If you're confident and have a good level of self esteem - how do you "talk" to yourself?

[ThinkThings]

I'm basically asking because I have very low self esteem, like pretty much non existent. I've been like this from a very very young age so my thoughts / beliefs are pretty entrenched and I honestly don't know if I can improve things.

As a result, I have very low self confidence and also social anxiety. As you can imagine, this has held me back massively in life, in my career and it's had a huge impact on my whole life trajectory. I feel like a failure tbh.

I've tried cbt, reading lots of books, watching videos etc and nothing really seems to work eg. Cbt, mindfulness, therapy, ACT, compassion focussed therapy - I'm going round and round in circles and feeling even more worse than when I started off as I feel so broken.

I'm wondering what on earth goes on in the minds of "healthy" brains that have a good sense of self esteem.

How do you think about yourself / how do you talk to yourself? How do you talk to yourself when you "fail" something? How are you in new situations like starting a new job. Show me a peek inside what I should be aiming for.

I had hypnosis a couple of years back and the therapist did some inner child work and when I "met" my younger self - I was about 3/4 and the therapist asked me to say hello and try to play with her and interact. Well I had a flood of disgust / shame / anger / contempt to this child. I fucking wanted to push her and shove her and treat her like she's nothing. I quickly asked if I could "get out" which we did. He said he's never really had ppl have that reaction - its usually love, care , compassion that they feel. He said I must have a very entrenched dislike for myself which needs exploring in other ways but it's not something he could help with and we ended our sessions shortly after. I think this is why I find it impossible to be kind to myself. He did ask the way I felt towards that little girl was the way I was treated when I was a child and yes it was.

Trauma

I observe that what is missed in this discussion is the visceral feelings of low self esteem. ‘The Body Holds The Score.’ is excellent in describing how muscle memory, lymbic memory makes it so difficult to regulate behaviour when a lymbic memory is triggered. It’s a powerful energy that sometimes you need to ride although ultimately so damaging. It’s not a simple act of note and move on.

You're so right. I've just bought that book. It would explain why I just react to triggers and I can't help it. No matter how much I try to rationalise it, it's so automatic I have no control. That's the social anxiety. Tbh one therapist felt I didn't even have social anxiety as my thoughts aren't so much about being self conscious/ making a fool of myself. The thoughts I think and I can't even sometimes recognise my thoughts are things like I'm going to get shouted at / people yelling at me. It comes from a place of intense fear.

What therapy or techniques does the book auggest?

Do you have DC? What really helped me was comparing the way I speak to myself, to the way I speak to them. I realised that I wouldn't tolerate anyone speaking to DC the way I was doing to myself and that helped me change it.

The thoughts I think and I can't even sometimes recognise my thoughts are things like I'm going to get shouted at / people yelling at me. It comes from a place of intense fear.

You really need a therapist very experienced in working with trauma, someone who understands somatic therapy will help you with the felt sense you describe - it’s not something that can be reasoned away so CBT type techniques aren’t really helpful.

I should say, once you’ve had space to process your trauma, all of the other stuff will give you strategies to address your self talk but the trauma work needs to come first.

Set yourself a goal in one thing, work as hard as you need to to achieve it, and succeed at it.

For example: set yourself a challenge that you WILL run a 10k race next June (or 5k - or whatever challenge in whatever non-work or social situation). Then, spend the time researching how you’re going to make it happen. Then, do the work to make it happen. No excuses. No “I can’t do this”, “I can’t run” because - I’m assuming you are physically able to put one foot in front of the other - you can. No “people will look at me”. You’ll start off walking, then walking with a bit of a jog every few feet and wearing and going pink in the face, then you’ll jog, then you’ll run, then you’ll increase the distance. Then you’ll run your race and you’ll finish it.

Once you’ve done it, you’ll have proven to yourself that yes you can. You did it. Nobody did it for you, nobody helped you, you did it by yourself with the sheer force of your mind and the body you have.

This will give you an enormous boost. You will remember in other realms of your life that when you put your mind to it and put in the work and ignore the voices, you can do it.

Confidence is a belief in your abilities. Some people have confidence but don’t have the ability - which also works up to a point but only so far. Confidence built on proof is divine: nobody can take it away, nobody can change history, you will have done it and that’s a FACT. You won’t look back.

@ThinkThings @Jellycatspyjamas

Trauma - somantic therspy. Spot on.

The The Body Keeps The Score is the seminal work. As a potential therapy their reflection on this work. If they know, understand and apply they’re worth exploring potential therapy further with

oh why don’t I proof read before press send!

Ask a potential therapist their thoughts

@ThinkThings if The Body Keeps the Score resonates, look up SarahBcoaching on Instagram - she trained with the author Besel Van Der Kolk and she has a lovely way of explaining the different states of the nervous system and working out what’s best to do to get yourself out of the freeze (trauma) state (e.g. When you’re at work and feeling yourself close up and getting anxious).

She does little reels/posts which are easy to digest but you might need to watch a few to put together some pieces.

@Iwritethissittinginthekitchensink

good recommendation.

I’m not confident and I have a dozen thoughts flying around at any time, some of it quite negative. When I catch these I’ve taken to muttering “Fuck off Fred” or “shut up Sheila” because it puts them outside of me, and makes them less important. In recent years I’ve taken to having nice, kindly chats with myself when I’m feeling low.

But clearly I’m a mad bag of kittens, one step away from being institutionalised.

Your hypnosis sounds very interesting. But you stopped your sessions. Presumably Because you couldn't cope with it all. But you were actually getting somewhere there. It's a well-known fact fact that in Counselling things get worse before they get better.

He told me that he wasn't really the best person for this and suggested I look at other type of therapy that he doesn't do like parts work. / IFS. I couldn't find anyone near me and tbh I couldn't afford it.

I agree with other posters, I don't think I talk to myself at all most of the time. I'm just getting on and doing things and thinking about what I'm doing.