Topic 2 Ways to improve your self-esteem (part 1)
- Many of us are disconnected from our emotions – especially strong emotions such as anger, sadness, fear – because we’ve been taught to try to shut off our feelings.
- But while you can deny or numb your feelings, you can’t eliminate them. They’re still there, whether you’re aware of them or not. And even unpleasant emotions can have beneficial aspects. Sadness can support emotional healing, for example, fear can trigger life-saving action, and anger can mobilse and inspire.
- Unfortunately, without being connected to all of your emotions, you can’t manage stress, fully understand your own behaviour, or appropriately control how you think and act.
One of the ways we can improve our self-esteem is to change the way they think and behave.
There are 3 main interconnected parts of this Triangle, which we can consider that might make us think and behave differently:
Thought:
Behaviour:
Emotions:
Thought:
Our thoughts affect our behaviours and our emotions
Behaviour:
Our behaviour affects our thoughts and our emotions.
Emotions:
Our emotions affect our thoughts and our behaviour.
Can you recognise the difference between the two scenarios below:
- I have a lot of challenges in my life, I feel stressed, and I act out.
- I have a lot of challenges in my life, so I will accept these and do something to fix these challenges.