It must be understood that self-esteem and self-approval is not a one day job, it is a long journey that requires patience and acknowledgement. It requires that you allow yourself time to grieve over your past hurts and accept them as they are, forgive those who have hurt you, then begin to build something as a result of it. The steps I have given below are just the beginning of the journey. It is my belief that the first step towards dealing with any problem is acknowledging the problem. Below are steps to acknowledging the root cause of your emotions and sensation which lead to your beliefs and behaviors about yourself.
Personal Experience: Beauty is in the eyes of the beholder: Self esteem and beauty
So, what steps can you take towards self-approval and self-esteem.
1.Pay attention to your self -talk about your features.
What do you say to yourself about your features when you walk past a mirror? or take a picture/selfie?. What do you say? Do you urge your friends or family to delete the picture because you do not like something in the way you look? Now take that as a opportunity to observe your insecurities and build from there. What is it about the captured moment of yourself that you did not like. Now write those down.
2.Pay attention to the sensations you get when someone comments on your features, or if you see someone’s features that you like, feel jealous or envious.
What are the emotions that you feel? and try to discover why. The best part about trying to discover how you feel about these things is finding the memory that is attached to those emotions and negative beliefs about yourself. The feelings are usually feelings of vulnerability that will make you feel insecure about yourself, therefore you will get upset, feel irritated, jealous, envious, etc.
What is it about that person that made you feel that way? Is it their hair? face? etc, then turn to yourself and see how you feel about those features on yourself, then try to look back and see when those negative self beliefs began. That person is not the problem, I am sorry to tell you this, but you are.
You are too busy putting yourself down and believing negative things about yourself that when you see someone with what you consider beautiful or what you wish you had, you feel inferior.
Perhaps it is time that you acknowledge the beauty that you have, and you will no longer feel threatened with what others have, as a matter of fact, you will begin to appreciate what beauty you see in others. If beauty is in the eyes of the beholder, you need to learn to see beauty in yourself.
3. Contemplate your reactions.
After you have paid attention for about a week, now start asking yourself why. Why do you feel this way and what childhood or adult memories are attached to those emotions.
Now write them down.
Acknowledgement and understanding is the first step towards working out any problem, therefore understanding why you are doing something will make it much easier to solve the root of the problem by learning to forgive others, yourself and your past. Forgiving is a challenge, but its not a one time step, its a journey.
4.Allow yourself to be vulnerable with yourself.
It is important that you acknowledge your own weaknesses and your own faults. You do not need to mention them to anyone, but you cannot put a wall of protection against yourself as well. Protecting yourself against others is important. People are manipulative and if they knew where your vulnerabilities are, they would probably use them against you.
With that said, you do not need to hide yourself from yourself.
Understand that you are not perfect and that is ok.
As a matter of fact, your imperfection is perfection in itself. So appreciate that you are not perfect because that gives you room to improve, it gives you the opportunity to become a better version of yourself on a daily basis.
5.Do things that you love
This may seem disconnected from the other steps, but doing things you love, improves your approval of yourself. Imagine for a second that you want to like someone, but they continuously do things that make you unhappy. Would you be able to foster approval or love towards that person or thing? No!
So I would advice that you pick 1 thing that you love per week, something that will make you smile, laugh or simply feel like yourself. If you no longer know what that feels like, perhaps it time you start rediscovering who you are. The more you discover who you are, the easier it will be to love yourself.
Discussion question:
What are some ways you have worked to improve your self esteem over the years?
