"It's just that I'm a bit depressed and I have low self-esteem." We have all heard this phrase or similar at some time, right? This entry is not about “being down”, a term that is too widespread in our society and that in most of the times it is not used properly, but it is about the second part of the sentence, because… what is self-esteem really??
Self-esteem could be defined as the set of perceptions, thoughts, judgments and affections about oneself. It influences all aspects of our experience and is expressed in our way of being and being, of acting and relating. Love, friends, work, family, our present and future are affected in some way by our self-esteem.
Good self-esteem appears in the form of confidence and self-respect.
We are born with self-esteem and… that's it? No way! To the extent that a child feels loved, valued, recognized and respected, he will learn to love, value, recognize and respect himself. To keep my self-esteem healthy, I don't need to be valued as much as I do.
Herein lies the key: self-esteem is always susceptible to improvement. A person who develops his self-esteem acquires skills to face life with confidence, security and develops strategies to achieve his goals. Self-esteem can be developed at any point in the life cycle.
Another important aspect is to differentiate it from what is NOT self-esteem (what is known as “pseudo-self-esteem” or false self-esteem). Think of people with incredible careers, handsome, desirable, socially and economically successful. Okay, surely cases of famous people who have had all that come to mind and even then they have not been entirely happy. Now, are all these things synonymous with self-esteem? There are people with "false self-esteem" who are valued and measured by what they achieve (by their results) and not by what they really are.
We cannot forget about several aspects that influence self-esteem: the first of them is self-concept, which is the image we have of ourselves nuanced with the opinion of others. This concept is formed throughout life and once formed, we build our self-esteem, that is, “how we feel about ourselves”. Second, identify that we are often unaware that our thoughts influence how we feel and how we act. When we feel an unpleasant or positive emotion it is because before there has been a thought, that is, an interpretation of the reality that surrounds us. Just as we cannot forget that our self-esteem is also configured according to our goals and achievements throughout life..
Author: Mireya Martín Manzano (Health Psychologist)
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