Do You Have Low Self Esteem

Today let's look at self esteem

You may have low esteem if you:

• Are not living in the present. You’re always thinking about the past or worrying about the future.
• Always want what’s just out of reach in order to be happy.
• Do things to undermine your own success.
• Put yourself down.
• Avoid real intimacy because you fear people won’t like you.
• Job-hop because you’re unhappy no matter where you go.
• Have a serious addiction, like alcohol, drugs or shopping.
• Don’t trust others.
• Apologize excessively.
• Constantly seek approval and validation from others.
• Neglect your physical appearance.
• Have a strong need for material possessions to show others how important you are.
• Believe you are not good enough.
• Fear new things or change.
• Have a lot of aches and pains.
• Are overly sensitive to criticism.
• Can’t get over a defeat or disappointment.
• Are hesitant to express ideas.
• Put others down or are overly crticial of others.
• Work harder and harder to extract some sort of value from work, but can’t find it.
• Boast and exaggerate, with a need to self-promote any successes.
• Don’t make eye contact.
• Feel hopeless.
• Don’t want to be held accountable.
• Lack energy.
• Are passive.
• Try to portray a false image to others because you don’t like who you really are.
• Lack a supportive network and feel isolated.
• Are anxious.
• See a small task as large and intimidating.
• Believe other people’s needs come before yours.
• Lose your temper a lot.
• Blame others for your problems.

Most people feel bad about themselves from time to time. Feelings of low self-esteem may be triggered by being treated poorly by someone else recently or in the past, or by a person’s own judgments of him or herself. This is normal. However, low self-esteem is a constant companion for too many people, especially those who experience depression, anxiety, phobias, psychosis, delusional thinking, or who have an illness or a disability. If you are one of these people, you may go through life feeling bad about yourself needlessly. Low self-esteem keeps you from enjoying life, doing the things you want to do, and working toward personal goals.

Your turn, how are you going to build your self esteem?

Let's hear from all of you on learning to beat our problems.

Hugs

Kitt                  

I am so glad this post has helped many of you recognize just how important self esteem can be to getting through depression.

Keeping my self esteem is a chore I deal with often as I am over sensitive  and then I beat myself up for being weak and I am on the merry-go-round of depression.

This is one issue that CBT is very helpful in working through.

I will be posting more on self esteem........... 

Peace my friends,
Kitt

Alright, Let's do some work..................

“Low self-esteem is often characterized by an "inner critic," which is a part of you that constantly berates your efforts and belittles your achievements. Sometimes an inner critic takes on the voice of a victim ("no one will give me a chance") or a perfectionist ("I should be doing better than this"), but the end result is an ongoing drag on your self-esteem. You can counter negative self-talk by first recognizing it for what it is and then responding to it with positive counterstatements.

Look for instances where your inner critic generalizes unduly, is unremittingly harsh or makes statements that don't hold up to logic. Then write down a series of positive counterstatements that redress those criticisms. They should always involve upbeat phrases and avoid negative words like "not," "no" or "can't." Keep them in the present tense and always use first-person statements (using "I" instead of your name). Draw up a list of them and practice saying them readily. When your inner critic starts to berate you, respond with the appropriate counterstatement every time. Eventually, your counterstatements will arise naturally in your mind whenever your inner critic gets going, keeping the negativity in check.” ^{Reference: Rob Vaux. Rob is an expert on the effects of stress on interpersonal dynamics.}

If you would read this and try some of the suggestions to boost your low self esteem you will be on your way to building good self esteem.

I would like to hear ideas you may have of ways you deal with your self esteem to help lift you up.

Gentle Hugs,

Kitt