Self Esteem is the hidden superpower that we are all born with. Self Esteem helps protect us from life’s challenges and gives us the confidence to be ourselves. Unfortunately, it can be difficult to keep that superpower healthy and strong with everything going on! We spend so much time focusing on how we look on the outside, and what other people think about us, that we spend little to no time understanding how we feel on the inside, and developing a stable self image. We love throwing up the highlights on our socials, but when all you see are the positives in everyone’s life, you can easily start to feel that you don’t measure up. We want to talk about your hidden superpower. Self-Esteem is simply how much we value or like ourselves, how much we think that we are worth as a person. You see, when your self-esteem is healthy, no matter what you face in life, or how hard life gets, we can access this superpower to bounce back from any disappointment or setback that might come our way. When it’s not healthy, everything is a lot harder; we have a fear of failing or trying new things, we have a feeling that everyone else is better than us in some way or another, and we also have trouble taking encouragement from people. Having a healthy filter for your self-esteem is so important and is one of the keys to being strong and resilient so that we can really start living our best lives! We all want that right? Here are some thoughts around those filters:
The Love Filter
The first filter we’re going to mention, is the L-O-V-E - love filter. Now we’re not just talking about that romantic and sappy love between couples, but we’re talking about the love that you get from your parents, that love from your brother and sisters, family friends and everyone else in-between. The Love that makes you feel like you are seen, valued and appreciated, and like someone really cares about your existence. You see, the way that you view love is really important. There are two main types of views about love that we are going to mention, one is unhealthy, and the other one is healthy.. (pssst. Heres a tip.. we want to have the healthy one!)
HEALTHY FILTER: Unconditional Love is when our filter is healthy and we know that it’s not what we DO that means we are value, it’s who we ARE. Have you ever had a really bad fight or an argument with your siblings where you say or do things that you didn’t mean, and then 5 minutes later you both apologise and it’s like nothing ever happened? Well, that’s the type of unconditional love that we’re talking about. When I was a teenager, we had a pet dog named Tasha. I wanted to teach her some tricks and to teach a dog tricks you need some treats, right? So I thought, what better treat than chocolate! For the next few months, I was giving our pet dog the most amazing treats ever, lucky her! Well... Mum eventually found out where all the chocolate from the pantry was disappearing to. Who knew chocolate would be so bad for dogs?! (Don’t worry, she was ok!) But man, did I get in trouble - Mum was sooo mad! You see, when that happened, I wasn’t thinking to myself “Oh man.. I need to find another family now, Mum, Dad and everyone else hate me. I’ll never be accepted after this. They’ll never forgive me...” No way! Even though I messed up, I got majorly busted and I almost killed the family dog (trust me, she was ok!) I knew that my parents still loved me, and no matter how bad I messed up, I’d always be accepted and valued (Phew). Unconditional love is that deep feeling of significance and value that you get from belonging to a family, or maybe you have a best friend who you can be completely yourself with, and you know that they will accept you no matter what. People who have experienced unconditional love are more likely to:
- Deal with stress better
- Have better physical health
- Have a stronger self-esteem
- Have better brain development
UNHEALTHY FILTER: Conditional Love is when we feel like we are only worth loving when we DO something right. We feel like our value and worth to be loved is based on our actions. Things like getting good marks in school, or when we score a goal at the footy game or when we finish our jobs at home. This type of filter leads to an unhealthy way of feeling about your own worth because if you mess up, or don’t kick the most goals in footy, or get the best grades in school, you think that its a reflection of your value as a person, and you can end up feeling like you’ll never measure up, or be worth loving. When we see the world like this, it’s hard to even accept that people around you love you unconditionally. If you’ve found yourself seeing through this unhealthy filter, here’s a quote to write down on your bathroom mirror to remind yourself:
“You are valuable because you exist. Not because of what you do or what you have done, but simply because you are.”
— Max Lucado
Have a chat with someone you trust about how you see yourself and what you can do understand your true value and strengthen your self esteem.
Plus there are some practical things that you can do to improve an unhealthy view to something that’s healthy! It’s a little thing called, self- compassion!
Check out one of our other articles on self-compassion here.
by Dave Bican
IZRA team
