“Love yourself,” my parents used to say to me, “believe in yourself and you can do anything”. A truism worthy of a pedestal deserving of a dais. I grew up recognizing the divinity of these words. And yet… how do you manufacture confidence when you don’t have a stock of it, due to whatever reasons, and there are a multitude.
Tomes have been written on the subject. But quarter of a century into the new millennium it’s confounding how little has changed. The scourge of low self-worth weighs heavily on the alphabet generations – children we bent over backwards to educate and validate, so they’d grow up to be confident adults and, first and foremost, choose good partners in life.
I hear so many stories.
“My daughter has an eating disorder since she’s been with this man,” a good friend of mine told me recently. “She has a habit of choosing men who are controlling, who aren’t good for her. I hope she gets her self-esteem back. The wrong man, the wrong marriage can ruin a woman’s potential and dreams,” is her belief.
Her daughter attended the best schools, graduated from an Ivy League institution, has travelled the globe and worked for some of the world’s largest companies. She boasts a stellar CV and at 28, has youth and beauty on her side. Yet she’s withering away, hitched to a (considerably older) narcissistic, controlling hanger-on, too afraid to ditch him and be alone, her self-esteem in tatters.
“I sacrificed everything to give her a better education than I got and more chances and experiences than I had so she could be free and independent and make her own choices,” her devastated mother says.
How widely is this sentiment echoed by others? Maybe we – the parents – are part of the problem, maybe not – but that’s not the point. What is frustrating is this enduring, persistent existence of low self-worth among women (I make no claims regarding men). I want to shout it at full volume from the rafters.
I provide no solutions to this conundrum, for I am no psychologist or erudite expert. But I do have a couple of thoughts.
Today more than ever, it appears highly convenient and profitable to have a generation of young women who doubt themselves and feel that they’re not good enough because this makes them more compliant. There is less money to be made out of confident women who believe that they’re fine just as they are. And so, adrift in a sea of propaganda, we sell our souls to conquer loneliness, seduced by the poetry of a tongue or a pair of eyes that can swiftly turn poisonous, then back to sweetness, and pivot again, like a pendulum.
What I would suggest to women like Rai, the key protagonist in X in Provence, is this: You were self-deluded, but that’s okay. You were fearful of being alone, there’s no blame or shame in that. You gave your power away for the chimera of love, but you can reclaim it. You stepped into the role of a victim but you can put on your warrior shoes. You can take a seat at the “It’s okay to be me” table. You can assume responsibility for your actions.
Problems with low self-esteem are essentially about us – you and me – not about him or them. It doesn’t help us to deflect. We must shine the light onto ourselves, for that’s where the healing begins. All those push buttons for destructive behaviours – with intentionality, we can reset them.
Not all bad relationship choices, wrong life turns and mis-steps can be attributed to a lack of confidence or low self-worth. Of course not. But self-esteem is a foundational building block for whatever or however you interpret success to be in your life.
I have two daughters. “Believe in yourself and you can do anything,” I say to them for guidance. And then I (try to) get out of the way. It’s their journey.