Building self-esteem through counseling

“You are valuable simply because you exist. Not because of what you do or what you have done, but simply because you are.”

—Max Lucado

We all, from time to time, try to be liked and accepted by other people, who mostly don’t care. Why do we do this? Because it’s a rule put there by our society. We have to be liked by the right kind of people. Someone once said we try to impress people whom we don’t even like. Why? Because we want to be a part of the in-crowd. Unfortunately, the in-crowd doesn’t even know our name. They are too worried about hiding who they really are to notice us.

So many of us get wrapped up in what people think about us that we don’t even know what we think about ourselves. It’s funny because we are around ourselves all of the time. It can be hard to like ourselves when we see all of our shortcomings. However, if the only person who likes us is ourselves, it really matters so little what other people think about us.

I have struggled with low self-esteem my whole life. Yes, I can be confident on the outside, but on the inside, I just want to be liked. I was challenged by my counselor to dig deep when it comes to why I am having low self-esteem issues. I am to read and research what it means to have a healthy amount of self-esteem. It has been very good, but also at times very painful. Do I like myself? For the most part, I do, but when something goes sideways, I tend to feel less than. The good part is our feelings are not facts. They will pass with time.

We all have a great amount of worth. We are all made in the image of a God who loves us, and he wants us to see ourselves through his eyes. We will not be perfect. However, baby steps build up over time. Every time we practice good self-esteem, we grow closer to the person that we want to be.

So how do we get there? A good counselor can help us find our way. We can go it alone, but we can arrive there much sooner with help. Counseling is not for the weak. It takes guts to admit we need help. For a long time, I didn’t go to therapy because I was self-conscious about what people would think. Counseling is actually confidential, and the people who go for counseling understand and respect other perspectives.

Reading books helps to develop self-esteem. The more we work on ourselves, the more it will help. To get the best results, we need to think about what we are reading. It is easy to read and not to think about what we are reading.

YouTube has a treasure trove of mental health resources. I typed in the word self-esteem, and a ton of videos popped up. We will not build self-esteem overnight; it is an ongoing process. Some days we will be great, but then other days we will not feel valuable. The key is to just keep going. Over time, we will build up great self-esteem.

Kyle Snyder can be emailed at kylesnyder86@yahoo.com.