Self Esteem Today
70% of girls do not consider themselves good enough in some way compared to others.
98% of women feel that they have to look a certain way and feel pressure as a result of this.
86% of children noted an increase in low self-esteem in 2022
Here are three statistics which come up when googling self esteem. There are more and these kind of percentages are alarming. I can’t vouch for these studies because I don’t know much about them, but they are the kind of statistics that we hear regularly.
Self-esteem is defined by how we think and feel about ourselves. A confidence in ones worth or value. If I bake a cake, draw picture, do an exam and it doesn’t go well my self-esteem will show up. My value come into question perhaps and maybe it has nothing to do with my own sense of worth and I am free to learn from the mistakes, but maybe it’s tied up with my own sense of value and all the pain and hurt that might come with seeing yourself as not measuring up or having little value.
Sometimes you even here terminology like positive and negative self-esteem. Whenever something is split up into positive and negative I have concerns. The pursuit of happiness is alive all around us and I’m sure there is no one out there who would not put there hand up if they got offered a shift towards more positive self-esteem then negative. We want to have a sense of value.
The Work of Building up Self-Esteem
It also leaves us with a lot of ‘work’ to do both as individuals and facilitating self-esteem our youngest. Changing mindset, look for success and protect ourselves from failure, praise or reward the positive self-esteem, encourage competence, improve our social interactions and practice thinking highly about oneself. This is all work we take on as individuals and work we facilitate as caregivers. That cake that didn’t work out is, I need to see it as a positive or the icing went well so lets focus on that or I’ll make another one that works and find the value there.
The thing about work is that whenever it succeeds, lets say we get an increase in positive self-esteem then the it’s the work that gets the credit and if it is something that needs work, it’s fragile and it’s superficial. Plus if If what we were doing could reliably actually increase someone’s self-esteem then I would imagine that we would all be doing it now.
Sometimes I think the methods we use in our society would have the same if we were trying to get our pet dogs to have higher self esteem. We’ve got to get him more confident to be more positive about being a dog. It’s just weird and if we are ever in a place as a society where this is our focus with our pet dogs then my curiosity is on the owners, definitely not the dogs and it should be the same as this is our concern with our children.
Attachment
To explore self-esteem on a deeper level, lets look at what we don’t generally see in our approach to it. What we don’t consider a lot of the time when self-esteem is talked about is emotion and attachment. In attachment, we have the only intervention that makes any sense. Attachment relationships provide the context for self-esteem. The value is alive and obvious in these deep relationships. Self-esteem in this sense is natural and develops spontaneously. It’s value that a child can rest in. The message that you are valuable to me. When we engage in this work, maybe giving children the responsibility that self-esteem is to be built then it is fragile. When it comes from relationship it’s the opposite. It is something that a child rests in, but does not work for. It might be a sense of worth that comes from a reflected significance, a self-acceptance or a sense of dignity that is rooted in the unfolding of potential. These are all things that come out of the context of our relationships growing up. They are the repsonsiblility of parents, teachers, grandparents, communities in the way we see our children. It’s not work for children to engage with. It’s for them to rest in and see the self-esteem unfold.
Emotion
What we also don’t consider in how we deal with self-esteem is emotion. Emotion is a nusisance variable here. We can view ourselves in a positive light. Rationalise ourselves away from the sadness and disspaointment of not measuring up. If we get away from the emotion that comes with low self-esteem then we are less likely to see it. And here again when this does work our self-esteem is fragile and doomed to fail. Our emotions all need the invitation to exist in our presence as Gordon Neufeld would put. In fact, if we move away from them then we are not giving the deeper sense of value to our young. They need space to be felt. By coming away from them, the message underlying these techniques is that there must be something wrong with you for feeling that way, you can change it which only adds to the desire to take up the work.
Compassionate Inquiry
As a therapist and a Compassionate Inquiry practitioner my intention is to notice this work, be curious about it and find rest wherever someone might be with there emotions and self-esteem. All true growth comes from a place of rest. This is also something that as adults we can facilitate for ourselves. With my work with families and children this is something that children don’t have the capacity and they must find that rest in their relationships around them, which is why I love working with parents so much because it is a joy to see true self-esteem unfold.
If you want to find out more about my work as a Compassionate Inquiry practitioner, the Neufeld Institute and my work with families then please get in touch mail@joeatkinson.co.uk