If you say, think, or feel like you have low self-worth, what does having low self-worth mean? There are several opinions on what self-worth means and thus many opinions on what’s required for someone to feel or be worthy.
You may find that your sense of “worth” 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 beliefs of “I’m not good enough” or“I’m inadequate.” If you never believed you should feel bad about yourself, regardless of what you do, have, or naturally are, you’d rarely use the language of “I have low self-worth.” If that’s not true, please leave a comment for us to discuss.
In essence, the phrase “Low self-worth” is a label to describe the often unconscious phenomenon of viewing an undesirable aspect of oneself as a reason to feel bad. It’s often overlooked, but it’s possible to dislike something without feeling bad about it.
How to feel worthy
Reflect and analyze why you think you should ever feel bad about yourself. Forms of media, such as social media, advertising, and other social influence mechanisms, may be, and likely are, one of the sources of this kind of thinking. Unless you came out of the womb feeling/thinking you had low self-worth, your feelings of low self-worth were learned. If you disagree, please leave a comment. We recognize that some may have had this belief or feeling for as long as they can remember.
Rise above the treatment from others
The feelings of low self-worth sometimes start after being treated a certain way by others. If so, you don’t have to feel bad for how others treated or treat you. In situations like this, we can 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 helpful questions since some people can’t see that they treat people in ways they or their children wouldn’t want to be treated.
In other cases, they may be treating you in undesirable ways because deep inside, they feel bad about themselves. This, of course, doesn’t mean that you’re ok with their behavior, but that you won’t give 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. It may be something you dislike and want to change but you can dislike something without feeling bad about it.
This means you can look neutrally at things you’d like to change and work towards changing those things. Doing this, you transcend the psychology of worthiness. Ultimately, what you likely want is to pursue your goals and desires with internal peace.
Some people believe that high or low self-worth depends on having or doing certain things.
Some people who think like this treat people based on these views and beliefs.
The key question for transcending these outside opinions is whether the rules that designate 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 means high or low self-worth) have the authority to determine whether you can feel ok about yourself? Are they gods?
This way of societal thinking can, in some cases, be 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 believe you have to treat them a certain way. This could also lead you to believe they can treat you a certain way.
As you might see, this dynamic likely benefits the “high self-worth” individual 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. You are not perfect, but that just means you have room for growth.
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
