What we experience in our early
lives are crucial experiences because they help to form our beliefs about
ourselves. What you saw, heard or
experienced when you were young influences the way you see yourself.
Some of these experiences are very
traumatizing and they leave some people in constant fear, feeling unworthy,
anxious or stressed all the time. Negative
beliefs about ourselves can also be caused by experiences later in life, such
as workplace bullying or intimidation, abusive relationships, persistent stress
or hardship, or traumatic events.
Below are some of the causes of low
self esteem;
Ø
Childhood experiences
·
Neglect or abuse or even systematic
punishment
·
Failing to meet parental standards
·
Not being able to fit in a peer
group
·
Being at the receiving end of other
people’s stress
·
The absence of praise, appreciation,
or even interest.
·
Being ridiculed and criticized all
the time
Ø
Rules for Living
Because
of your beliefs you start to develop rules for living. These could be
unnecessary strategies for dealing with life; rules for Living enable you to
function in the world as long as you obey the rules. For example if the
negative belief is, “am a failure” your rule for living is “better not try than
being seen as stupid”
Ø
Biased thinking
When
we constantly believe in a certain manner about ourselves, it reaches a time
when it becomes difficult to question it.
This is maintained and made strong by biased thinking which means; you
give weight to anything that is consistent with your beliefs and discount
anything that is not.
You
create a biased perception in the sense that you are quick spot anything that fits
with your negative ideas about yourself and you screen anything that
contradicts them.
Everything
to you is biased including your interpretation; you distort the meanings you
attach to what you experience even if the experience is positive. You just don’t believe that someone can say
something positive about you and end up telling yourself, “they are just trying
to be nice, I know they didn’t mean it”
As we grow up we take the voices of
people who were significant to us with us. We may criticize ourselves in their
sharp tones, and make the same comparisons with other people that they did. Our
experiences create a foundation for general conclusions about ourselves; judgments
about ourselves as people.
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