You’re tired of beating yourself up all the time.
It feels like you’re in a different world than other people. The negative thoughts about yourself make you feel lonely, sad, and angry with yourself…Questions like “why can’t I just get over these feelings?” or “What is wrong with me?” are all too familiar.
You feel disconnected from your friends and family because you’re stuck in your head so much….And that place is not a fun place to be a lot of times. It’s filled with self-critical thoughts like “I’m such a screw up” or “I’m so stupid I can’t believe I did that.” Or maybe you have regrets about past decisions you’ve made and can’t seem to forgive yourself because you “should’ve just known better.”
Even though you’re doing fine on the outside, your work life is going well and people seem to think you have it together, inside there’s a tornado of thoughts that you just can’t seem to shake. You’ve been dealing with low self-esteem for so long that you’ve gotten really good at faking confidence. You’re an expert at bottling up your feelings. You want so badly for your outside perception to match how you feel on the inside. Even though you know that your problems probably stem from some childhood “stuff” it’s still hard to give yourself permission to feel things that are completely normal to feel.
You may feel like your self-esteem issues have gotten in the way of deeply connecting with friends, family, or your romantic partner. This disconnect makes you feel lonely and increases your frustration with yourself. Maybe you’ve been able to fake confidence for so long that you’ve managed to hide your self-esteem issues from those around you or maybe they have actually gotten in the way of your relationships or your work performance. Of course then you beat yourself up even more by shaming yourself for your self-esteem issues…It’s a vicious cycle that you just want to stop.