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 things like: 

•      I mustn’t let people get too close to me or they won’t like what they see. 
•      If someone criticises me, I have failed. I have to avoid criticism.
•      I must keep myself under tight control as the true me is unacceptable.
•      I have to be the best/perfect, otherwise I am no good.
•      I must look good, my worth depends on it.
•      Unless I care for others, I am useless.
•      I expect unrealistic loyalty to avoid feelings of rejection.
•      I must attack before I am attacked.
•      I must always appear to be clever.
•      I won't take advice, as it feels like someone has assumed I don't know what to do.
•      It is best not to even try, so I can avoid judgement. 
•      I need to be in control to avoid feeling vulnerable.
•      I must always blame others, because taking the blame is too shaming. 
•      Things have to be recognised by others for them to be worthwhile.
•      I need to be right as if I am wrong, I am stupid.
•      Letting my emotions get the better of me shows complete weakness.
•      etc.

• So we generally try to abide by our rules to avoid triggering the bottom line, as that is essentially why we developed these rules: to protect ourselves from the pain and shame of our, 'bottom line'. However, inevitably, situations arise in our lives that mean our rules are rattled or we feel situations in the future could potentially mean we have to break our rules. e.g. people get to know us well, we are criticised, we make a fool of ourselves in a way that breaks our rules, we fall in love (!) etc.  Anything that means we can't hold on steadfastly to our rules, will trigger anxious predictions. So then the book looks at a situation that would cause most people some discomfort because it is likely to challenge most people's rules somehow: being asked to do public speaking. 'Unsettling situations' like this cause anxious predictions for people with low self-esteem and these fall into four categories.

•      Complete avoidance of the situation 
•      Taking excessive precautions to ‘make it run smoothly’
•      Becoming so anxious, you can’t actually ‘perform’
•      Ignoring success even if we do really well and assuming we were rubbish.

 • The anxious predictions, keep our low self-esteem intact because they reinforce our bottom line beliefs. (Because you either avoided the situation, you did excessive preparations and that's why you think you just about managed it, you mess up and it proves to yourself that you're useless or you never allow yourself to 'receive' the positive feedback.) What’s more, anxious predictions can trigger feelings of inadequacy, anxiety and wobble us to the very core, before, during and after whatever the challenging situation was. They can be the cause of rumination and self-reproach and make us feel awful and totally consolidate what we thought about ourselves. This can also be when we behave in defensive ways.

 • The book suggests that in order to overcome low self-esteem, you need to 

1. become conscious of this process.
2. consciously do the opposite of what your anxious predictions tend to make you do and 
3. believe/look at the positives about the outcome once you did the opposite to your anxious predictions. i.e. turn up, have a go, don't over-prepare and look for evidence that it went well. 

I appreciate this is a swift summary. Obviously – the book spells it all out more clearly with examples. It has also made me think that low self esteem is a blight that affects many. Some people go to great lengths to cover ‘it’/their bottom line up (e.g. narcissism) and I am sure it is a lifetime’s work to overcome it. 

Like many self-help books, it provides a slightly different model for looking at the same issues. I see this model linked to Jungian psychology: we have protective measures preventing us from feeling the shaming of our own shadow and these measures themselves not only make us repeat patterns of behaviour, they also certainly limit us and often trigger destructive behaviours.