What is Self-Esteem Counselling?
If you have low self-esteem it can interfere with your life and how you perceive yourself and your capabilities. Whether it is how you interact with people, how you interpret your ability to succeed at work or even how you view your “worthiness” to be loved, having low self-esteem can have a profound impact on your life.
Self-esteem counselling allows you to take a good look at yourself and helps you learn to appreciate your talents, worth and ability to be loved.
Laying the Foundation for Self-Esteem
Some people have a good foundation to establish their own self-worth based on strong parental guidance, teachers, friends and romantic relationships. However, if you grew up with little positive influence in your life it will become more and more difficult to deal with the negative experiences you encounter. The better the foundation the more resilient you will become. The less stable the foundation the more negative experiences will affect your self-esteem. As you encounter negative experiences throughout your life you will learn to take them personally and this will affect how you view yourself over time.
Benefits of Self-Esteem Counselling
Low self-esteem often exists due to relationships and experiences throughout your life. Negative feedback and experiences throughout childhood are usually factors that will help establish poor or low self-esteem. Self-esteem counselling will help you explore the factors in your life that have contributed to your low self-esteem so that you can begin the process of recognizing your own self-worth. Your counselor will take you through a number of steps to address self-esteem issues including how to trust your feelings, embrace your strengths and work on your weaknesses and how to respect and appreciate yourself. You will also learn to give yourself time to heal.
Recognizing Low Self-Esteem
You may have low self-esteem and not even realize it. Here are a few symptoms to help you identify self-esteem issues:
- Feelings of worthlessness
- Feeling unloved
- Underestimating or doubting your capabilities
- Constant negative thoughts and feelings
- Involvement in destructive relationships
- Avoiding or fearing change
- Setting unrealistic goals by either trying to over achieve or under achieve
If you have any of these symptoms and are beginning to see they are having a negative impact on your work, relationships and your enjoyment of life, self-esteem counselling may be the answer.