How to have a healthy self-esteem
Humans have been indulging in self-help since… well, forever — and every once in a while there are some psychology terms and topics that sneak into the colloquial language. I usually don’t mind it and sometimes the so-called “common sense” advice is actually beneficial and backed by science. There is however this one topic I have had beef with for quite some time: self-esteem.
Is it responsible for everything?
Not sure when exactly it became such a trend, but it feels as if now “self-esteem” and “self-love” are buzzwords used to explain nearly everything. Got relationship issues? That probably means that your partner has low self-esteem and that you don’t love yourself enough. Work problems? Oh, you just need to improve your self-esteem to finally get that raise. Poor health? Ah yes, that’s an easy one — just apply three drops of self-care every evening with your chamomile tea, while you’re soaking in a bubble bath for hours.
And while all of the things mentioned above are not inherently wrong, we seem to misunderstand the general idea of what it means — to esteem, love and truly care for oneself. So let’s take a step back and try to understand this mythical self-esteem a little bit better.
Does it really come “from within”?
I could quote multiple psychologists but I think we can all agree that this is not an academic paper, so to simplify things, I’ll cut the noise. Self-esteem is essentially one’s opinion of themselves, estimation of their worth and confidence of their abilities. And while a lot of the population believes that it comes “from within”, it’s not quite true. There is no such thing as being born with a healthy self-esteem and I roll my eyes every time I hear this commonly repeated myth that “you should just know your own worth from within”.
The confidence in one’s worth and abilities comes from feedback. When a child is born, it can’t do much besides for screaming and pooping, it is however its’ parents job to admire it, love it and care for it. This unconditional love and attunement into the child’s needs creates the most important basis for its self-esteem. Secondary socialisation — so going to school, meeting teachers and other kids — is important too. However it only develops the child’s self-esteem further on top of the already existing basis, which has been created by the primary caretakers (usually parents).
Reversing this logic though will make us realise, that if a person got mostly negative feedback (not attuned enough and/or abusive parents, bullying at school, mean teachers etc) as a child, they most likely won’t just have a healthy self-esteem that comes “from within”.
Self-love or narcissism?
Part of the therapeutic process of working on one’s self-esteem is to help the patient re-learn all they know about themselves by absorbing new, positive feedback and actually paying attention to it instead of just filtering it out based on their old bias of not being good enough. That’s why for some people compliments are more important than for others, that’s why there are so many people craving attention and that’s why some people present narcissistic behaviours. All of that is done to compensate for the inner lack of confidence in self-worth.
It is easy though, to confuse the actual self-love and self-esteem with putting oneself on a pedestal. A person who never received enough praise as a child might develop this compensation mechanism of putting themselves on a pedestal, while still maintaining (but in hiding) the internal lack of self-worth. Loving oneself is just like loving a child. It doesn’t mean allowing oneself to indulge in every craving, but rather making good and healthy choices for oneself.
Eating cake every single day while having diabetes is not an act of self love. Dieting while already being underweight isn’t one either. Considering oneself to be “the best in the world”, “the prettiest’’ and thinking that you’re always right, you always have all the answers — that’s definitely a skewed understanding of self-love. Seeing that you sometimes make mistakes, but still making an effort to achieve your goals, forgiving yourself kindly errors but acknowledging them and learning from them — that is true self-love.
Are bubble baths enough?
Same goes for self-care. Media have created and sold us this image of a woman pampering herself at a beauty salon, dying her hair and buying new lingerie as self-care. But saving money, wearing a cosy set of sweatpants and writing a school essay instead of going out, can be an act of self-care on a much deeper level.
In the end, I do think that the best way to build a healthy self-esteem is to gracefully accept positive feedback, see one’s flaws and act in one’s long-term benefit while working on one’s belief systems. And as a strong believer in therapy, I would recommend all of it to be done under a keen eye of a well-specialised and a well-attuned therapist. It won’t happen overnight and if the damage runs deep, this process can easily take multiple years. It is however possible and I believe that as a society, this is what we need to encourage people to do in order to heal their self-esteem issues.
