Tag Archives: low self-esteem

How do I silence abusive and critical voices in my head?

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“R E S P E C T” by Mimi Stuart © Live the Life you Desire

The suffering you endure from an abusive person doesn’t always stop once you get away from that person. The critical and abusive voices may remain in your own head. It will take considerable effort to transform your life and to stop your inner critic from abusing you.

There are important steps you can take to rebuild your life:

1. Suspend contact with abusive and negative people.

2. Transform your inner critic.

3. Spend time in more positive environments.

4. Regain your self-respect.

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1. Suspending contact with abusive people

If you’ve experienced verbal or physical abuse, you should suspend and if possible terminate contact with all negative people in your life. There is little hope that abusive behavior from people will change, particularly, if they sense that you want their support. Moreover, it is nearly impossible for you to gain a positive self-image in the company of mean people.

Perhaps later, when you have gained more self-empowerment, and your family’s negative effect on you has weakened, you can engage them on a limited basis. Right now, it’s important that you protect yourself from abuse.

You will eventually see clearly that your family’s negativity is about them, the way they feel about themselves, and the way they have learned to interact with others, rather than about you. Although it is liberating to know that their behavior comes from their own life experience and lack of self worth, this is rarely enough in itself for you to become self-empowered. The challenge now becomes to free yourself from the habit of belittling yourself, which you’ve acquired by internalizing their attitudes toward you.

2. Transforming your inner critic

Your brain circuitry has become hard wired to reinforce your inner critic. So it will take daily and constant effort to be kind to yourself, and to be a cheerleader and wise adviser to yourself. Take a thorough inventory of all your good personal traits–there are many! Through ongoing practice you can transform your harsh inner critic into a helpful, compassionate, and objective supporter.

Notice when you’re being unnecessarily hard on yourself, and change the harmful language you use against yourself into constructive, compassionate guidance that you would expect from a loving parent or friend. Don’t expect perfection. When you catch yourself beating up on yourself, pause and tell yourself, “It’s okay. At least I’m catching myself doing it.” Your inner voice will gradually transform from one of master critic to one of supportive guide.

3. Spending time in a positive environment

You will have to create your own “family” of friends and mentors whom you admire and who treat you with respect. How people treat you influences the way you feel about yourself, and how you feel about yourself influences the way people will treat you. So in order to choose to accept and respect yourself, you need to choose to be around respectful, positive, and self-empowered people on a regular basis. You’ll find it helpful and rewarding.

4. Gaining self-respect

Do things in your life that make you feel good about yourself. Treat yourself well, learn things, and do things that you enjoy. Get in the habit of reading or listening to something that’s inspiring, enjoyable, educational, or just funny — humor has a wonderful effect on your psyche. Join groups or activities where you learn skills, learn a language, dance, do sports or volunteer. When you do things you enjoy and learn new skills you’re interested in, you’re more enjoyable to be around.

As you practice these behaviors, they become easier and easier until eventually they become automatic and hard wired. This is a positive cycle that reinforces itself: You’ll feel better, and as a result you will get more positive feedback from much of the world around you, which in turn will make you feel better. Yet, it will initially take quite a bit of effort and practice to move into this upward spiral of self-acceptance, optimism, and confidence.

Spending time around life-embracing, self-empowered people and pursuing some personal interests will help you to silence the negative voices in your world. Over time you will learn to ignore those harsh critics in your universe.

by Alison Poulsen, PhD

Feeling Shame:
“I’m not worthy to be loved.”

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"Rocky Mountain Nobility" by Mimi Stuart ©

“Rocky Mountain Nobility” by Mimi Stuart ©

Deeply-held feelings of inadequacy can cause a person to live with a feeling of shame. Ideally in childhood, we have a parent who expresses both love and reasonable, constructive criticism. However, many people experience excessive neglect, contempt, or harsh criticism from their closest adult relation. The message they may take from such negativity is that they are deeply flawed and unworthy of love.

People who live with a feeling of shame experience great suffering and self-consciousness. They want nothing more than to excise the feeling of inadequacy from their psyche.

While it is important that they moderate their harsh self-criticism with objectivity so they can feel better about themselves, they should also appreciate a couple of skills they have acquired through their challenging upbringing. There are two diamonds in the rough underlying shame that they should hold on to, while eliminating self-condemnation: 1. their ability to self-assess, and 2. their desire to improve themselves.

1. The ability to self-assess

People can experience shame only if they are able to observe themselves and sense their impact on the world around them. They are generally excessively self-critical of themselves, because they have been made acutely aware of how they are viewed by others.

But imagine someone who lacks the ability to observe his or her own conduct and its effects on others. Such a person would be selfish, inconsiderate, and uncaring.

Thus, while excessive self-awareness hinders spontaneity and enjoyment, some conscious awareness of one’s impact on others is a good thing. Ideally, self-assessment can be moderated to become compassionate, helpful and constructive.

2. The desire to improve

The experience of shame implies an underlying desire to become better, more worthy, and deserving. People who experience shame have a strong sense of right and wrong, better and worse, skilled and unskilled. They want to be better than they believe they are.

While excessive shame can lead to depression and self-sabotaging behavior, the underlying desire to become better can act as a strong motivating force to improve oneself.

Solution:

1. Appreciate your ability to self-assess and your desire to be a better person—at work, as a parent, as a friend, etc.

2. Correct your internal thinking. When you hear yourself say something harsh to yourself, such as, “How stupid that was,” change it right away to something reasonable, kind, and objective, such as “Everyone makes mistakes. Next time I’ll try to remember to….”

3. Remember that life is fleeting. Enjoy and focus on what’s good about yourself, instead of focusing on your mistakes or how you compare to others.

4. Become less of a perfectionist. Appreciate small improvements. Learn to laugh at yourself!

Remember that your effectiveness at work and within your relationships improves as you replace shame with compassion, a sense of humor, constructive criticism, and acceptance of what is. Not only will you suffer less, people around you will enjoy you more.

by Alison Poulsen, PhD

Narcissism Part 2 (of 5): “I don’t have a problem with self-esteem!” Causes of Narcissism.

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"Embellishment" by Mimi Stuart
Live the Life you Desire

Narcissism is basically a psychological coping mechanism for low self-esteem. Ironically the narcissist rarely believes that he or she has a problem with self-esteem.

Very young children naturally feel they are the center of the world. They need to experience healthy narcissism to feel good about themselves, to gain the confidence to grow up and take care of themselves and be able to initiate social interactions.

Children generally grow out of this healthy narcissistic phase if they experience “mirroring” and “idealization.” Mirroring means receiving empathy and approval from one’s parents. Idealization means being able to look up to a caregiver as a respected person separate from oneself.

No Mirroring:
Lack of mirroring occurs in one of the following ways:

1. Approval is erratic or lacking all together. The child is ignored.
2. Admiration is too unrealistic to believe, while realistic feedback is lacking. “You’re the cutest, smartest…”
3. Criticism for bad behavior is excessive. “You are bad, evil, stupid!!”
4. The parents are excessively permissive and overindulge the child, implying a lack of caring. “Sure, have a bowl of candy, more juice, toys, throw your food if you want to, I don’t care.”

No Idealization:
Children are deprived of idealization in one of the following ways:

1. The parents are unpredictable, unreliable, or lacking in empathy.
2. The parents are emotionally or physically abusive.
3. The parents have no interest in the child’s needs, but exploit the child to feed their own self-esteem.

Without receiving empathy or the ability to look up to others, children do not develop empathy for themselves or others. They may grow up being psychologically stuck in the narcissistic phase.

As a result, they feel flawed and unacceptable. They fear rejection and isolation because of their perceived worthlessness. To avoid this pain, they focus on controlling how others view them by embellishing their accomplishments and skills.

They feel deep shame, which causes them to develop an artificial self. While we all develop an artificial self to some degree, narcissists IDENTIFY with their artificial self. Preoccupied with presenting the right image, they are ironically rarely aware of their own low self-esteem.

People with adequate self-esteem are usually willing to look at themselves with honest self-reflection and consider areas in which they could improve. This makes sense because they have empathy for the flaws and inadequacies in both themselves and others.

Sadly, the narcissist believes that flaws are to be hated and concealed, and that only perfection and superiority can be displayed. Thus, they view themselves and others with a perspective that swings from over-valuation to loathing. In their quest for approval and acceptance, they use their charm and charisma. Once dependent on others’ approval, the smallest hint of disapproval can send them into a state of punishing vengeance.

To protect oneself from the emotional pendulum of the narcissist, it’s best not to make your self-worth dependent on one by perpetually trying to please the narcissist. While the charisma bestowed on you might feel irresistible at first, it could soon turn into punishing scorn and retaliation.

by Alison Poulsen, PhD

Read Narcissism Part 3: Avoid raising narcissistic children.

Read Narcissism Part 4: Celebrity, Power, and Prestige.

References: “Encyclopedia of Mental Disorders.”