What is Self Esteem?

Therefore, to truly understand what self esteem is all about and more importantly to be able to alter it when necessary for ones wellness or healing, we must first get it that self esteem is really about our thinking, and more specifically about the thoughts that we develop or create about ourselves. The thoughts or beliefs that we have about ourselves are crucial in that they determine or create the structure of our experience of self esteem and the various emotions associated with it.

We also tend to think of our self esteem as being something that is shaped by the events that take place in our life, particularly those from our past. We tend to believe that who we think we are and how we feel about ourselves is merely the product, effect or caused by the experiences that we have had in the past – it says that we are who we are by virtue of what has happened to us as human beings.

More specifically, we tend to think that the cause in the matter of whom we think we are and our self esteem is due to circumstance, situation or others, people, places and things. We do not tend to think that our self esteem is something we actually developed or created. Our personal self esteem is shaped by our past and the experiences we have had in our lives.

We created our thoughts and with it our emotions from the meaning that we gave to the events that took place in our life, especially at an early age. We give meaning to everything in our life including and most importantly to ourselves. At an early age the meaning that we give an event tends to be made out to be all about us. While events do happen it is not the events that are important but rather the meaning that we give them and especially how we made it out to be about our identity.

Living in a state of low self esteem can be very damaging to the quality of life you lead on a daily basis. Your self esteem is YOUR opinion of yourself, but far too many people allow others to influence or even make up their opinion for them. It sounds so very silly, but if you think on this you will realize how certain events, comments and encounters helped to “make or break” your self esteem.