Low self-esteem: A shared agony.

Low self-esteem? Who cares about low self-esteem? Of course, if you have low self-esteem you do, because it can be emotionally painful. However, if you have low self-esteem, the people who come into contact with you also care. Why? Because a woman with low self-esteem affects everyone she meets.

The impact can be a negative experience where the agony is shared. This is not an intentional side-effect, the woman with low self-esteem probably has no idea that she can have a negative impact on others, as she doesn't appreciate her own value nor her influence on others.

Here are five ways that a woman with low-self-esteem can impact on other people.

1. Low self-esteem can be frustrating to other people. How? People can get frustrated because they can see good things in the woman with low self-esteem, but the woman is not able to accept or see these aspects in herself. The woman with low self-esteem can have such a strong belief in her own negative view of herself, that she can't acknowledge her own good qualities even when these are strikingly obvious to others.
2. Low self-esteem can leave other people feeling unheard. For example, when positive and genuine feedback is given to the woman with low self-esteem it can be knocked back, ignored or disputed. The woman does not hear what is said to her. In this way other people are disregarded. No one likes to be disregarded!
3. Women with low self-esteem, without meaning to, can sometimes drain people of energy. Their willingness to pull themselves down and to find the negatives in a potentially positive situation can suck energy from themselves and energy from others.
4. Feelings of helplessness can arise in others. When people see those they love suffering  from low self-esteem and being down on themselves, it can break their hearts. They want to help but can't. Their attempts to help are thwarted and they are thus left feeling helpless.
5. The woman with low self-esteem can often justify and find evidence to support her negative view of herself. Thus she can counter argue, and dispute and leave a negative tone to a conversation. This can leave others feeling negative too. Mercurio Cicchini, a clinical psychologist, says that if we have low self-esteem:

We only see things which confirm our bad opinions of ourselves, and ignore or reinterpret any evidence which suggests that our negative beliefs about ourselves are wrong in fact."

Is this deliberate. NO! Why explain all this then? Because once you understand that other people don't like you having a low self-esteem any more than you do, it may give you extra motivation and a greater incentive for you to seek help to overcome it.

What this all means is that if you fight to overcome your low self-esteem it will be on enormous benefit to yourself and well deserved. It will also be of benefit to your family, friends and colleagues around you. They don't like you to suffer and can celebrate in your improved sense of self.

May your self-confidence shine and you find a way to overcome your low self-esteem.

The book by Mercurio Cicchini is: "Let your true self shine: How to recognise and overcome the barrier that maintains low self-esteem." 2009. Click here for his website.

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