Did you make a new year’s resolution to do something differently in 2011? If so, you’re in a great position to improve your self-esteem while you’re at it.

Your level of self-esteem reflects the relationship you have with yourself. The more your relationship with you is based on trust, respect, interest and affection, the better your self-esteem. Having this kind of relationship doesn’t mean looking the other way when you screw up, or pretending it didn’t happen. It means holding yourself accountable in a respectful and constructive way.

One of the easiest ways to practice holding yourself accountable is by setting goals. Self-esteem is enhanced when you set a goal that’s meaningful and important to you, and you follow through to make it happen. So if you want to improve your reputation with yourself, go ahead and set some heartfelt goals. (more…)

“For years it lay in an iron box buried so deep inside me that I was never sure just what it was. I knew it carried slippery, combustible things more secret than sex and more dangerous than any shadow or ghost. … I saw things I knew no little girl should see. Blood and shattered glass. Piles of skeletons and blackened barbed wire with bits of flesh stuck to it…The iron box contained a special room for my mother and father, warm and moist as a greenhouse. They lived there inside me, rare and separate from other beings. … I knew my parents had crossed over a chasm … The box became a vault, collecting in darkness, always collecting; pictures, words, my parent’s glances, becoming loaded with weight. It sank deeper as I grew older, so packed with undigested things that finally it became impossible to ignore.”
-Helen Epstein, Children of the Holocaust

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Trauma unequivocally impacts your relationship with yourself and challenges and changes how you think about yourself.

Before a traumatic life experience, it is common to believe in your ability to make good decisions, control your environment, and keep yourself safe. Trauma smashes these beliefs and leads to new ones, namely being unable to count on your judgment: if you once judged a situation, person, or behavior to be safe, and it proved to be traumatic, it is easy to believe that your actions cannot change or influence things, that you cannot control your fate, and that forces beyond your power dictate your safety.

These new beliefs can feel more accurate and convincing than the ones you held pretrauma, and thereby lead to a reduced sense of agency and safety—and a natural consequence of that is more frequent and intense feelings of vulnerability and fearfulness.

A common way to try and reduce or manage this increased sense of vulnerability and fearfulness is to increase your sense of responsibility and control. You might find yourself claiming responsibility for the traumatic occurrence, ignoring the fact that no traumatic event is caused by the person who experiences it. Or you may try and control all facets of your life: scheduling every minute of the day, micromanaging the lives of those around you, or establishing impossible standards of perfection.

Even though these efforts at increasing your sense of control are entirely understandable, they do not lead to the desired outcome and often cause you to try and control more elements of your life. Not only does a control agenda not deliver the safety and security you are trying to achieve, but such an approach exacts a high psychological cost. Excessive activities exhaust the human body, mind, and spirit and excessive expectations lead to harsh criticisms and even self-hatred.

The damage that trauma exacts upon your self-esteem also feeds into the harshness and self-hatred that frequently arises following a traumatic life event. It is common to believe that if you had been smarter, faster, fought harder, yelled louder, or simply been a better person, then the trauma would not have occurred. These inaccurate beliefs, though understandable, cause damage by creating a falsely logical conclusion that since the trauma did happen, you must have deserved or caused it—and if you did, then all the shame and self-hatred you feel is warranted.

These beliefs grate away your self-esteem and stoke harsh opinions of yourself to the point where the ensuing self-loathing can become unbearable and paralyzing, leading you to want to hide, disappear, perpetually apologize for your existence, or desperately prove that you are worthy.

You deserve and need to work on challenging these beliefs in order to reclaim the fact that you can make good decisions, that you do have some control over the vagaries of life, and that you are able to impact your safety in the world. Stay connected with the friends and loved ones in your life who are emotionally healthy so that you can hear and give credence to their thoughts regarding your abilities and capabilities. Finally, don’t forget to reach out to a professional and harness her or his training, compassion, and expertise to help you heal and grow through these trauma-induced beliefs.

Low self-esteem can’t be hidden for long. It tends to show itself through thoughts, words, and behavior.

Since some behaviors are simply learned, and may have little to do with one’s level of self-esteem, it’s best to look at the overall picture rather than focusing on just one piece of information.

With that in mind, here are some signs that, taken as part of a larger pattern, may be an indication of low self-esteem. Please note that this is not a comprehensive list.

1. Thinking that “other people treat me badly because I deserve it.”

Imagine the following scenarios:

• An acquaintance ends a conversation with you by walking away without saying goodbye.
• Someone who said they would call you, doesn’t.
• A coworker invites everyone in the office to a party, except you.

In each of these scenarios, the other person is being rude. If your tendency in these situations is to feel bad about yourself, that is a strong indicator of low self-esteem.

Practice focusing on the other person’s behavior, and trying to evaluate it objectively. Are they being appropriate? Kind? Reasonable?

2. Disliking people in general

Babies are born with a natural interest and trust in other people—you were born that way, too. If you now feel like people are not your thing, it’s almost certainly because of painful experiences that taught you that other people can be mean and hurtful. Even if you’re no longer in touch with the pain of the past, even if you don’t even remember those experiences, your sense of self and your own worth were undoubtedly shaped by the same experiences that created your dislike of people. Unfortunately, dislike and distrust of people make it hard to cultivate the very experiences that would prove people to be better than you expect, perpetuating a vicious circle.

Pick someone in your life who feels safe enough, and try opening up a little more than you ordinarily would.

3. Under- or overachievement

Overachievement is an attempt to bolster low self-esteem with impressive deeds when deep down, you don’t feel like the person you are is “enough” to be acceptable to others. Only more accomplishments can give an overachiever the feeling of being okay as a human being—at least, that is their hope.

Overachievers can benefit from allowing themselves to “slack off” and learning to tolerate the feelings that arise in the absence of productivity.

On the other side of the coin, your self-esteem might be so injured that you don’t dare attempt to achieve anything. As an underachiever, you may feel that if you should fail, it will only prove what you secretly already suspect: that you are woefully inadequate to the tasks of normal living. It’s better not to try, and instead enjoy the thought of having “potential,” than to attempt to achieve something and fail in front of everyone.

Underachievers can pay attention to feelings of fear of failure and practice making small attempts at doable activities, such as baby steps toward a larger goal.

4. Perfectionism

It’s long been known that perfectionists often experience low self-esteem.

For perfectionists, only something done perfectly is good enough to be acceptable to others. Ninety-nine percent success is the same as failure; only 100% is good enough (barely). Perfectionist might think they create their standards—that is, they may believe they’re  trying to please only themselves—but too-high standards are always based on early perceptions of what others expect from us.

Perfectionism is cured by doing things imperfectly on purpose. It may help to use a shame tactic: imagine that because of your perfectionism, everyone knows you’re insecure. It might help you to let go of it a little.

5. Alienation

Feeling somehow “different” and alienated from the rest of the human race is one of the most discouraging experiences one can have. Perhaps surprisingly, it’s one of the most common reasons people seek therapy.

This sense of alienation often results from emotional neglect when a person was young. Many of us who received the food, clothing, and shelter we needed for survival did not receive as much accurate empathy as we needed in order to understand ourselves as people.

Sometimes our caregivers were sick, depressed, or even deceased, and we were left alone too often. Sometimes they were there with a vengeance, sowing fear and discord. We didn’t get the opportunities we needed to bond with other people. Bonding creates a sense of security and connection that everyone—kids, adolescents, adults, seniors—needs in order to thrive. If you feel like an alien, know that you are not alone. You are a normal human being reacting in a normal way to the abnormal situation of emotional isolation.

Read and learn as much as you can about emotions, for these play an important role in the formation of relationships with both yourself and others. Practice self-acceptance: if you don’t, you will never feel accepted by others. If you can, find a therapist you feel comfortable with. A therapist can serve as a compassionate guide while you work on reintegrating yourself into the human race—where you very much belong.