Why does therapeutic counselling help with managing poor self-esteem?
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Let’s face it we all have a view of ourselves and that view affects how we live our lives. Could you be selling yourself short and not living your best life?
The NHS website defines ‘self-esteem’ as:
“Self-esteem is the opinion we have of ourselves.
When we have healthy self-esteem, we tend to feel positive about ourselves and about life in general. It makes us better able to deal with life’s ups and downs.
When our self-esteem is low, we tend to see ourselves and our life in a more negative and critical light. We also feel less able to take on the challenges that life throws at us.”
It doesn’t take a genius to work out that if we have a negative view of ourselves then how we react to the world around us will be affected by the way that we think. With poor self-esteem we are in danger of missing out on life’s opportunities as we convince ourselves that we are not good enough to complete a challenge or that we are not good enough to interact with others on an equal footing. Poor self-esteem erodes confidence and even if we do not articulate it publicly, others will get a sense of it via our body language or how we ‘carry ourselves’.
The good news is that there are simple ways to get ourselves back on the path to boosting our self-esteem. Read on for three tips that can help.
What can we do to boost our self-esteem?
Start to look at situations and relationships objectively.
As humans we judge everything. We make analyses about whether a situation is safe either physically or psychologically. We engage or not engage with activities depending upon how we feel and sometimes we give ourselves an exaggerated view on things that could go wrong usually because of a heightened sense of anxiety.
Our brains constant look to protect ourselves from harm and this is natural but sometimes the brain can go to far. A simple example of this could be the following example about walking down a busy road:
The healthy perspective:
“Walking down a busy road is fine but I need to be vigilant of the dangers around me.”
The unhealthy perspective:
“I can’t walk down that road because it is busy and I am likely to get hit by a lorry or a car. I am going to stay in.”
Of course, there are dangers in walking down a busy road but usually our brains have a healthy awareness of the dangers and we therefore have an appropriate response to that potential danger but for someone with heightened anxiety the brain takes it too far and the resultant behaviour is to withdraw.
Poor self-esteem works in the same way, it gives an inaccurate view of ourselves that is subjective and is often untrue. Weirdly, poor self-esteem is the brain’s way of trying to protect one from the uncertainty of change just in case that change leads to a less favourable experience even if our current experience of living is actually self-defeating.
This is why it is important to try and look at situations objectively rather than subjectively. With my counselling clients I encourage them to see the ‘truth’ in the situation. For example a client might say:
“ That person doesn’t like me, they are always grumpy with me when I speak with them.”
Whilst the person in the statement could well be grumpy, the poor self-esteem is bringing about a judgement about that person’s motivation that indicates that the problem is with the client aka it is their fault for the other person’s grumpiness.
The objective view could be the following:
“I notice that when I speak with that person they always seem grumpy. I might ask them if there is something on their mind as they seem down.”
The objective perspective takes a realistic view on a situation based on facts or observations and helps to identify what is needed to address that situation. This perspective is likely to result in a confident decision that leads to more positive outcomes. The objective view doesn’t automatically direct blame inwardly.
Take part in activities that make you feel good.
This is simple. If we tell ourselves that we are not good at anything then we are not going to be enthusiastic about doing anything.
So we have a choice. We can either listen to that subjective voice that is misinforming us or we can try activities that make us feel good whether that be exercise, meeting with friends, enjoying walks, doing something unusual. Whatever it is, just try it. If you don’t like it then don’t do it but if you open yourself up to new experiences then you will start to find things to do that you enjoy and with that enjoyment comes engagement and with engagement a higher probability of doing well. If you start seeing (from an objective perspective) that you are doing well at something then the volume of that subjective voice is going to be turned down. Slowly and surely you will start to boost your self-esteem.
Talk about how you feel about yourself with someone you trust to give you the truth about yourself.
I remember when my daughter used to attend dance festivals and perform she would always ask my wife and I want we thought of her performances. Initially we would do the positive parenting thing and tell her she was always brilliant because that is what parents should do, right? Actually, doing that positive parent thing didn’t help her, what she wanted was an honest parent approach, an objective approach that helped her to decide on what she needed to do to get better at performing. After a while, we would tell her when her singing was affected by nerves or when she didn’t seem to act a particular part in her best way. She took our opinions and used them to help guide her development.
Unfortunately, it is difficult to have those objective conversations with friends and family. Everyone has an agenda of some sort whether it is to not hurt one’s feelings or in the extreme to turn the conversation round to them being the focus but good friends and family members can be as objective as possible and so talking with them about your own feelings of poor self-esteem might give you feedback that you need to counter negative belief. People who can do this for you reflect as much as possible the truth in the situation rather than fan the flames of emotional interpretation.
As a counsellor, this is a central part of my work in supporting clients. My clients come to counselling and I sit and listen to their perspectives and I reflect back on what I am hearing using carefully constructed comments or questions designed to help my clients to objectively see how they are responding to life:
“It sounds like you don’t believe that you are good enough.”
“I am wondering why you are blaming yourself for the way that that other person is speaking with you?”
“What is making you think that your mother doesn’t love you?”
Clients do not come to me to be told how to live, they come to me because they want to discover how they want to live, how they want to feel and respond to the world around them. They build self-awareness and start to make the best decisions for themselves so that they can live their best lives.
Would you like to have a more positive view of yourself and enjoy more of life’s opportunities?
Click the button below to send me an email and tell me more about what it is that you think you are missing and let’s set up a chat to see if working with me would help you.