How To Beat Your Low Self-esteem

2024 Author: Harry Day | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 15:43

Very often, low or unstable self-esteem is identified as the main cause of a person's psychological problems. Having made such a diagnosis, one can hardly be mistaken. But it is quite natural that the question arises: "What can be done about this?"

How can you raise respect and confidence in yourself, how to regain confidence, how to believe in yourself? Briefly, the answer to these questions may sound something like this: You need to develop personal and social reflection in yourself.

Later in this article we will try to give more detailed answers.

Self-esteem is not a disease, it is only an indicator of our well-being

• If we notice that we have a high body temperature, then we understand that the body is under the influence of some external factors: viruses or "microbes".
• Having discovered in ourselves low self-esteem, we can assume that some settings have been knocked down in our psyche and consciousness. Some external factors made us feel flawed or insecure.

We can say that low self-esteem is a signal that we have established not quite right relationships with others and with ourselves.

1. We are doing something wrong;
2. we misjudge and understand what is happening.

For example, if a completely pretty girl considers herself ugly, then she does not notice that some people show attention to her, she incorrectly explains to herself the reactions from other people that she receives. Eric Berna wrote:

Being beautiful is not a matter of anatomy, but of parental permission.

If you look at the situation from the point of view of Eric Berne, then we can say that the parents imposed on the girl in her childhood the wrong attitude towards herself. Armed with such a means of introspection, she began to behave with others as if she were really ugly. Of all the reactions of the people around, she noticed only those that corresponded to her expectations, that is, they confirmed her “ugliness”.

Thus, self-esteem, like body temperature, is not a real human problem. Dislike of oneself or disbelief in oneself is simply an indicator that something has gone wrong in a person's psyche and incorrect settings for the perception of what is happening have formed in his mind.

In order to change self-esteem, one does not need to work with self-esteem itself - it is necessary to help a person develop the ability to more adequately perceive himself, his actions and the reactions of other people. If we translate what has just been said into the language of human abilities and skills, then we can say that he must master the skills of self-awareness and reflection.

Reliable reflection instead of erratic self-esteem

We can say that self-esteem is a "device" that we use when evaluating ourselves. And it is worth noting that very often it is not the most reliable device, since its readings are greatly influenced by the actions and judgments of other people.

Imagine that you are driving a car, but in the rear-view mirror you see not what is actually happening there, but those pictures and images that your parents or some other people from the past once imposed on you. The gauges on the dashboard show data that was not taken in a very correct way in some other situations.

Much the same thing happens with our self-esteem.

Instead of analyzing what is happening around us and soberly assessing our actions and states, we look into that “distorted mirror” that was slipped to us in early childhood, and then some other people, sometimes not the most friendly to us, made a significant effort in order to distort the readings of this mirror.

As already mentioned, we propose to set aside our unstable and unreliable self-esteem and arm ourselves instead of it with a completely verified and reliable reflection.

There are several types of reflection:

1. Personal reflection, that is, awareness of what is happening in our psyche, as well as understanding why we have formed this or that personality structure, certain traits of character.
2. Reflection of interpersonal relationships. At this level, we learn the skills of understanding not only ourselves, but also our loved ones and those people with whom we are ready to communicate at "small distances", whom we can let close to us.
3. Social reflection, that is, understanding how our words and actions are perceived by other people, understanding what is happening in the teams in which we study, work, and spend time. This is an understanding of social behavioral and status games, overt and covert group dynamics, attempts at intrigue and outright manipulation of others.
4. Sometimes isolated reflection at the level of the "picture of the world": identifying what influences your perception of the world and relationships between people. What makes you lead exactly the style and lifestyle that you lead, implement those life scenarios or strategies that guide you.

In the process of using all these types of reflection, a person gradually forms a more adequate and meaningful perception of himself, his abilities, the means and resources that are in his use. In addition, a person begins to notice and correctly perceive the reactions of other people to him. These reactions can be both correct and fair, and inadequate and even outright hostile.

Awareness of what is happening in our psyche

The concept of "self-esteem" contains some initial inconsistency. The fact is that it is not we who evaluate ourselves and we do not develop the criteria by which we can evaluate ourselves. First of all, our parents influence the formation of our self-esteem.

Parents and grandparents are very generous with the labels and epithets that they hang on their children:

• "Why are you so clumsy with me!"
• “Who will marry such a grimace! Look at yourself in the mirror",
• “This is the first time I've seen such an idiot! Well, how can you not understand such simple things!"
• "Everybody has children like children, but I got some kind of cuttlefish" -

these are examples from childhood memories that can be heard from people suffering from low self-esteem.

In addition to such frank "curses" and "parental spells", our loved ones could play with us in childhood and in more complex games. For example, after returning home from work, both mom and dad could have a habit, at first for no reason or for a not very important reason, to yell at the child, and then, having calmed down and come to their senses, start to caress, comfort and pamper their undeservedly offended child.

In the case of "parental incantations", the child develops low self-esteem, and in the case of "emotional swing" in the form of aggression and screaming, replaced by frantic affection and excessive tenderness, an unstable self-esteem is formed.

In all cases, when, as a child, we are faced with aggression, insults, a demonstration of anxiety because of our person, as well as in the case of a demonstration of dislike and disappointment, psychological defenses are involuntarily formed in our souls, with the help of which we try to protect ourselves from those images that are hung on us. Some children begin to snap back and be rude in response, someone tries to ignore and displace from consciousness everything that was unpleasant to him, someone closes in and “withdraws into himself”, others try to take revenge, harm and annoy their parents.

Many of these defense mechanisms and coping mechanisms become automatic and fall into the unconscious level. As a result, they start to work involuntarily for us in not the most suitable situations. But if we behave like losers, like ugly or muddleheads, then, despite the fact that we have developed some kind of protective mechanisms that partly avert these curses, and partly displace them from consciousness, the people around us begin to reciprocate with us. They really start to treat us like losers, ugly and dumb.

In general, at the level of personal or psychological reflection, we need to realize what kind of defense mechanisms are triggered in our psyche, as well as what other unconscious programs and stereotypes control us. We identify the actions of "parental curses", "family and social scenarios", "bad social games", "psychological defenses."

Reflection of interpersonal relationships

If psychological reflection allows us to form, instead of self-esteem, a correct picture of what is happening in our psyche, then at the level of interpersonal relations we begin to correct the perception of how close people react to us and what close people report about us. Those who surround us now.

The fact is that in interpersonal relationships people also very often project not very adequate images onto each other. For example, a husband may blame his wife for something that he himself is very afraid of. We sometimes cannot admit to ourselves some shortcomings and often simply do not notice them in ourselves, but at the same time we very easily find them in the behavior of our loved ones.

If the desire to project their problems onto others is combined with the willingness of these people to accept other people's curses, then it is natural that the latter's self-esteem will suffer greatly.

In addition to misperceptions of themselves and their partner, people in close relationships can "infect" each other with various psychological games or "bad social games", as Eric Berne called them. Following the plot of these games, one of the partners usually tries to impose a certain role on the other.

For example, if one wants to be a “victim”, then he in every possible way provokes the other to take the role of “manipulator” or “accuser,” but if he himself likes to blame someone, then he forces his partner to constantly make excuses.

Very often in relationships, especially in those people who are just starting to live with each other, all their childhood problems are aggravated and their seemingly aligned self-esteem begins to hesitate and fall again. in addition, close people can successfully "infect" each other with their problems or provoke a partner to manifest reactions that are generally not familiar to him.

Social reflection

As the name suggests, social reflection allows a person to form a more correct perception of himself and an assessment of his behavior. What is important is that instead of experiencing their inconsistency with social norms or complexes about social status, a person gets in his hands the tools to correct behavior and form a more correct perception of what is happening. We can say that he begins not to worry about his self-esteem, but to create the image of himself that is necessary for him.