As we go through our everyday lives we encounter favorable situations and unfavorable situations, happy and unhappy situations. Each situation affects us positively or negatively. We feel happy when things are favorable and unhappy when things are unfavorable. Each of these situations affect our self esteem positively or negatively. Its our natural tendency to focus on the things that make us feel bad. Hence we tend to give more attention to the feeling that make us feel bad. No one ever wants to feel bad but when things don’t go our way we naturally tend to let that bad feeling dominate over the good in our life. The good that happens gets neglected.
The negative way of thinking lowers your energy levels with no apparent or visible cause to trigger that feeling. You begin to doubt yourself. You feel you dont deserve the position or the salary you receive in your office or the love and respect you receive from others. You find it difficult to make decisions and trust your own decisions. You feel weak and powerless. These are an indication that your self worth is taking a hit.
When you realize that your self worth is in trouble it’s time to examine your life and figure out what’s contributing to the present situation. It’s mainly your negative thinking. but knowing what triggers your negative thinking can help you turn things around.
Firstly and immediately it’s time to stop blaming yourself for the problems. Treat yourself kindly and be compassionate with yourself. We are not machines or god to be right and perfect all the times, we can allow ourselves to go wrong and permit yourself to make mistakes. We can observe our behavior patterns that are contributing to the problem and make some changes.
The way we See the problem is the problem. Here are some insights and solutions.
We value the opinion of others: We give undue importance to the opinion of others. We assume that others have acritical judgement about you. So you worry and feel inadequate. Some times people may even say things that show us in low light. Is it right to let others judge our efforts. Shouldn’t we be the ones who should be judging ourselves. Most of the times they are wrong about us
Our fears get the best of us. We fear that we will fail in our undertakings people will label us as failures. We are too cautious in our moves. we play with utmost safety and avoid any risk. hence our gains are small and insignificant. This affects our self esteem. If only we would care less about the criticism of others and work with all our hearts and efforts. We would make much more and prove the naysayers wrong.
Holding ourselves responsible for the problems in our lives and the lives of others. The guilt of us being responsible for the suffering and problems of others will not let us do anything other than that what is permitted to do. It will always keep us in guilt and make us be in a state of repentance and compensate for the loss of others by doing exactly what they want of us.
Trying to be everything to everyone and becoming nothing to no one. Saying YES when you want to say NO. The pleaser always weighs the wishes of everyone else above his as he is too happy to get the credit and recognition for being the martyr. Always sacrificing for others and never living or thinking for ones self never lets self esteem grow.
Over valuing failures and undermining effort makes one feel a big failure and being worthless. When too much importance is assigned to success then every failure is also given an even greater value. With every failure the desire to try again only diminishes. The faith in oneself depletes. Understanding that failure is an integral part of the process of becoming successful. Knowing that there is a valuable lesson to be learnt in every failure suddenly changes the perception of failure. Failure now becomes a teacher, a revered guru to learn from. Failure is now the guru not something to be ashamed of.
Feeling unloved and unwanted. Feeling no one cares makes a person feel low, sad, unworthy for others to give them time. Others may genuinely be busy with their own problems and difficulties but this neglect that hey perceive causes the self esteem to fall.
When the self esteem is low people Resist praise and Compliments so that they are not hurt again when they fail to produce results. The low they experience when they are neglected as a punishment for underperforming is so painful that even when they do something worthy of praise they resist it. They can’t bear the roller coaster ride of ups and downs. Becoming open to praise is very necessary to improve self esteem. Understanding that life is never constant, after every peak there is a fall and after touching the bottom there is a rise. Knowing this prepares you for the highs and the lows.
Being in the presence of negative people who are constantly criticizing and complaining about things and events. They are never happy with whatever you do. Taking their comments to heart affects how we feel about ourselves. Ignoring their criticism preserves your esteem
Feeling over responsible for a situation when things don’t go as planned and as a result you start profusely apologizing. Knowing that there are many factors responsible for success and no one can possibly plan for every eventuality. Some factors are beyond your control. You cannot be held responsible for factors beyond your control. You need not feel responsible for that.
When we become negative and begin to excessively indulge in negative self talk our minds get soaked in negativity. We cannot see any positive consequences of our actions and efforts. Hence we never try to do anything worthwhile as we see only the futility of any effort. We constantly discourage ourselves and others. This is a very bad place to be in. If you can ever realize this trap of negativity and make tremendous effort to control the negative self talk and begin to use positive self talk. Slowly and surely the sun will rise, the clouds of gloom and negativity will go and the sun of positivity will shine in your life.
Self esteem will grow once again. Believe in yourself and take steps with faith that you will succeed. Even if you don’t be happy to learn the lessons from failure and try again.
Change the word you use for describing a loss as failure, call it a setback, even better call it a learning lesson, a learning cost.
When your language changes along with it your emotions and perceptions of the world changes.
A strong positive attitude will help to see every failure and criticism as a stepping stone to success. You will get stronger each time you say I can do anything because i believe in ME. I believe I can fly, I believe I can touch the sky. I believe I can do anything I set my mind and heart to. I promise myself to stay positive.
Homeopathy combined with counseling has proven time and again to be extremely effective in treating low self esteem and raising the level self esteem.
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Dr. Alfred D'Silva 
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