Self-Esteem - The Inner Practice That Changes Everything

Good, healthy self-esteem is kind of a big deal.

I know this because I know what it feels like when mine is healthy and I’m also very familiar with what it feels like when mine is out-of-whack. When my esteem is good, I feel comfortably certain but also open for something new, my body feels relaxed and at ease, I’m grounded in my decisions, I am kind and loving to myself (and others), I’m able to accept feedback from others and regulate quickly if it is delivered harshly, I stand up for myself with love, look at others success as inspiration, rest and so much more.  

When my self-esteem has taken a hit…well it’s quite the opposite.  I don’t tend to spend long in this winded self-esteem space anymore because I recognise it, connect to self-compassion and take care of myself.  But this wasn’t always the case!!  I remember distinctly when I made my mind up to change my relationship to myself.  I knew that I had to stop being so affected by my environment (people, places, things, objects).  Back then, life was a roller coaster of high-highs and low-lows. My life ,or how I felt about my life, was dependent on things outside of me.  I didn’t have the self-esteem to weather a loved one being angry at me – I would feel awful or if I received a less-than great mark on an assignment…argh, the self-flagellation that would ensue! My self-talk wasn’t great either. 

I didn’t want my life to be dependent on things outside of me. I wanted to feel good about me regardless of how other people felt about me, how I performed at uni and so on.

Self-esteem isn’t just about feeling good. It’s about knowing your worth regardless of what is happening in your environment. Healthy self-esteem is one of the main ingredients to living a fulfilling and wholesome life. It is essential to feeling safe on the inside. It allows us to know ourselves and to fully embrace who we are. It allows us to take responsibility and repair relationships.  It allows us to be kind and loving to ourselves, others and to our planet!

What’s not to love about that?!

Inside-Out Self-Esteem

Self-esteem is the quiet but powerful relationship we have with ourselves—the internal narrative that shapes how we move through the world.

It’s our sense of inherent worth as a human being, the foundation from which we experience life, make decisions, and connect with others.

 Self-esteem lives in how we speak to ourselves in moments of struggle, how we honour our needs and boundaries, and how we navigate the space between who we are and who we’re becoming. It’s the steady inner voice that says you matter, you’re worthy of love and respect, and you deserve to take up space in your own life. Healthy self-esteem provides resilience when challenges arise, allowing us to remain grounded in our worth even during times of uncertainty or transition.

Healthy self-esteem doesn’t mean we never doubt ourselves or feel insecure—it means we have a foundational sense of our own value that remains steady even when life feels uncertain.

It’s the ground from which everything else in our life grows: our relationships, our choices, our courage, and ultimately, our capacity for genuine connection and fulfillment.

So why don’t we all have this steady, loving sense of worth? We’ve been set up… !

Capitalism, Patriarchy and Consumer Culture

We don’t develop our sense of self-worth in a vacuum. The systems we live within—patriarchy, capitalism, consumer culture for example, are designed to keep us feeling inadequate because our insecurity is profitable and maintains power structures.

Patriarchy teaches us that our value is tied to our desirability, youth, and ability to meet impossible standards of beauty, achievement and behaviour. Capitalism thrives on our sense of “not enough”—not successful enough, not productive enough, not achieving enough—so we keep striving, consuming, and chasing external markers of worth. The marketing machine deliberately cultivates dissatisfaction, showing us curated images of perfection and then selling us products, services, and lifestyles that promise to fix what it convinced us was broken.

 Do I need to mention social media and its endless opportunities for comparison and validation?  These forces are so pervasive that we often internalize them without realizing it, measuring ourselves against benchmarks designed to keep us perpetually reaching for the next thing rather than resting in our inherent value. Understanding these influences isn’t about blame—it’s about awareness.

When we recognize how external systems have shaped our internal worth, we can begin to disentangle our true self from the stories we’ve been sold.

Family of Origin

Of course, our family of origin has a significant role in how our sense of worth is developed. When we are young, we don’t have the capacity to discern wisely why a parent may have left, why our siblings seemed to take a distinct dislike to us, why, no matter what we did, it never seemed to be enough or good-enough. These experiences influence how we feel on the inside. Another aspect of this is that our family of origin (our parents) model their self-esteem to us which unconsciously shapes our sense of esteem.

The External Validation Triad

There are 3 common ways we gain self-esteem external from ourselves.  I like and use the model developed by relational therapist Terry Real, which outlines attribute-based esteem, performance-based esteem and other-based esteem The problem with external self-esteem is that it’s dependent on things outside of our control…which means that our sense of worth and how we feel on a day-to-day basis is out of our control.  Zero fun.  

Performance-Based Esteem

Performance-based esteem is the belief that “I have worth because of what I can do”.  This means ordinary acts routinely become tests of worthiness.  Your value becomes tied to achievements, accomplishments, productivity, and success. When you’re winning, achieving, or performing well, you feel worthy and valuable. But the moment you face setbacks, make mistakes, or simply need to rest, your sense of self crumbles.

It’s the workaholic who can’t stop striving, the perfectionist who feels useless if they’re not producing, the person whose entire identity rests on their professional success or accomplishments.

The exhausting truth is that performance-based esteem requires constant proof—you’re only as good as your last achievement, forever running on a treadmill that has no finish line.

Attribute-Based Esteem

Attribute-based esteem operates on the principle “I have worth because of what I have”—big muscles, a prestigious degree, an impressive partner, material possessions, physical attractiveness.  As noted above, the entire advertising industry is built on this form of esteem: “Buy this car and be a person of distinction,” when in reality, you’re a person of distinction with or without the car.  This type can also show up in how parents derive worth from their children’s successes, believing their child’s achievements reflect their own value.  Attribute-based esteem is particularly insidious because it ties your worth to things that inevitably change, fade, or fluctuate with time and circumstances. Your appearance ages. Markets crash. Relationships end. Status shifts. When your self-esteem depends on these external attributes, you’re building your sense of self on constantly shifting ground.

Other-Based Esteem

Other-based esteem means “I have worth because other people think I do”—your value is determined entirely by external validation, approval, and how others regard you.  More extreme examples of this include love addiction and co-dependency.  This form can be common in women (but not always of course!), who are often socialized to derive their worth from being chosen, desired, or approved of by others. You supplement your lack of internal self-regard with what others think of you—needing constant reassurance, praise, or validation to feel okay about yourself. When approval comes, you feel temporarily worthy; when it withdraws or criticism arrives, you feel worthless. This creates an exhausting dependency on external sources for your internal state, leaving you perpetually anxious about others’ opinions and willing to contort yourself into whatever shape might earn their approval. You lose yourself trying to be whoever others need you to be, because without their validation, you genuinely don’t know if you have value at all.

Do you have a sense of your go-to?

It's important to add that of course we can still aspire to earn great money, to achieve great things, to take care of your body etc. Do them with love for yourself, knowing that no matter what the outcome, you are already worthy.  

Poor Self-Esteem and Behaviour - Grandiosity and Shame

When our self-esteem isn’t great, we can find ourselves moving into feelings of shame or grandiosity.

Shame is that painful feeling of being fundamentally flawed, less-than, or not enough—it’s when we collapse into ourselves and believe we’re unworthy of love and connection.

In this shame-based position, we’re constantly bracing for rejection and criticism so we might either work really hard, feverishly demonstrating that we are worthy (think other/performance/attribute-based esteem) to avoid rejection or criticism or we withdraw into ourselves as any effort is futile – what’s the point, it will never happen anyway… Does this feel familiar? Shame feels awful and because of this, it is relatively easy to recognise.

 On the opposite end, grandiosity is when we puff ourselves up, positioning ourselves as better-than, right, or superior to others—it’s often a defensive inflation that masks our underlying insecurity.  

Grandiosity can also be caused from growing up in an environment where we were constantly told how great we were and we were not held responsible for our behaviour.  Despite the name, grandiosity does not have to be obvious…it is often underhanded and covert - easily hidden – even from us at times.

One of the dangers of grandiosity is that it feels amazing.  So great, that it blocks our capacity to have empathy for others and to understand the impact of our behaviour on others.  When I first learnt about grandiosity, it was a total light-bulb moment and a huge awakening of this part of me that I wanted to shift. In the past, I had recognised shame but certainly not grandiosity but ohhh…it was there!

 When we are in grandiosity, we might become the expert who always has the answer, the martyr who does everything better than everyone else, the road rager because only an idiot drive like that!, the one who talks down to people with a condescending tone (eek!)  or the critic who points out everyone else’s flaws to avoid looking at their own.  

I’m sure you will have your own unique grandiosity flare and once you know it, you can’t un-know it.

Shame and grandiosity represent different ways of behaving in relation to self-esteem.  We might have a tendency to move down into shame or up into grandiosity however, they can show up within the same conversation or even the same thought. You might shame yourself for a mistake, then flip into grandiosity by blaming your partner or circumstances to escape that uncomfortable feeling.  Or you might present as grandiose in public—confident, capable, having it all together—only to collapse into shame when you’re alone, convinced you’re a fraud.

The problem is that neither position allows us to show up authentically in our relationships. When we’re in shame, we withdraw, people-please, or become passive, making genuine intimacy impossible because we’re not actually present—we’re too busy managing our feelings of inadequacy. We might agree to things we don’t want, fail to express our real feelings, or abandon ourselves to keep the peace. Our partners, friends, and family members can’t truly know us because we’re hiding behind our sense of unworthiness. When we’re in grandiosity, we become controlling, critical, or dismissive, pushing others away. We might insist on being right, refuse to acknowledge our mistakes, or make others feel small so we can feel big. This creates distance and resentment in our relationships because no one wants to be in connection with someone who positions themselves as superior.

Practices for Building & Maintaining Healthy Esteem

Develop body awareness and attunement - Pay attention to the sensations in your body as signals of your emotional state. Notice tension, tightness, heat, or heaviness as indicators that you might be moving into shame or grandiosity. Your body often knows before your mind does.

 Name it, claim it, and choose a path back to centre - Once you’ve identified what you’re feeling and which position you’re in (shame or grandiosity), acknowledge it without judgment. Then consciously prescribe a way to move yourself back to wholeness—whether that’s taking deep breaths, going for a walk, calling a friend, or using a grounding technique.

Identify your esteem source and shift it - Notice when you’re operating from other-based esteem (needing others’ approval), performance-based esteem (your worth tied to accomplishments), or attribute-based esteem (your value dependent on looks, intelligence, status). When you catch yourself in these patterns, actively redirect by reminding yourself of your inherent worth and choosing one small action that reflects intrinsic value rather than external validation.

Practice self-compassion and challenge your inner critic - Notice when your internal dialogue becomes harsh or shaming. Would you speak to a friend the way you’re speaking to yourself? Learn to catch those critical thoughts and respond with the same kindness and understanding you’d offer someone you care about.

Practice relational repair and accountability - When you make mistakes (which you will, because you’re human), practice acknowledging them without collapsing into shame or deflecting into grandiosity. Learn to say “I messed up, I’m sorry, and here’s what I’ll do differently” and then move forward without excessive self-flagellation or justification.

Cultivate “esteem-able” actions - Engage in behaviours that align with your values and allow you to respect yourself. This isn’t about performance or achievement—it’s about integrity. Keep your commitments to yourself, set boundaries you can be proud of, and act in ways that let you look yourself in the mirror with respect.

Cultivating and maintaining healthy self-esteem is one of the most important things we can do for the relationship we have with ourselves and others.  Healthy self-esteem is an everyday practise.  Remember that you are already worthy. No matter who you are, who you’ve been, what you do, what you have done in the past.  You are no worse or better than anyone else.  You are worthy of being loved because you are. If we all focus on improving our self-worth maybe we really can change the world!

Photo by Pawel Czerwinski on Unsplash