Self-Esteem Treatment In Sydney
What Is Self-Esteem
What do you think about yourself? Self-esteem is a combination of the thoughts and feelings you have about your own worth. It’s about the value you place on yourself as a person. This sometimes also gets called your self-image or self-concept.
Your sense of self-esteem starts being shaped from the moment you’re born. Depending on the experiences that you encounter you can start to develop either a high or low self-esteem. However, this isn’t a stagnant thing determined entirely by your childhood. Your self-esteem will change across your life based on all the positive and negative experiences you have. This is great news because it means that low self-esteem can be turned around.
What Is Low Self-Esteem
When your self-esteem is low you can feel like you don’t have much value. At times like these you may think of yourself as:
- Not good enough
- Weak
- A failure
- Unlovable
- Stupid
- Worthless
Quite a list huh?! When you start to apply these negative beliefs to yourself regularly they can start to shift from just passing thoughts to being taken as absolute truths about yourself. Understandably, when you start to view yourself through this lens it’s common to feel more depressed because it can be hard to maintain hope about a positive future when you feel useless.
Causes of Low Self-Esteem
Low self-esteem can be caused by a number of factors across the course of a lifetime, but a few traits can make you more like to view yourself in this way. If you tend to identify as a perfectionist then you might be at a greater risk of having low self-esteem. This is because perfectionism often comes with a very strong inner critic that is impossible to please. The inner critic is that little voice that tells you you’re never good enough. Disarming that critic is integral to managing low self-esteem.
Shame also often contributes heavily towards low self-esteem. Shame is the feeling that you’re a bad person. While a little bit of shame can keep us in line in society, an over-reliance on shame to guide you can create a belief that you’re simply not good enough to deserve love or kindness. Much like with the inner critic, you need to push back against shame so that you can start to see yourself as worthwhile.
Symptoms And Signs Of Low Self-Esteem
- Saying lots of negative things about yourself
- Criticising everything you do
- Making self-deprecating jokes about yourself
- Knocking back compliments
- Difficult asserting your own needs
- Focusing on errors rather than successes
- Becoming distressed by criticism in relationships
- Avoiding activities in case you fail
- Not allowing yourself to do enjoyable things
- Not feeling worthy of being in a relationship
- Increased use of substances to numb
As you can see when the inner critic is in charge is can really start to have an impact on your day to day life. Rather than allowing yourself to go out with friends to a nice Sydney restaurant, you might feel that you don’t deserve anything as you need to be punished for making a mistake at the office last week.
Self-Esteem Strategies To Get You Started In Sydney
Become Strengths Focused
When low self-esteem sets in, it can be easy to see everything through the lens of mistakes. Instead of being proud for finishing the City2Surf, you attack yourself for not being as fit as the top 100. Becoming strengths focused means starting to acknowledge your wins as well as your losses
A simple trick is to start by just writing down THREE positive things that you have accomplished each day. When your self-esteem is low you will tend to forget these victories, but by writing them down you’ll have a clear record of evidence.
Practice Self-Compassion
Self-compassion means acknowledging your suffering and wanting to do something about it. When you have low self-esteem it’s common to not want to show yourself kindness, but remember that this is your inner critic talking!
Instead make a new rule that you need to do one kind thing for yourself every day. At first this might feel contrived, but with repetition you might find that you actually start to like the feeling and want more. Self-compassion isn’t about being selfish, it’s about acknowledging that like everyone else on this planet you deserve at change at a meaningful life.
Our Top 10 Tips For Managing Low Self-Esteem In Sydney
- Do one kind thing for yourself each day
- Focus on your strengths
- Learn to step away from the critic with mindfulness
- Practice self-compassion
- Check in with your values
- Connect with others
- Make a list of your accomplishments
- Practice accepting a compliment
- Step back from comparisons
- Take a social media break
Summary
Developing health self-esteem in Sydney isn’t always easy. It can feel like a large place that doesn’t always have a spot for us. Therapy can help teach you ways to move towards health self-esteem so that you can start moving towards accepting yourself and creating the life you want.
There are a range of treatments such as Cognitive Behavioural Therapy and Schema Therapy that are effective at helping you build your self-esteem. Chat to your psychologist or GP about the option that might best suit your needs.
Start Treating Your Self-Esteem With Cadence Psychology In Sydney
If you’re interested in getting treatment for low self-esteem in North Sydney then we’d love to hear from you. You can find out more about how we approach therapy and our fees before even worrying about giving us a call.
Once you’re ready you can contact us to schedule a free intake call and see how we can best help you. You can call us on 0478 876 678 or leave us a message using the contact form below.