Low self esteem
I have been reading a book called ‘Overcoming low self-esteem’ by Melanie Fennell and some of the messages in it certainly resonate with me. I will attempt to summarise: Low self esteem gives us beliefs about ourselves that the book calls our ‘bottom line.’ These will be slightly different for different people but they are the narrative we picked up about ourselves from others, probably mostly from our childhood but also from other places in our lives. These can include narratives like: I am worthless, everyone else is better than I am, I am unlovable, I am unacceptable, I am stupid etc. Our bottom line is like a prejudice against ourselves because even in the face of proof that it is not true, we still believe it to be true. To cope with our bottom line beliefs, we create our own 'safety net', rules for life. These again will be different for different people (even those with similar bottom lines can have developed different protective rules for life). These rules can be thin