What is Self Esteem?
Self Esteem describes how a person percieves themselves such as their personal qualities, skills, attractiveness but also includes whether they feel loveable and worthy as a person.
What is low self esteem?
Low self esteem means that a person has a low opinion of themselves for example, feeling there is something wrong with them or that they are not as good as others. It can mean lacking in confidence about their skills and abilities or feeling that they are only worthy of love if they behave in a certain way.
What are the signs of low self esteem?
Low self esteem can affect people in different ways. For example, it can mean they lack confidence in their skills to go for certain jobs or they may feel confident in those areas but feel they have to be good at things to feel loveable.
However, some common signs include:
- Being Self Critical
- Putting Pressure on yourself to do everything correctly (perfectionism)
- Comparing yourself to others
- Wondering what people think of you
- Assuming people are judging you or have an bad opinion of you.
- Struggling in relationships because you do not feel loveble
- Struggling to say no to others for fear of letting poeple down
- Finding it hard to prioritse your needs
What Causes Low Self Esteem
The most common cause is environmental factors such as stressful childhood experiences or major life events as an adult. Key causes include:
- Parents who were critical, abusive or emotionally distant
- Bullying at school
- Problems at work such as losing your job
- Social Media which creates unrealistic expectations and images of people
- Major life changes such as loss of a relationship or ill health.
How Can I improve low self esteem?
A person usually needs to have therapy to improve self esteem, particularly if due to stressful chidldhood experiences, but if the symptoms are not complex it can be possible to use self help tools.
Techniques that a therapist might use but also a person can try themselves include:
- Cognitive Behaviourial Techniques to challenge unhelpful thinking and assumptions
- Compassion Therapy which includes specific meditations and practices to activate and reinforce a kind and accepting response to themselves
- Assertive skills to help people put in bounderies with others
- Mindfulness to give space to unhelpful thoughts and feelings
- Behaviourial Activivation which are maintaining holding a person back such as confidence in speaking to others, socialising or starting new hobbies.
How can I access help for low self esteem?
If you would like assistance to improve your self esteem then I offer specialist therapy which incorporates the above techniqes. You can visit my main page to find out more about this or contact me to arrange a free consultation.
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