By Jennifer Pinto.
In all my time as a woman and counsellor, I find that what takes the biggest beating with regard to women is SELF-ESTEEM. I find that every single woman, no matter how fabulous they look, how wonderfully they’ve done in their careers, how much they earn, etc., and their self-image is hardly ever where it is supposed to be.
A classic example of a woman who seemed to pretty much have everything one could wish for was Princess Diana! I’ve been reading about her life a lot lately. That poor woman’s self-esteem took its first thrashing at the young age of 6 when her parents divorced. Somehow, as all kids do, she blamed herself for it, went through her growing years always short of enough self-esteem to keep her down. It affected her years at the palace right up to the day she lost her life in Paris. She always looked to her near and dear ones for love and validation. She only got it from her two sons.
Why did I bring up her example, you ask? Well, wasn’t she the epitome of “having it all”? How can we mortals ever match up? I fear that all of us women have had some source or situation that has damaged our self-esteem at some point in our lives. Many of us don’t even realise that we don’t have any. But that can change and it has to change! If you ask me the reason, it’s very simple…God loves us as we are; we need to love ourselves just as He loves and cares for us! (I Jn 4:19)
Let’s first take a look at how self-esteem is formed and how it gets taken away from us. Self-esteem is formed in a child when they are born and during the earliest days of infancy and childhood. The love and care shown by a child’s primary carers (parents, grandparents etc.) is the key to a child’s emotional growth. Any glitch here will rob the child of much needed basic love and tenderness that cannot be easily replaced later on. Has anyone in your family or friends’ circle or teachers said anything unpleasant or mean to you? Have you repeatedly failed to get somewhere in life or struggled to achieve the things you wanted to? If “yes” was your reply to these questions, then you’re not alone.
Almost all of us go through this phase at some point in our lives, early or late! Someone may have said something damaging to us and that has resulted in the inner voice that repeats those words to us every time we step up to the plate to achieve something. So we spend our lifetime trying to “prove” ourselves to others time and time again but never gaining self-esteem in the process.
Self-esteem can be defined as the way we feel about and value ourselves.
Positive or high self-esteem helps us accomplish our goals and in dealing with life’s harder challenges.
With a positive self-esteem one tends to have confidence in one’s abilities, unafraid to venture into new things. It doesn’t matter what others think of our decisions and choices. When your self-esteem is high you’re not so bothered about mistakes you make or whether people will laugh at you for them or not. You forge ahead and do what you need to do for yourself. Your communication will be more assertive rather than passive or aggressive. You will also be ok with life being unfair sometimes; you will “get over it” much faster!
Now for the bad news! Negative or low self-esteem makes it much harder for us to deal with life, relationships, work etc. We end up feeling bad about our appearance, achievements and pretty much everything about ourselves. That in turn makes us lose friends and loved ones. Negativity is contagious. Another thing with low self-image is that we don’t question others’ opinions for validity and so end up blowing in the wind. We don’t achieve major goals in life and then end up with a huge sense of failure.
But all is not lost! If I told you that you can work on your self-esteem and become more positive and healthy for your own sake, would you take it as a lifeline?
Developing self-esteem is a life-long and continuous process. This is because from time to time it does take a beating, even mine. For some of us, getting our self-esteem back can be a huge battle. But it’s worth every moment of the fight! Self-esteem is also formed through your successes and failures. Here too, you have a choice of how to respond; you can accept failure and bounce back next time or dwell on the fact that you made a mistake and give up.
There are so many ways you can increase your self-esteem. Start with your thoughts. I will think positive thoughts about myself and others. Phil 4:8 says “In conclusion, my friends, fill your minds with those things that are good and that deserve praise: things that are true, noble, right, pure, lovely, and honourable.”
We all make mistakes, however big or small. The whole point is to learn from them whatever we can and move on. Instead a lot of times we beat ourselves up about it. Give yourself a second chance, always! God gives us many second chances every day! If He can, why do we end up so hard on ourselves?
Finally, do keep in mind that people around you have their own opinions and ideas about you which may or may not always be true. Evaluate their opinions and choose whether to reject or accept them. You can reject them if you choose to do so. The power is held within you.
I leave you with just one thought….self-esteem comes from inside of us and ultimately from above, based on our being created in the image of God. We hold the unique power to nurture our self-esteem. Let’s get started! In the follow-up to this article, I will talk about concrete steps you can take to rebuild your self-esteem and nurture it into the future!
Jennifer Pinto is a freelance corporate trainer, trained counsellor & Zumba® Fitness Instructor. She can be contacted at [email protected]