42 replies to this topic

[jewishthought]

i have this one really good friend that tells me what i need to change.... so she said i dontt have self esteem so how am i supposed to get it?????

[Rabbi Shapiro]

It depends why you don't have it,

That's what you need to know first.

[rocksdontfly]

I also have low self esteem :/ I'm working at it a lot though. The thing is that I just dont see what everyone else does. I cant accept compliments bc I feel like everyone is lying to me. On the occasions that I do feel good about myself I feel guilty bc I'm afraid of feeling gavadik. Of course I understand that theres a very important balance and between gaava and anava and no extreme is the right path. I just cant find that middle road

[jewishthought]

i think she said that because i think im ugly and i feel like no one likes me and all my friends are like i guess "using" me i dont know thats what i think so how do i fix that????

[jewishthought]

i dont have self confidence or those type of things

[Rabbi Shapiro]

i think she said that because i think im ugly and i feel like no one likes me and all my friends are like i guess "using" me i dont know thats what i think so how do i fix that????

The way to fix that is to realize it's not so.

You say you feel like nobody likes you and your friends are using you.

OK, I want you to stop focusing on how you feel for a moment and just focus on what's in your mind.

Do you really believe, in your head, that your friends are using you and nobody likes you?

Or is it that even though you know in your head they are regular friends, you are not getting the connection you expect from them, and you're not sure why that would be, so you're becoming suspicious that they're really using you?

Lots of times we have these nagging feelings that things are a certain way and we know in our heads they're not that way, and then the problem is, "How do I get rid of this bad feeling"? You want to feel the way you know in your head things are. Sometimes we look at our feelings and we say "If I feel that way it must be true, because if it's not then why do I feel that way?" And you trust your feelings over your head because you figure your feelings are more "honest" with you, because you can't fake feelings.

If that's the issue, if you have these nagging feelings and you don;t know why you have them, we'll deal with that.

If on the other hand, your friends are really using you and everybody really doesn't like you, then we can deal with that.

But first you need to tell me which of the two we are dealing with.

(I suspect the first, because you didn't say you have a problem that nobody likes you and your friends are using you etc.. Instead, you said your problem is a lack of self-confidence. The reason for the lack of elf-confidence is that you feel nobody likes you etc. If you really believed in your head that nobody likes you, you would have framed the problem differently. You would have said the problem is that nobody likes you. The lack of self-confidence would be an additional, and understandable side-effect of the problem. But since you framed the problem as a lack of self-confidence and not a lack of friends, that seems to tell me that it's a feeling that nobody likes you that we are dealing with. But your head does not see it that way. Am I right?)

[jewishthought]

i think i have those nagging feelings....

[Ziva613]

I had and still have self esteem issues that i myself am working on. I used to feel like i was being used by my friends, but then i realized that i only felt that way because i had such negative thoughts about myself. I began to search for WHY i had negative thoughts about myself and found that i had never once accomplished or completed something, i had never done anything that i was proud of and i was not allowing myself to see the good character traits that i have. So i began to slowly, i made a schedule for myself to keep. I began to get up at 5:00 - 5:30 and Pray. Get ready for school and give myself enough time to make sure i looked good. And slowly i started to feel better about my appearance. Then i set small goals for myself. and i accomplished them one by one and the more i accomplished the bigger the goal would get. and it became a game. "Lets see how many goals Ziva can accomplish this week!" and soon i was proud of myself and my accomplishments and i have since then set religiosity and sincerity onto my list of goals and am working tirelessly to achieve these.

My point being that for me, i needed to accomplish something and feel important and proud of myself.
I no longer feel like my friends are taking advantage of me because i feel like i am worth liking and/or loving. My relationships with my good friends are better than ever and i feel that the words i say are more important and worthy to be heard.

Hopefully this will help you. Sorry to write so much.

[jewishthought]

but how do i get rid of those nagging feelings???

[Ziva613]

Well When I began to recognize my good qualities I was so focused on them that i made the nagging feelings go away. Does that make sense?

[jewishthought]

the problem is that i dont see any of my good qualities...

[Ziva613]

So my Rabbi/Teacher told me to make a list of NOT superficial qualities that i thought i might have. For Example: Im very giving.
and then he said to say HOW i came to that conclusion. For example: I enjoy giving my time and efforts to others and i notice that it makes me happy when i do that.
So when we made a list together i was able to see whet i had and what i didnt and now i can work on what i dont have.
If you have no where to start ask your parents what good qualities you have or ask a teacher or a good friend. then go from there. Make a good list!

[Rabbi Shapiro]

but how do i get rid of those nagging feelings???

What do you tell someone who has a million dollars in the bank and says they have "nagging feelings" that they are poor?

You don't tell them to focus on those feelings; you tell them to focus on their bank statement.

The first step is done. You recognize that your feelings of inadequacy do not reflect reality, and that in your head you know the truth. Now your question is, how do you get rid of the feelings?

The answer is: Don't try to. Such feelings are like images of a pink elephant in your mind. The more you try to get rid of them, the more they stay (just try not thinking of a pink elephant for 30 secnds and see what happens). You need to internalize the fact that just because you feel a certain way does not make it so. Hashem gave us feelings to spur us on to do with we know is right and to motivate us to stay away from what we know is wrong. But feelings cannot tell us what is right and what is wrong, or what is correct and what is incorrect.

Consider: You're driving on the highway at 60 MPH and you hit an ice patch and go into a skid.

What do your feelings tell you to do at that moment?

If you listen to your feelings, you're dead.

Or: Someone wakes up in the middle of the night and the house is on fire. What do their feelings tell them to do?

They are not supposed to just run out the door. They can get themselves killed that way.

Or - simpler case - a mosquito bite. Your feelings tell you to scratch it. We know it's best to just ignore those feelings. Not try to make them go away; just to ignore them.

Feelings do not always tell the truth. They are not designed to. Your head is designed for that.

Now, I am not telling you not to stop feeling the way you feel. I am telling you to just not think that the feelings which you know are not telling the truth need to be stopped. They don't. But they also don't have to bother you. As long as you know that the way feelings work is, they sometimes tell you random false things, you can live with them, and not let them bother you. Like the pink elephant. Don't try to stop thinking about him, just relaize that he's not real and then he'll go away on his own.

I want to tell you a story. Years ago, when my oldest son was about 7, we were at a Chol Hamoed fun-park, and there was this "ride" there, where the kids would climb this tall ladder onto a small platform, and then cross a rickety plank bridge that led to a sliding pond, which the kids would slide down, back to "safety." Now of course the whole thing was safe but the kids were scared stiff to cross that bridge, and kid after kid would climb that ladder, and stare at the plank bridge, petrified, with their mother or father right in back of them, prodding them on.

"I'm scared," the kid would say.

"Don't be scared," the mother or father would answer. But the kid would stand there, frozen, trying unsuccessfully to not be scared. The mother or father would get nervous because a long line of mothers or fathers with their kids were waiting to climb up that ladder, and they would kind of nudge the kid to stop standing there and get on to that bridge already. The frightened kids would grab the handrails on both sides, and slowly make their way across the bridge,step by step, with a look on their faces that said they expecting the whole rickety thing to collapse any moment.

When it was my son's turn, I used a different strategy.

"Tatty, I'm scared," he said.

"That's fine. Be scared," I said. "Just do it anyway."

And he ran across the bridge.

If you try to change your feelings, you won't be successful. But you don't need to change them. You just need to go ahead regardless of them. When your feelings tell you to slam on the brakes during a skid, the proper response is not to try to stop feeling like stepping on the brakes, but rather to ignore those feelings and just do what you need to do. Same thing when you're in any crisis situation. The idea is not to stop your feelings. You just need to know not to listen to them.

The same applies to you. You have these nagging feelings. You KNOW they are wrong. Don't try to stop the feelings. Just don't listen to them. Let them be there. It's fine to feel that way. Just go on anyway.

You know that you really do have friends and that they do like you. Don't worry about the pink elephant in your head. Just let him be there, and let life go on. You'll soon see him disappear. But he'll only disappear if you don't care that he's there.

Focus on your good points. Focus on your friends. And look at those "nagging" feelings as the same kind of nagging feelings that tell you to slam on the breaks during a skid.

It is your feelings that are preventing you from seeing your qualities. Or rather, it is the illusion that your feelings are giving you that is making you think, "If I really have good qualities, like I know in my head I do, then why do I feel like I don't?"

The answer is, feelings don't always make sense. That's the way they work.

It's fine to feel the way you do. Just live your life the way you want regardless. If you don't give attention to these feelings they will stop giving attention to you.

So just think about the fact that you DO have go traits, that you DO have friends, that they DO like you. And accept the feelings as, well, just feelings, which often do not reflect reality.

The feelings will fade, like a mosquito bite. But remember - the more it bothers you. Feelings are like that sometimes.

The feelings will fade, if you understand they are just an annoying itch.

You know the feelings are causing you to see an illusion. The problem is, you are trying to get rid of the feelings in order to be able to see through the illusion. But the opposite is true:

You need to see through the illusion to get rid of the feelings.

[jewishthought]

rabbi shapiro- so basically your saying that my feelings arent always true and whenever i feel something bad i should ignore it....?

[Rabbi Shapiro]

rabbi shapiro- so basically your saying that my feelings arent always true and whenever i feel something bad i should ignore it....?

Any time you feel something in your emotions that you know in your head is false, you should ignore those feelings and follow what you know in your head.

Like when your feelings tell you to slam on the brakes in a skid. Or to run through a burning building to get out the door. Or to scratch a mosquito bite.

Or that you have no real friends.

[jewishthought]

but my friends always say im weird. like evrything i do or say they say "oh my gosh your soooo weird!" and then i feel like they dont like me and i dont have friends.

[eidel]

Those people probably didn't catch why you were saying or doing whatever it was, but if they thought negatively of you, I bet they wouldn't have expressed it as "weird", in a light way. It doesn't sound like you did anything to hurt those around you, so I wouldn't think they don't like you. You sound like a soft, sweet person.

I think it's good to first picture what kind of person you want to be. Is there anybody you admire? Any dreams since childhood? (u don't have to share them on the internet) If you have a vivid image of what you want to be, then it becomes clearer what type of folks you want as friends. And you can always ask Hashem to give you many good friends you ***click*** with!

[jewishthought]

eidel- what do you mean if i had any dreams since childhood? why would that change anything?

[eidel]

I mean, if you know what you want to be and concentrate on your goals, that should make you aware of your good qualities. Because you must already have those good qualities (which you'll see in the direction you're pulled to, your good inclination) which only needs more of your attention to flourish.

When you know yourself better, you can be more confident in how to deal with each friend, how close to be with each one, how to balance it out, & finding new friends going in the same direction as you are.

[jewishthought]

i think im alittle too young to start thinking of what i wanna do....