Transcription
Have you ever felt like your existence is unimportant, or that you are not worth enough, or that you do not deserve to be well? Or maybe you've also felt the opposite: that you are a super special person and that you deserve compliments, praise, and recognition. These feelings are related to a concept called “self-esteem.” Going through life with low self-esteem doesn’t feel good at all and sometimes seems impossible to improve. To complicate matters further, there are specialists who argue that pretending to have the highest self-esteem can be dangerous and have even called it a myth.
So, is it possible to build healthy self-esteem? Let’s talk today about… Do I love myself? How to improve my self-esteem. Self-esteem is the evaluation we make of ourselves. It is made up of perceptions, thoughts, feelings, and behaviors about our body, our capabilities, and our way of being. We say that someone has high self-esteem when they feel capable, valuable, and accepted, and low self-esteem when they feel useless, despised, and inadequate.
Already in the eighteenth century, David Hume proposed that it was important to value oneself because that motivates us to fully explore our potential. In the forties of the twentieth century, Abraham Maslow included it in his hierarchy of needs; we need to be valued and accepted by others and have confidence in our own qualities. In the 1960s, Morris Rosenberg was one of the first psychologists to measure it using a scale. But it was in the 1970s that the self-esteem movement gained momentum. Its main promoter, Nathaniel Branden, went so far as to say: “I can't think of any psychological problem that isn't due to low self-esteem: from depression to fear of intimacy or success; from domestic violence to child abuse.”
Although studies have shown that high self-esteem does not necessarily improve academic results or prevent young people from smoking, drinking, or using drugs, it has been shown that people with better self-esteem are more likely to forgive their friends and have a lower risk of presenting bulimia, anxiety, and emotional disorders. In general, a happier person tends to have better self-esteem, although it is not clear whether one factor causes the other.
And how to build better self-esteem? Branden proposes six pillars, six practices that can be practiced:
1. Living consciously. Connect with reality and not live in fantasies, or in the past or the future. Make yourself present in every moment of your life.
2. Self-acceptance. Realize your limitations, but above all your strengths and potential. Don't be afraid of your own greatness!
3. Self-responsibility. Life's circumstances are challenges. Respond not as a victim, but as an autonomous person.
4. Self-assertiveness. Live, act, and speak authentically, respecting your deepest feelings and convictions. Express your most genuine self.
5. Living with purpose. Use your powers to achieve goals that you consider important. Your goals keep you moving.
6. Personal integrity. Let your behavior truly reflect your convictions and ideals, regardless of whether we are observed or not.
Don't you want to put each of these practices on motivational posters? This is actually good advice, but it should be taken with a grain of salt because the concept of self-esteem has come up against serious objections. Mainly two:
The first is that it comes from an individualist perspective. Nathaniel Branden was closely linked to the objectivist movement of Ayn Rand, which tended to despise the interaction between the individual and society. Psychologist Albert Ellis wrote the book “The Self-Esteem Myth,” and in it, he refutes the idea that self-esteem is formed independently of external influences. Above all, he affirms that Branden's ideas cultivate illusions of grandeur, and adopting them can lead to undertaking actions that are foolish or dangerous for oneself and for those around us.
The second objection is deeper: Ellis says that human beings are not inert objects that must be rated according to certain arbitrary requirements. Making our worth as people dependent on our physical features, achievements, abilities, or lack thereof is neither ethical nor rational. For example, if I do not fully comply with the six pillars, does that mean that I am insufficient, that my value as a person is less?
Psychologists Richard M. Ryan and Kirk Warren Brown call this type of self-assessment “contingent self-esteem”: that which depends on how well things turn out for me—whether I look good in the mirror, have successes, or people compliment me. My self-esteem rises. These events are boosts to self-esteem, but they are short-lived. If something goes wrong, someone rejects me, or I don't look very good, my self-esteem drops. Narcissistic personalities are an extreme example: they have high self-esteem, but to maintain it, they require constant affirmation from others, so they obsessively pursue achievements, power, or adorning their physique to feel good.
Even if I don't need the approval of others, my self-worth can be contingent on how well my real self matches my ideal self. For example, if I think of myself as a brave person but that day I didn't act bravely, my self-esteem drops. If I know I'm smart but I said something stupid the other day, it lowers my self-esteem. It is a real danger, which can even lead to depression and suicide!
And what is the alternative? Ryan and Brown propose non-contingent self-esteem: experiencing myself as fundamentally worthy of esteem and love, without subordinating that self-love to my appearance, my successes, or comparing myself to others.
How to build healthy non-contingent self-esteem? Well, it is formed from the love we received in our childhood. Author bell hooks says that love is not simply a feeling: love comes through action, and it arises where there is trust, commitment, care, knowledge, respect, and responsibility. From that love received, our self-love is nourished. Parents, mothers, guardians, relatives, and teachers who give love to girls and boys unconditionally, who correct them without insulting or degrading them, and who celebrate their successes without making affection and care dependent on them, build a healthy and strong self-love in their descendants.
But what if I didn't receive that kind of love in my childhood? Understanding the reason for our low self-esteem is important, but we must not remain stuck in the past: self-esteem can be improved, but it requires a radical change in the way we see ourselves: stop seeing ourselves as an object to be judged and see myself as a process that is happening. People are not things; they are biological and psychic systems that are constantly changing.
If you taste a glass of milk and it tastes sour, you would not hesitate to call it “bad,” but if you see it as a process, you could perceive that it is in a stage of transformation to become a delicious cheese. Thus, people do not simply exist: we are being, but, unlike cheese, our process is continuous and permanent. It is therefore possible to actively modify thought and behavior patterns to make them constructive.
How to modify them? We offer you four recommendations:
1. Express your self-love. Buddhist philosophy has the concept of “basic goodness”: all conscious beings, deep within our being, desire happiness and therefore, good. So, just for that fact, you already deserve respect and love. It is desirable that you work on improving yourself, but the basic goodness is already there. Express that love to yourself with affirmations, but not those that impose standards of merit that are difficult to achieve; simply remind yourself that you have value simply for being you. Above all, express that love to yourself through actions: know yourself, respect yourself, take care of yourself, trust in yourself, be responsible, and commit to your process.
2. Focus on taking action, not judging yourself. When you evaluate the results of your actions, don't judge yourself. If something went wrong, see if you can fix it or, if not, see if you can do better next time, but don't put adjectives on yourself. When something goes well, in addition to your own merit, feel grateful for the people and circumstances that helped you achieve it. Do the same with insults and praise that come from others.
3. Meditate. Psychological studies have shown that Maitri meditation has a good effect in improving non-contingent self-esteem. It is aimed at recognizing this basic goodness in each person and awakening love and kindness towards ourselves, just as we have it towards other people. We have made a video with a short guided meditation; we leave you the link in the description.
4. Seek help. If you are having difficulties, one way to encourage this process and rebuild our self-esteem is through psychological therapy. Cognitive-behavioral therapy, in particular, has shown excellent results—there’s nothing wrong with asking for help!
While knowing our qualities, skills, and areas that we can improve is very useful for making decisions, such as choosing our field of study and work, our self-love should not depend on that evaluation. By the way, several specialists agree that people who think less about their self-esteem, who focus more on their actions, on others, and less on themselves, are those who have the healthiest self-esteem! Curiously!
If you found this video helpful, please give us a thumbs up, share it with your friends, and consider subscribing. And if you really loved it, you can support us through Patreon or by joining this channel: with what it costs to buy a soda a month, you help us a lot to make better and better videos.