Self-esteem is a tricky topic; many see healthy self-esteem as this thing, you automatically have, except it isn’t.
Self-esteem is our opinion of ourselves, it is something that develops from baby hood and continues to develop throughout our lives. We can either have healthy self-esteem or low self-esteem; our environment and how we are taught to process our experiences determine this.
Self Esteem Must Be Built
"There are no college courses to build up self-esteem or high school or elementary school. If you don't get those values at a early age, nurtured in your home, you don't get them." T.D. Jakes
When children feel, loved, secure, appreciated and valued they tend to develop healthy self-esteem. When they receive adequate praise and try new things and learn new things this creates the opportunity for their self-esteem to grow. However, socially self-esteem isn’t always viewed this way and persons who suffer from low self-esteem are treated with scorn and blamed for their lack of something that “everyone has.”
Broken From Young
For me, I grew up in an overly critical household. One minute I was being told how wonderful I was and the next I was being torn down for the simplest thing, such as waking late. This took a huge toll on me, and I never knew how to feel, about myself or anything I did, eventually leading to pretty low self-esteem.
It became more difficult as a young adult, because I never felt capable or strong. I was constantly afraid of disappointing my family, I doubted everything I did and it eventually impacted every area of my life.
I didn't even understand what was happening to me or how I felt the way I did about myself. It was through taking pyschology classes that I became aware of what plagued me. However, just knowing wasn't enough. It took me years and so many up and down days to start to build my self-esteem back up.
Depression, anxiety and low self-esteem are a cruel cycle to live through, I constantly felt like I couldn't do anything right, like I wasn't good enough and I couldn't fully engage with the persons I love. In order to love myself more I started trying to reach out to others more, to build a proper support system for myself, to help others more, and to be purposely engaged in positive activities. This made me feel better about myself and also helped others, I also go to therapy. Therapy has allowed me to have the extra support that my personal environment doesn't provide, and sometimes we need that to be able to heal and grow.
Although I'm not one hundred percent there, each day I'm learning a bit more about myself, my values and beliefs and who I want to become and I am slowly learning to love, trust and believe in myself. It's intense changing around negative views, it's painful but it will be worth it.
Be Careful Of Your Actions
“Once you embrace your value, talents and strengths, it neutralizes when others think less of you.” Rob Liano
Practice being kind to others; really listen when they speak, be encouraging and supportive, be empathetic, give genuine compliments, when they share concerns don't belittle or dismiss their feelings and generally you will see a change in people. Like wise, self analyze, became of how you think of and speak to yourself internally. Stop any negative self talk, be careful that you aren't keeping persons around you who make you feel low, and drain your energy, start a post it note journal, where you write something positive about yourself and stick it somewhere you can see it daily. Build yourself and others, it is far easier to build someone up than to repair someone who has been broken down.
Àṣẹ
Faith
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