It’s important to define what you mean when you say or think you have low self-worth. There are several opinions on what self-worth means and thus many opinions on what is required for someone to feel or be worthy. You may find that your sense of “worth” or whether you feel worthy or not comes down to whether you think you can feel good or at least neutral about some or all aspects of yourself. In this way, low self-worth is very much linked to the “I’m not good enough” and “I’m inadequate” beliefs. If someone never believed that they should feel bad about themselves, regardless of what they do, have, or who they naturally are, this individual would rarely use the language of “I have low self-worth.”
In essence, the phrase “Low self-worth” is a label to describe the often unknown phenomenon of someone who, rather than feeling ok or neutral about themselves, generally feels bad about who they are. They likely have evidence or reasons for why they think they should feel bad about themself.
How to feel worthy
The key, then, to raising one’s self-worth and eliminating the feeling of having low self-worth is to reflect and analyze why one thinks they should ever feel bad about themself. Forms of media like social media, advertising, and other social influencing mechanisms may be one of the sources or causes of this thinking. Unless you came out of the womb feeling like you had low self-worth or thought you had low self-worth throughout all stages of your childhood, your feelings of low self-worth were learned. We recognize that some may have had this belief or feeling for as long as they can remember.
This way of thinking sometmes starts after being treated a certain way by others. If so, you might not have understood why they treated you that way and may still not know, but you don’t have to feel bad because others treated you or still treat you in ways you dislike. We sometimes forget to ask, “What is it about their psychology that led them to treat me and others this way? Would I treat others the way they treated me? Do I think what they did or do is fair?” These are important questions because, in some cases, other people lack the awareness to understand they’re treating people in ways they wouldn’t want to be treated or in ways they probably wouldn’t want their children to be treated. We don’t have to feel bad about ourselves because of their ignorance.
In other cases, they’re treating us this way because deep inside they feel bad about themselves. This, of course, doesn’t mean that you’re ok with their behavior but that you aren’t giving them the power to disrupt your inner peace. Having and maintaining inner peace doesn’t mean you can’t do everything in your power to change your situation.
The next time you think or feel like you have low self-worth, you can take time to see what you’re feeling bad about and reflect on why you think you should feel bad about it. Yes, it may be something you dislike and want to change but disliking something doesn’t mean you have to feel bad about yourself. You can neutrally look at what you’d like to change and put the work into changing it over time. By doing this, you transcend the psychology of worthiness, which likely fogs up what you’re truly after. What you likely care about is being able to pursue your goals and desires with with internal peace.
Some people believe that high or low self-worth depends on having or doing certain things.
Some people who think like that treat people based on these views and beliefs.
The key question to transcending these outside opinions is to ask whether these rules of what designates high or low self-worth are from the creator of humanity or from other human beings like you. If these rules are from our creator, then, yes, these people are right to categorize people as having high or low self-worth. If these rules aren’t from our creator, then they were created by human beings just like you and I. Why do those human beings (whoever got everyone to think doing or having certain things mean high or low self-worth) have the authority to determine whether you can feel ok about yourself? Are they gods? We put forward that this way of societal thinking can be, in some cases, a manipulation tactic to get people to think and behave in certain ways. If someone can get you to think you’re a low self-worth individual and they’re a high self-worth individual, you may think that you have to treat them a certain way and that they can treat you a certain way. This mode of interaction likely benefits them more than you. When you look at the psychology of self-worth, you can see this kind of manipulation tactic at play in different domains of life, such as in relationships and marketing.
The solution to all of this is to build up the internal strength to assert yourself when other people try to get you to think you should feel bad about yourself for any reason. You are not perfect, but that just means you have room for growth. Your imperfection, regardless of what it may be, is not a reason for someone else (another human like you) to rightly think you should feel bad about yourself. Keep in mind that you don’t have to feel bad in order to change things you don’t agree with or dislike. If you want help building up this internal strength don’t hesitate to contact us or get help in the community. We can all learn and grow from and with one another. Cheers
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