In searching for reasons for low self esteem, either for us or for a loved one such as our child, this shows great caring on our part. Self esteem is a deep internal part of our spirituality. Much like the innermost organs in our bodies or software parts of a computer, if there are restrictions there, then everything outside of that will not be complete or function correctly. In the case of our self esteem, if that is flawed, then our entire life’s function will be at risk. We will look at two sources or reasons for our low self esteem. The first source is the actual events or conditions causing it, which are always negative.
Then there is a second source, being far different, with an opposite purpose. The second source is spiritual, and to teach us profound truth about ourselves and our ultimate value in our own lives. The first source if left unaddressed, will always leave us with permanent low self esteem and an unfulfilled life path with an unreached destiny God planned for us. Without understanding the first source causes of low self esteem, we cannot understand the second source or spiritual reasons for our low self esteem. God’s intention behind our bad events in the end is to give us a strong self esteem based on seeing ourselves more clearly later. This is just the opposite of what we experienced initially. The bad events were difficult, but the bad events’ purpose is to grow us stronger, teach us wisdom, and show us our beauty. Confused? Read further.
The first cause or reasons for our low self esteem are when we interpret any event, setting, or condition as proof positive that we are not good enough, we are inferior to what is needed to do, or be, what is required. In other words, we see ourselves as inferior to what life demands. When we look at our life through those glasses, then we can see any one of a million things as proof of that. Any event, condition, or setting can destroy our self esteem when looked at in that manner. So, what we must do first is look at ourselves again in the light of what happened, which is causing us to doubt ourselves. This may take a while, but if you give yourself or your loved one some time, the mind will cooperate, revealing its heartbreaking experiences to you. Relive what happened, and how you saw yourself at that time.
Just like in Africa, wildebeest herds must ford rivers in migration, inhabited by crocodiles, so too we must cross emotionally dangerous waters ourselves in our migration into adulthood. Middle school and high school are some of the most dangerous river crossing points to our self esteem there are. Reasons for low self esteem from bad social experiences and failed attempts to relate to the opposite gender often come from this period. That is because we are socially least skilled, most needful to build our gender identity, and our need to build our self esteem, at this critical time, are their very highest. This is especially true for introverted sensitive young people, who are at greatest risk of emotional and social vulnerability. Other contributing factors are the high emphasis both males and females put on body image and poise as part of their self esteem. Lack of beauty and physical skills cause heavy casualties to many young persons’ self esteem. Those limitations are completely irrelevant in adult life because they are temporary but weigh heavily in us seeing who we were as a future adult today from back then.
It is important to note that those who were the greatest social failures in all the years of school, even academically, because of emotional disturbances, went on to live successful, fully productive lives in adulthood. Failure in youth social settings, whether in early schooling or even later in higher grades is a poor indication of your desirability as adult in life later. The biggest obstacle in moving forward in our lives is continuing to measure our value as people today based on remembered failures from settings back in Academia and at home from that time. Those worlds of origin are far separate from who you are today, in your present adult world. Also, we falsely measure our value based upon what we feel our appearance is, not on what our contribution value is, which is almost always subjective at first.
Let us look at some of the critical differences between the two settings then and now, and we will look at ourselves today. And see if a pessimistic view of us now is even accurate. For one thing, in the Academia setting of our youth, everything is based on sociality, the outer image. This stacks the deck highly in favor of the extrovert, the talented, the public presentation of a person, and generally those who bloom early. Many individuals having the greatest character, most depth within, and who contribute the most to family, to Humankind fall far outside those parameters. Most of us with low self esteem are late bloomers because it takes longer to grow a magnificent walnut tree than it does to grow a petunia in a pot.
Unfortunately, those who have the most character also have the most confusing questions about life and themselves because they see and feel more spiritually. Not only that, but in our youth, we lack the capacity to put things into words and express our concerns verbally. Moreover, we also lack the vocabulary required to do so. These two confusing things alone cause us compounded frustration, only adding to the emotional trauma we already feel. Shallow lower character extrovert bullying people have no such difficulties.
If you look back carefully at all the events which you see were proof positive that you were a failure, you will notice something previously not seen. Every time you failed, it was because you faced something you were not ready for, and others were. You were put into a situation with others or a setting which favored them socially or culturally and was stacked against you. That is not fair, and that is not life. Most people have low self esteem not because they are less than the relationship or situation, it is because they are more than the situation. The invisible obstacle is deep individual needs to have their depth as a person recognized and mirrored back to them for them to feel validated. Putting deep character people in low level interaction situations will always leave the deep character person feeling invisible and unfulfilled. This is always seen by the deep person that something is wrong and inferior about themselves.
Why we go through things that destroy our self esteem and then research it, is to make us aware we have self esteem, a functioning part of us which is very important. It also teaches us that others have the same internal needs, and we can avoid hurting others in that area. This understanding makes us more complete as family members and friends. Most deep feeling high character persons with greater potential have difficulty finding their proper setting. Simple outgoing people can go anywhere and party and be appreciated readily. This is not so with the gifted. Those who are gifted have much capacity for wisdom. Learning wisdom and deeper truth takes more effort and time. It takes much effort through bad experiences and good realizations from those trials to bring us to our fullest. It takes longer to get a master’s degree in life than a simple graduation from life’s elementary school.
Go back and look carefully at the things that killed your self esteem, and you will see it is a matter of incompatibility, not inferiority on your part. Look deeply within yourself in your heart. Somewhere in that vast inventory of bad events and failures, will be some need you had that was left intentionally unmet. What need you had, and all your failures will have that same need as a theme, will be a mirror of who you deeply are. Put a name on that need and define it into a statement, such as, ‘I want to do or be,’ ‘I need to be loved for being,’ ‘I love something,’ and so forth. All these statements start with ‘I’ because God, Life or Humankind or however else you may see your relationship to creation, wants you to look at yourself.
Your life’s bad events made you look away from yourself and see your life as sovereign over you. Now is the season of growth for you looking at yourself now as sovereign in your life moving forward. Back then you faced those settings and events and lost. Today moving forward, you will again face those same events, settings, and needs and this time you will win. Life will provide them for you with your own effort. It is time to return home to where you were meant to find.
Just for the record, this is an emotional and spiritual encouragement ministry. We are selling nothing here and are not at the present time even set up to take donations, and probably never will. Your healed life are our reward enough, and we are very pleased with that. If you want to, please share your strength with others in your future so our nurturing can live on.