I Am Worth It, the Role of Self Acceptance

Beverley Harper, Counselling, Womens Health in Barnes March 09, 2013

Tweet

Self esteem or self worth and self-confidence are inextricably linked. We can be full of confidence in some areas of our lives and utterly devoid of it others.

The tipping point is self-acceptance. When we cling to the concept of self-esteem we put ourselves at the mercy of external events, the achievements of things or the approval of others, all of which can be uncertain, and, in some aspects, outside of our control. The key to unshakeable self-confidence is unconditional self-acceptance.

Self acceptance comes from learning to genuinely accept ourselves as worthwhile, complex individuals whether we are approved of or not, whether we achieve or not or whether we have the love of desired person or not. This is a tough call, but if we can be nearly there most of the time and at least accept ourselves when we are not, our lives will be in balance more often than not.

In my clinics I use a combination of cognitive behavioural approaches together with hypnosis to help people uncover the self defeating beliefs which have a negative effect of their confidence and to look at alternative, more realistic beliefs. It is not about positive thinking, which has its place, but can cause more problems when the positive thoughts are totally removed from reality; just watch those TV talent shows to see what unrealistic positive thinking results in. The approach that I use involves realistic thinking.

An important starting point is to tune into how you speak to yourself, your self talk, are you tuned into your inner critic all day, constantly putting yourself down, anticipating failure, fuelling self doubt? Most of us are to a certain extent, we berate ourselves for forgetting something with a vicious “what an idiot, what a fool”. Or we are offered an opportunity to do something and we tell ourselves we can’t possibly, we are no good at such and such. An effective exercise to change this habit is to note down all the negative or self-limiting comments you make about yourself over the next few days. When they are noted down, challenge the statements or comments by asking.

Does this statement make sense?

Is this actually true?

How true is it?

Is there an alternative way of looking at this?

How is it helping me to speak to myself in this way?

Where is the evidence to support this?

Would I speak to someone I care about like this?

Challenging the way you speak to yourself can help you to generate an alternative, more realistic statement, or it helps you to see that it is a pointless, unhelpful way of speaking to yourself. Becoming aware of the link between what we tell ourselves and how we feel about ourselves as a consequence is a powerful first step in becoming more self accepting and therefore more self confident.