SELF ESTEEM & SELF PERCEPTION
From early on, we come to know ourselves through reflection. Other people function as our first mirrors — their faces, tones, and emotional responses giving us a sense of who we are. Before we have language, we are already reading what brings warmth, what brings withdrawal, what earns approval, and what seems to cost connection.
Over time, these experiences become internal templates: unconscious rules about what parts of you are welcome, which need to be managed, and which should stay hidden.
Low self-esteem often develops when these reflections are inconsistent, critical, or absent — when important aspects of the self are not reliably seen or named. It shows up quietly, as self-doubt, second-guessing, comparison, or a persistent sense of not quite inhabiting your own life your own life. You may appear capable or accomplished while privately feeling unsure, inadequate, or easily unsettled by how you imagine others see you.
Therapy helps distinguish who you are from how you learned to see yourself.
Over time, something in the internal landscape begins to organize differently. What once felt scattered, contradictory, or perpetually unsettled starts to come into relationship. You may still feel uncertainty or vulnerability, but it no longer fragments you in the same way. There’s a growing sense of being held together from the inside.
This coherence doesn’t come from eliminating self-doubt or achieving constant confidence. It comes from developing a steadier relationship with your own experience — one in which feelings, needs, and perceptions can exist without being immediately judged or overridden.
What emerges is a quieter, more durable sense of self — one capable of holding complexity without losing its center.
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