Low self-esteem is wrecking my life - please help!

Hi Mark,

Firstly, thank you for your advice on fear of abandonment, it really hit home.

Could you please give me some advice on improving my self-esteem and feeling not good enough. We grew up with a lot of verbal abuse, continuously hearing I am nothing and will never amount to anything. I am very hard on myself and no matter what I try, I seem to get back to the same feelings of being not worthy of good things and not worthy of love. I am 36 and refuse to get into another relationship that will end badly because I feel unworthy of happiness.

This question was submitted by 'Polet'

Mark says...

Hi Polet,

I am glad you found the 'Fear of Abandonment' article useful.

The important thing with low self-esteem is to bear in mind that it is a misperception of reality and a loss of context. So, what on earth do I mean? Well, an undervaluation of anything means not seeing it for what it is. Low self-esteem deceives people into believing what is not true about themselves when they reflect on themselves. The fact that you have recognized your self-esteem has been low means you know you have been seeing yourself inaccurately in an unfairly biased way. All I want you to do as things improve is to bear that in mind.

When we see part of the picture and believe it to be the whole of the picture, then we run into problems. Low self-esteem makes us look at specifics, such as what we see as defects within ourselves, and conclude they apply to the whole of who we are, like a man looking at the leg of an elephant through binoculars and concluding he is looking not at an elephant but a pillar or tree. What gives people with low self-esteem their narrowed - what you might call unfairly narrowed - focus is a combination of strong emotion (which always narrows the attention like a kind of, in this case destructive, trance) and learning from past emotional conditioning, which makes people lose the wider context - just like the guy looking at the leg of our elephant.

So, to overcome low self-esteem, you need to begin to calm emotions so you can start to see clearly who you really are and what your potential might really be and also relearn new emotional patterns so the old destructive self-blaming, self-deprecating ones can be replaced.

I suggest you read (or re-read) these articles I've written on self-esteem and self-confidence and also 'Top Ten Facts About Low Self-Esteem'. You could also consider taking the '10 Steps to Solid Self-Esteem' program.

All the best for your fairer to yourself future : )

Mark