For many years I had a nagging feeling there was something “wrong” with me. I was always trying to change myself to feel “good enough” and constantly worried what other people thought. Consequently I often felt stressed and depressed. One day I clicked that not feeling good enough was a belief I had the power to change so I went on a mission to do just that. I now feel a lot better about myself and comfortable in my own skin and as a therapist and mindfulnesss teacher help others to do the same. At the heart of improving my self esteem was trying different meditations. This blog will explain the most powerful meditations for self esteem so that you can let go of self criticism, worry less what people think and accept yourself for who you are.
But First - What is low self esteem?
Self esteem describes how a person feels and views themselves so low self esteem means having a negative view of yourself. It can mean believing you are not as skilled and competant as others at certain things (when you are better than you think) or you can be confident but feel not loveable or good enough as a person. Whilst it can be unhelpful having an overly positive and unrealistic view of yourself (such as thinking you are better than others) having a negative view if yourself really can impact on your life. It can make relationships and work extra stressful and increase a persons risk of depression and anxiety.
For me, my low self esteem manifested in a constant seeking of approval. I never actually asked anyone what they thought of me, more a subtle changing and adapting my personality and hobbies in order to be what I thought other people wanted. I cared what people thought so much that I didn’t really know myself much at all. This made me depressed as I would be caught up in self critical thoughts but also stressed because by trying to please too many people.
What causes low self esteem?
Generally speaking low self esteem is shaped by early life experience such as our relationship with our parents or struggling with peers at school. Parents who are neglectful and abusive will significantly reduce a persons self esteem. But even loving parents who meet our needs can cause low self esteem if they are critical, pushy or focussed on achievements. Other life events such as parents divorcing or dying when we are very young or not fitting at school can reduce a persons capacity to have good self esteem. You can read more about the causes of low self esteem here.
Why does meditation help low self esteem?
Ultimately self esteem boils down to having negative core beliefs, stemmed from childhood, which form our thoughts and feelings. When we meditate, we are spending a period of focussed time on either changing our relationship with our thoughts and feelings or generating more positive ones. Evidence shows that this literally rewires the brain and helps us cultivate different emotional responses to ourselves and the world.
The most powerful meditations for self esteem
Mindfulness
When a person lacks self esteem its very common to be caught up in unhelpful thinking. You may overthink social interactions or find yourself being internally self critical. The problem is our systems do not know the difference between a thought and reality. So just thinking “I am not good enough” or “they are judging me” means you will feel this. Mindfulness teaches people that “a thought is just a thought” by helping you to observe and give space to thoughts. It also helps you control thoughts and stop them from spiralling.
Not only that, but mindfulness helps you to react differently to the feelings of anxiety that can be created by low self esteem. So if fearing rejection regularly gives you butterflies which stops you going out, then mindfulness can help you manage that. To find out more about mindfulness and self esteem click here.
Self Compassion
A common result of low self esteem is that a person struggles to be compassionate to themselves. This is a vicious cycle too as lack of compassionate also perpetues low self esteem. Lacking self compassion means being self extra critical but also judging yourself for struggling in the first place. This is the brains default reaction to protect itself and can feel like second nature but we can in fact increase our compassionate skills.
Evidence shows when we consciously try to be more compassionate to ourselves, even if we don’t believe it at first, we will activate and grow our “compassionate mind”. Self compassion means acknowledging that something is hard, reminding yourself you cannot help it but then asking what would be more helpful. Another easy way is responding to yourself as you would a friend.
There are lots of meditations specifically designed to enhance your self compassion and you can read more about them here.
Loving Kindness
When I decided to work on my own self esteem, this is the meditation that I credit with giving it a the biggest boost. Loving kindness is an ancient meditation practice, from Buddhism, designed to cultivate a sense of well wishing towards yourself and other people. Over time the practice of wishing yourself well changes how you feel about yourself so that you start to like and accept yourself more.
However, I had been familiar with the standard teaching of this practice for years and not noticed it having too much of an affect. As I was so determine to improve my self worth I adapted it to try and intensify its impact and was amazed with the results! Later I found that a similar version was taught by leading psychologist Tara Brach and have shared the meditation with 100s my own counselling clients who also report increased self worth You can get a step by step guide to how to do the mediation here.
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My name is Rebecca Stambridge and am a qualified therapist and mindfulness teacher. I love helping people who struggle with stress and anxiety due to not feeling good enough because I used to feel that way too. I offer 1-1 therapy and run online courses. If you want information about working with me click here.