Low self esteem is at the root of many psychological problems including depression, anxiety and,
anger.
Feeling bad about oneself is very painful.
To avoid this pain people often develop coping behaviours For example, they may becoming
perfectionists to avoid the pain of failure, high achievers to gain recognition from others
or loners to avoid the pain of rejection.
These coping mechanisms may have short term benefits, but they never resolve the underlying
problem.
I would like to share four approaches that we can be helpful in raising self esteem,
The first is increasing self- awareness
An important first step is to gain greater awareness of self critical thoughts and their
source.
These critical and tortuous statements are often subconscious and habitual.
Uncovering their origins, which are frequently from childhood or teenage years, makes them
more understandable.
For example, a person who feels useless may trace these feelings back to a traumatic experience,
time of failure, or critical remarks from their past.
They can them understand that these critical voices are not a voice of truth, but are learned
from an external source.
This enables you to take them less seriously and stop identifying with them.
The second is to Challenge critical thoughts
Challenging the validity of these critical thoughts helps us realize that a lot of them
are based on irrational thinking and are simply not true.
For example, a person who is a perfectionist can ask themself, ‘Is it really true that
if I don’t excel in this exam I don’t have value?’
A loner can ask, ‘Is it really true that if someone doesn’t like me I’m no good?’
In this way, we can develop a more realistic attitude and become less controlled by our
critical thoughts.
Third express your inner feelings
It is common for feelings of low self esteem to be guarded as a secret.
Sharing these feelings with a supportive person helps to normalize them.
Psychotherapy places great emphasis on creating a trusting relationship which enables a person
to share these feelings fully.
Role playing techniques are also used in therapy to help express these feelings and resolve
negative experiences from the past.
This is done by a person visualizing the painful experience that is at the source of their
low self esteem and verbalize their thoughts and feelings.
For example a person who’s low self esteem developed from bullying .Can imagine themselves
speaking to the bullies and expressing their thoughts, feelings and what they had been
to scared to say at the time .
Fourth express your authentic self
Expressing our individual aspirations, hopes and natural talents raises our self esteem.
Martin Seligman, the pioneer of positive psychology wrote, ‘We feel elevated and inspired when
the exercise of will culminates in virtuous action.”
For this reason positive psychology asks clients to take a survey to identify their strengths
and think about how they can use them in everyday life, On a practical level we can ask ourselves,
“What actions can I do that would lift my self esteem, for example an act of kindness,
a walk in nature or learning a new skill.
I'm Aryeh Sampson, and you're watching J-TV.