Symptoms of Low Self-Esteem No comments yet

While many symptoms of low self esteem do exist, they’re often confused with symptoms of excessive shame. For example, if I obsessively compare myself with others, is it a symptom of low self esteem, a symptom of shame, or both?

What about avoiding intimacy?

What about seeking outside validation?

What about feelings of inferiority?

And what about using your aspirations and intentions as a way to feel better about yourself?

All of these examples could apply to both low self esteem and excessive shame.

Another example of both: honestly believing that you just don’t matter; that you’re not good enough; that you have little or no value. And believing other people’s needs come before yours. Because the symptoms of low self esteem mirror the symptoms of shame, it becomes difficult - if not impossible - to tell them apart.

Shame comes from the beliefs, attitudes, thoughts and feelings that you are flawed on a fundamental level. “You’re broken and you can’t be fixed.” That’s shame.

Shame has to be ‘basted’ into you by words or deeds. Someone close to you had to dump their shame - their feelings of inferiority - onto you. It could be through emotional, physical or sexual abuse. It could be through abandonment. It could even be through forcing you to be perfect.

Self esteem, on the other hand, always comes from inside you. It’s a self appraisal. Just like an appraisal you would make on your own house; you determine your own value.

Self esteem is the appraisal you make of your own value - your fitness - your right - to exist in this world.

That’s self esteem. The problem is, we don’t really know how it’s created. We just assume (correctly!) that it must be important somehow.

Self esteem is essential for living. You must have an appraisal of yourself or you would literally have no reason to live. Therefore you will always - continuously - seek to appraise yourself. It’s an ongoing process that continues throughout your life.

Many people erroneously believe self esteem comes from external events, situations and forces. For example, by pampering yourself or asserting yourself. Or through struggling and suffering.

But self esteem always comes from inside.

Pampering, asserting and efforts may (or may not) reflect your current level of self esteem, but these activities never build self esteem. At best, they offer feedback to the amount of self esteem you’ve already created inside yourself.

Because self esteem holds so much importance, you will always seek it. Either the right way - by following certain internal steps; or the wrong way - by trying to extract if from the world. Unfortunately, seeking false esteem from the world around you creates a vicious downward spiral, because it never works. You have to keep trying harder and harder but you end up more and more frustrated.

In fact, that’s one of the symptoms of low self esteem: when you find yourself working harder and harder to extract some sort of value from your environment.

The ultimate symptom of low self esteem: believing your value comes from anything outside of your own beingness.

To build real self esteem you need to look inside yourself - and evaluate your levels of trust, integrity and honesty. And various other qualities as well. The rewards you get from taking a good honest look at yourself far outweigh any potential discomfort at what you initially find. You can quickly clean out the gunk and get on the right track.

It’s never too late to start building a positive self esteem!

by Mark I Myhre

Mark I MyhreLevel: PlatinumMark Ivar Myhre, The Emotional Healing Wizard, provides cutting-edge information and techniques on all aspects of emotional healing. If you’re experiencing any type … …

Your level of self esteem is totally within your control. You can build all the self-esteem you want by going to http://www.self-esteem-secrets.com

Mark Ivar Myhre, The Emotional Healing Wizard, writes articles on all aspects of emotional healing. For more information, go to the blog Emotional Times ==> http://www.emotional-times.com