has soared in the last couple of years and there have been so many positive outcomes from that. A) I accept myself more now and feel far far less of a need or even desire to change for anyone else B) I am more likely to go after the things I want because I know that I CAN achieve them and that it isn’t a futile goal or investment C) This is huge – my depression levels have gone WAY WAY down. I used to be incredibly depressed much of the time. Now I find that I am rarely depressed. And when I am it only lasts a day or 2 and then I pop back up ready to tackle the next thing. Having that self-esteem and self-confidence bolsters me into more positive thinking such as “I know I’ve got this” instead of “I’m just going to fail.” It gives me a lot more resiliency than I previously had. D) Whenever things DO happen that are negative, I don’t automatically attribute it to myself. I used to think anything and everything that went wrong was my fault. No more! I realize that when people do/say things to us, it often has more to do with how THEY feel about THEMSELVES and very little to do with us. Recognizing that helps keep things in perspective and realize, hey, they are just one (or two or three) people on the face of this earth. There are millions upon millions of people on the earth! Why should I care what a few negative nellies say???

So I really think that self-esteem is a core issue in so many problems, both social and psychological. We have to assess ourselves and ask, how am I doing? What can I do to pick myself up? True self-esteem comes from within and exists independently of anything else. It can be a hard road (in my case, 30 year road!) but completely worthwhile pursuit that really can change your life.