1/11 Self-Esteem

what is self esteem?

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Confidence in one's own worth or abilities; self-respect.

Respect? a feeling of deep admiration for someone or something elicited by their abilities, qualities, or achievements.

Many psychologists think that high self-esteem has a positive effect on health, while low self-esteem has a negative effect on health.

It is on a spectrum, only you can really know how you feel.  Accept yourself where ever you are at the moment and then treat yourself well, with self- compassion. 

​Self-esteem refers to our sense of self-worth, perceived value, or how much we like ourselves.

​While there is little doubt that low self-esteem is problematic and often leads to depression and lack of motivation, trying to have higher self-esteem can also be problematic.  

Fragility:

Attempts to raise self-esteem may result in narcissistic, self-absorbed behavior, or lead us to put others down in order to feel better about ourselves.  

We might get angry and aggressive towards those who have said or done anything that potentially makes us feel bad about ourselves.  

The need for high self-esteem may encourage us to ignore, distort or hide personal shortcomings so that we can’t see ourselves clearly and accurately.

Our self-esteem can be connected to our latest success or failure, ups and downs are normal, it is ok to remain balanced and not judge ourselves harshly

We are constantly working to be better than ourselves, better than we were the last time we tried and work towards goals, knowing that we are doing our best.

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self compassion

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Self-compassion is extending compassion to one's self in instances of perceived inadequacy, failure, or general suffering.

• Recognizing that it is normal to not get it right away

• Listening to yourself and believing yourself as you wish someone would listen to you and believe you, you can journal to reflect on your thoughts, or just think

• It is ok to actively soothe yourself and alleviate your suffering by offering yourself what you would offer someone else to cheer them up and help them feel supported

• It is normal for thing to go wrong, we are constantly learning how to cope with situations that go wrong

• We suffer when we feel disconnected from others in our suffering, isolation is evolutionary considered very unsafe and we panic when we feel that perhaps our friend group wont like us, or won't be comfortable in a social setting any more

• It is good to consider how our actions can affect the experience of someone else before we act

• "Just acknowledge and validate how difficult the situation is" Dr. Kristin Neff

• Many people are better at supporting other than they are at supporting themselves so they know what to do, we just don't celebrate self-love enough

• Self-compassion allows one to see the related experiences of self and other without these feelings of isolation and disconnection.

"Instead of mercilessly judging and criticizing yourself for various inadequacies or shortcomings, self-compassion means you are kind and understanding when confronted with personal failings – after all, who ever said you were supposed to be perfect?" -- Dr. Kristin Neff
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​Self-Compassion is not self-pity

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• When individuals feel self-pity, they become immersed in their own problems and forget that others have similar problems. 

• They ignore their interconnections with others, and instead feel that they are the only ones in the world who are suffering.

• Self-pity tends to emphasize egocentric feelings of separation from others and exaggerate the extent of personal suffering. 

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•  Many people say they are reluctant to be self-compassionate because they’re afraid they would let themselves get away with anything. 
  
  • “I’m stressed out today so to be kind to myself I’ll just watch TV all day and eat a quart of ice cream.”

• This is self-indulgence rather than self-compassion. 

• Being compassionate to oneself means that you want to be happy and healthy in the long term.

• In many cases, just giving oneself pleasure may harm well-being (such as taking drugs, over-eating, being a couch potato), while giving yourself health and lasting happiness often involves a certain amount of displeasure (such as quitting smoking, losing weight, exercising). 

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https://self-compassion.org/what-self-compassion-is-not-2/

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three elements of self- compassion

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Self-kindness vs. Self-judgment: Self-compassionate people recognize that being imperfect, failing, and experiencing life difficulties is inevitable, so they tend to be gentle with themselves when confronted with painful experiences rather than getting angry when life falls short of set ideals.

Common humanity vs. Isolation: Frustration at not having things exactly as we want is often accompanied by an irrational but pervasive sense of isolation – as if “I” were the only person suffering or making mistakes.

Mindfulness vs. Over-identification: We cannot ignore our pain and feel compassion for it at the same time. Acknowledge it, feel what you feel, and let it go.  The pain does not define you, the experience does not define you.

https://self-compassion.org/the-three-elements-of-self-compassion-2/

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how do we comfort a friend?

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Validation: let them know that their feelings are justified

Believe their experience
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• Sometimes we learn not to believe their experience, follow your intuition and believe your-self first

• Surround yourself with people you can believe and trust, it can be hard to  know at first, we need to spend ore time with people to learn more about them 

​Ask them how you can support them

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why is it so hard to love ourselves when that is all we need?

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Some say that we give ourselves what we think we deserve, not what we actually deserve, we each deserve the best. 

Sometimes we are taught that we don't deserve to be treated well and we need to unlearn that.

Oppression dynamics can lead us to believe that we don't deserve as much happiness as other people and we end up with internalized oppression

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fleas in a jar

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Sometimes the past and limitations of the adults in our life lead us to hold ourselves back

Remember that everything is constantly changing and the experience of the adult is at lead over a decade old, there is still a lot you can learn from them, by remember that you might have more opportunities than they did, or live in a more loving world, thankfully 

We walk around with other people's beliefs

People do things from their own level of rationalization, they feel justified in how the feel and say and do based on what they learned.  Not your fault.

We might think that other people will only love us if we do certain things and feel that we are supposed to fit someone else's expectations .

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body POSITIVity 

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All bodies are beautiful, capitalism just tells us to buy things to feel "better".  

​Yes, movies, magazines, and media have literally and consciously been emotionally abusing us to sell us stuff this whole time.
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how self esteem develops

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• Childhood: Children need support and encouragement from family and peers

• Adolescent: It is normal to be a bit self-conscious, hopefully we won't judge ourselves too harshly, you deserve love from yourself, media tries to set "beauty standards" to make everyone look somewhat similar by buying the same products, peculiarities rule

• Adulthood: adults struggle with the same things youth do, don't let them fool you, encourage them to have a healthy self-esteem along with you instead

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Personal Inventory:

• Make a list of your strengths and weaknesses
• Set ambitious but healthy goals for yourself
• Remember to not be too hard on yourself
• Rely on your values: what does that mean?
• Reflect on how you accept compliments
• Look beyond your own concerns
• Do not focus too much on appearance 
  

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Good ideas:

• Focus on gratitude: be grateful that you are who you are and think of the things that you already so for yourself, thank yourself for taking good care of yourself, positive self talk.  Start with the present moment and recognizing all the good things that are already happening. 

• ​Maintain a positive attitude: when possible, you don't have to do this all the time, it's ok to feel what you feel, focus on peace and whether or not what you do will help resolve an issue

 

• Focus on your strengths: ask yourself what you did well today

 

• Form close relationships: to the best of our ability, set your boundaries and respect the boundaries of others

 

• Set goals for yourself: if you have a really big goal, think of smaller steps that can help you reach that goal (more on that later), see if there are people that you can collaborate with

 

• Avoid risky behaviors: we all take risks but are you eating pizza off the floor or taking a mystery pill? Is there a chance that a dog peed where the pizza fell?

 

• Ask for help: resources are there for you, you can also ask your friends to crowdfund to replace your stolen bike or ask for tutoring

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• Help others: see what people need, tell them to let you know how you can support them

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we are on a quest for self- actualization

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Self actualization:
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• The ongoing journey of being happy with who we are and what we do on the planet.
• So we are just here to be ourselves

​Personality traits of Self-Actualized People according to Maslow's studies:
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• Realistic and accepting: sometimes we don't have all of these needs met so we focus on what we can do to be in a situation where the needs are met instead of being crushed by a reality that we are not completely happy with.

• Independent and self sufficient: bring your own supplies and take care of your own emotions, this makes it easier to be thankful for the support of others.

• Appreciative of life: recognize your opportunities and privileges and help foster a world where other people have them too. Recognize anything that is going well.

• Concerned about humankind: practice empathy, know that injustice is not necessary and support efforts to reach peace and equilibrium/ balance.

• Capable of loving others: realizing that other people are real and deserve love and respect as well as resources that will help them meet their needs.

• Fair, unprejudiced: reflect on how we have normalized oppression but don't need to continue to reinforce oppression, reflect on misogyny and misandry with an open mind.

• Creative and hard-working: We do not need to hold back from doing good work and showing that we care, we can always create something for someone.

• Not afraid to be different: When people are simply happy to be themselves. 

• This can be tricky, sometimes we are expected to build up our self-esteem even though we don't have basic needs met. 

 

• Many people work 60 hrs a week just to have their basic needs met.

 

• Sometimes our basic needs are met and moving up the self-esteem scale is still hard.

 

• Each person has a unique experience, nobody else can decide how you should be doing, mental health help is available and important 

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Resources:

https://teenlineonline.org/

https://www.thetrevorproject.org/

https://www.loveisrespect.org/

https://www.fyinm.org/ 

https://www.mentalhealth.gov/get-help/immediate-help

https://suicidepreventionlifeline.org/

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