Building Self-Esteem

Most people feel bad about themselves from time to time. Feelings of low self-esteem may be triggered by being treated poorly by someone else recently or in the past, or by a person’s own judgments of him or herself. This is normal. However, low self-esteem is a constant companion for too many people, especially those who experience depression, anxiety, phobias, psychosis, delusional thinking or who have an illness or a disability. If you are one of these people, you may go through life feeling bad about yourself needlessly.

You have a right to feel good about yourself. However, it can be very difficult to feel good about yourself when you are under the stress of having symptoms that are hard to manage, when you are dealing with a disability, when you are having a difficult time, or when others are treating you badly. At these times, it is easy to be drawn into a downward spiral of lower and lower self-esteem. For instance, you may begin feeling bad about yourself when someone insults you, you are under a lot of pressure at work, or you are having a difficult time getting along with someone in your family. Then you begin to give yourself negative self-talk, like “I’m no good.” That may make you feel so bad about yourself that you do something to hurt yourself or someone else By using the ideas and activities in this article, you can avoid doing things that make you feel even worse, and do those things that will make you feel better about yourself.

Things You Can Do Right Away—Every Day—to Raise Your Self-Esteem

Pay attention to your own needs and wants.

Listen to what your body, your mind and your heart are telling you. For instance, if your body is telling you that you have been sitting down too long, stand up and stretch. If your heart is longing to spend more time with a special friend, do it. If your mind is telling you to clean up your basement, listen to your favorite music or stop thinking bad thoughts about yourself, take those thoughts seriously.

Take very good care of yourself.

As you were growing up, you may not have learned how to take good care of yourself. In fact, much of your attention may have been on taking care of others, on just getting by or on behaving well. Begin today to take good care of yourself. Treat yourself as a wonderful parent would treat a small child, or as one very best friend might treat another. If you work at taking good care of yourself, you will find that you feel better about yourself:

• Plan fun activities for yourself.
• Set aside time for daily exercise.
• Take time to do things you enjoy.
• Eat healthy foods and avoid junk food.
• Do something nice for another person.
• Give yourself rewards. You are a great person.
• Make it a point to treat yourself well every day.
• Dress in clothes that make you feel good about yourself.
• Make your living space a place that honors the person you are.
• Spend time with people who make you feel good about yourself.
• Take advantage of opportunities to learn something new or improve your skills.
• Display items that you find attractive, that remind you of your achievements, or of special times or people in your life.

You may be doing some of these things now. There will be others you need to work on. You will find that you will continue to learn new and better ways to take care of yourself. As you incorporate these changes into your life, your self-esteem will continue to improve.

For more information about BHS’ services, visit?www.behavioralhealthsystems.com?or email?[email protected].