Moms Without Capes

Self-esteem is defined as the opinion you hold about yourself and when you ask yourself “what do I think about myself?”, what do you come up with? On a scale of 1 to 10, where does your opinion of yourself lie? Would you say you are a 10? Take a moment and honestly assess the level of your self-esteem and if you’re any less than a 9, then perhaps you could benefit from the strategies I’m about to go through in this post.

To build your self-esteem and to change the opinion you have about yourself takes intention and work. You can not expect to suddenly like yourself overnight. Sure, there may be moments where you feel good about yourself and experience some pride about a job well done but it is the act of reflecting, collecting evidence, and consistently challenging your thoughts and underlying beliefs that will ultimately shift your opinion of yourself to one that gives you confidence, purpose, clarity, and fulfillment in life.

 Become aware of and...

The effects of having low self-esteem are wide and at first glance may be surprising but if we go back to the cognitive model, we can see that what we believe about ourselves dictates most of what we think, feel, and do. Therefore your self-esteem is a major player throughout your life and when you don’t like yourself, or your self-esteem level is on the lower end, then much of what you are thinking, feeling, and doing are likely not serving you.

OVERACHIEVING

So, how does low self-esteem affect you? Some of its consequences may appear to be positive and mistakenly not attributed to low self-esteem, such as the drive for success. There is a large handful of overachievers who work to make themselves feel good and significant. They are afraid of letting others know they aren’t good enough (which is the belief they may hold about themselves) so they work twice as hard to prove otherwise. 

Tying your worth to your to-do list may signify you have low self-esteem.

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Stress: It’s part of life and while we would love to live a “stress-free” life, it’s highly unlikely, if not impossible that you’ll ever get there. So, what we need to do is learn how to effectively manage the stress we do experience so that it doesn’t cause adverse effects on our health and well-being. This is possible.

What Exactly is Stress?

Is there such a thing as good stress or is it all bad and harmful? Stress is a state of mental or emotional strain resulting from demanding circumstances. It is a burst of energy that can create a lot of tension if not managed in a healthy way. 

Believe it or not, not all stress is necessarily bad. You likely have experienced stressful moments that have motivated you to meet specific goals or to rise to challenges. When we feel a certain level of stress, we often feel motivated to get tasks accomplished. Stress actually boosts memory and keeps us safe. 

Not all stress is necessarily bad.

Our body...

When we refer to “the self,” all sorts of terms may come up, words like self-identity, self-concept, self-image, self-esteem, and self-love. What’s the difference and how can we move towards becoming our best selves?

Self Identity

Let’s start with self-identity- this is who you are. Self-identity is the awareness of and identification with oneself as a separate individual, how you identify and define yourself. You would describe your identity with specific and selective traits, qualities, abilities, and characteristics that represent you. 

An example of a self-identity is perhaps a role that you play, such as mother or doctor, or perhaps a certain trait that encompasses who you are, such as reliable or lazy. You can identify as a particular sexual orientation like as bisexual or pansexual or as a gender like or unlike the one given to you at birth.

A person’s self-identity is not formed from birth but rather it is shaped through life. Family,...