When we feel low and doubt our own abilities or actions, more often than not our self confidence can bear the brunt of these emotions. It’s normal to not always feel totally at one with yourself, some days we all have knocks to our confidence, but this post hopes to offer five ways to boost your confidence if you’ve fallen out of love with self-love.
1. Stop Comparing Yourself:
It’s so easy to compare how you handle situations to others and perhaps feel you’re not reacting in the right way or not doing enough. But no matter how well you may feel you understand them, you never truly know what others experience or how they perceive their life. We must realise that we can not compare our life to someone else’s if we want to love ourselves. Instead, spend your time and energy nourishing and building your own path.
In the same vein, if you try to live up to other people’s expectations, you will inevitably struggle to recognise your own self-worth. Let go of worrying about how others perceive what you are or aren’t doing, instead follow your own intuition and emotions and do what you think is best.
2. Listen to Your Thoughts:
The mind is always operating from a place of duality, so to feel inferior or superior at times is totally normal. Become aware and conscious of how you treat yourself in your own mind. Be attuned to your own self. You’re not always going to feel positive and upbeat and that’s okay. The best thing we can do is acknowledge our thoughts and feelings when they come.
Allow yourself to feel things fully. Lean into pain, revel in your joy and don’t put limitations on your feelings. Fear, pain and joy are emotions that will help you understand yourself and ultimately realise that you will not always be defined by these feelings.
3. Forgive:
Shame, regret and guilt can often sabotage our self esteem and sense of self-worth. We often find it easier to forgive others, but we must try to practise this compassion on ourselves as well. To truly love yourself you have to acknowledge that no human is perfect. The most that we can ask of ourselves, and of people in our life, is that we all do the best that we are able to do at this moment.
4. Treat yourself like your worthy right now, even if you don’t feel it:
In other words, start practising self-care. You may currently feel low or upset but treating yourself as if you are worthy of the care you no doubt extend to others will help you to eventually acknowledge your own self-worth.
5. Learn to Overcome a Fear of Self-love:
Self-love is often equated to vanity or narcissism. But a healthy form of self-love is about being your own best friend. Self-love is not expressed through focusing on your looks and saying how amazing you are everyday; rather, self-love is about treating yourself with same care, generosity and compassion you would no doubt extend to a good friend.
Even if you don’t feel particularly powerful right now, just think how far you’ve come and be patient with yourself. Self-love may not come overnight. But with time, it will settle itself into your heart. If you are feeling low or even just want a chat our Care and Support Team are always there for you, contact our Families Officer, Karen Thomas, at karen@npuk.org or call our 24-hour helpline on 0191 415 0693.
Researched and written by NPUK Communications Assistant, Eleanor Lily Taggart.
