Self-Concept

I want to go beyond self-esteem, or assertiveness, or self-confidence for a minute. I need to talk about self-concept, literally who do you think you are.

I realize that a lot of the negative assumptions I make and the self-defeating behaviors and anxieties I experience, are due to a negative self-concept. I think "am I the kind of person who <insert ability to get a need met here>", "does <desired kind of event> happen to the kind of person I am?" and all too often the disturbing answer I get from deep inside is "no, sucks to be you". This IS depressing and this DOES generate situational anxiety! I don't fully grasp how to change this, but it's critical to me that I DO change this.

Does anybody have any ideas about how this can be best accomplished? I've tried a few things but I'm still not there yet.

Hello Onward: I have this kind of negative self-talk going on all of the time too. I think many, maybe most, people who struggle with depression and / or anxiety do. There are many different techniques out there. Of course, there's positive affirmations, distracting yourself by doing something such as exercising or engaging in a hobby, & other stuff.

Personally I prefer the technique taught by the Buddhist nun Pema Chodron. Pema has written books about this. So I couldn't possibly go into it all here. But, in the proverbial nutshell, what it entails is allowing yourself to be with the negative thought, acknowledging it, being gentle with it, & then allowing it to fade away at it's own pace. In other words, rather than to fight it, distract yourself from it, or forcibly replace it with something else, we allow it to come forth, we sit calmly with it & allow it to drift away like a cloud when it is ready.

Self-concept ... who do I think I am? Most recently I have been trying let go of my personal 'story' and really connect with and understand who I am as a child of the Universe, loved, perfect, and whole, just as I am, no changes necessary. I have to keep reminding myself of this but it is really helping me grow in peace and self-acceptance.

Thanks for the thread, Onward2wards.

YES! This is WONDERFUL! I try to do something similar. But I find it SO difficult!

The Five Questions for Champions provide some structure that may be helpful.

Five Questions for Champions by Ron Kurtus - Become a Champion in Life: School for Champions

Do not confuse your thoughts for who you are or take a single answer for "all" of you. You do not know all of you, probably do not know even the most of You if you have not been studying You very long.

You cannot know the future, if "desired kind of event" will/will not happen to you. You can have a desired kind of event for a goal ("graduate college", for example) but You are not what does/does not happen to you. You are only what is You! Nothing outside you is You.

Too, maybe you are not now the kind of person who works hard at studying so they can graduate college but you can become that person if you want. I was in the middle of a final exam in college, age 41m and got stuck on a problem that teased me with being just out of reach of my remembering how to solve it. I suddenly heard myself wish I had studied a little harder, 5 minutes longer A lightbulb went on and I realized studying was all for Me; not grades, my professor, my stepmother, my husband, only Me. I would like to say that made getting good grades suddenly easier but it made it harder. I was aware and had to choose to study after having chosen not to for over 35 years? I couldn't shrug at the responsibility, make it someone else's "fault" I was going to school and enjoying/not enjoying it. What I learned was all for and on Me, not anyone else.

I got straight A's after that, by design, except when I did not, also as part of my life and my choices and now, after the fact, of "Me." We are formed by our experiences but our experiences are not Us. We are our biology and genes but that is not all of us. I am prone to like X, Y, and Z subjects and have skills in A, B, and C areas but that is not what I choose to pursue necessarily or areas in which I use those skills.

Always remember that "self"-anything is wholly up to your Self, not anything else out there. What you decide to have for self concept is decided by you, just like self esteem is what you decide you feel about yourself; if it isn't what you want to feel about yourself, you work to make yourself the way you want. If you tell too many lies and don't like being a "liar", you work hard to tell the truth so you do not think of yourself as a liar anymore. 15-20 years ago I came up with a motto/slogan/idea of what I wanted to become. I am a 3M Woman (and had a teeshirt made with that on it, "3M Woman" :-) I strive to be "Warm, Wise, and Whimsical". I do better at times with one than another of the three, have to remind myself to work on one when I don't necessarily feel like it, etc. but it is what I want. And, in my life, that is 100% of what counts. Ain't no one else in here with me

I really hear you on this. I notice that often the first thing that comes to mind in the morning is a negative thought about myself. It's as if a negative self-concept is part of the basic bootstrap program for my consciousness. For me, I think it probably has a lot to do with core shame from early in my life where I learned that I should not expect to have my needs met, be cared for consistently, and that the world was a cruel and unpredictable place.

The best advice I can give you is the advice I give myself: You have have to keep putting one foot in front of the other. Take positive ACTION and DEMONSTRATE to yourself that you are a person that deserves good things. You can only demonstrate that to yourself by continuing to act in spite of the way you feel/think on any given day.

I am a climber, and so I often use metaphors and analogies from climbing. Sometimes to make the summit you just have to keep putting one foot in front of the other until you get the perspective change at the top. Even if it seems like you'll never make it, it hurts too bad, etc.

I find this thread really interesting because I know one of the things I have a real issue with is core self beliefs and self concepts . Funnily enough having a diagnosis of severe dyspraxia and dyslexia as an adult really shook me because I'd had this self concept my entire life that I am stupid (no prizes for guessing where that one came from..cheers school!)
I'm really struggling to shift this to accommodate the dyspraxia because rather than being a relief in some ways the diagnosis made me very angry but that climbing analogy makes a lot of sense Cynosure so thank you !! I just have to remember they changed the mountain

Perna stated above "You are only what is You! Nothing outside you is You."

I've come to the realization that the "me" that exists in and of "myself" is not very likable, intelligent or exciting.

Let's say I know of a man named Bob and I don't like him. He doesn't sit right with me. Bob hasn't really done anything big but I just don't like him. Everything Bob does is going to be viewed through this lens. He could solve world hunger and my response would be "meh, he was right I guess(insert sarcastic eye roll)." Well, that's how I feel about myself all of the time. How do you even deal that? Is it ultimately possible to ever truly like yourself when your self concept is that low? Most of the time it's not something I really fight or groan about. Nobody cares as long as you seem agreeable enough on the outside. At this point I question why I should bother changing.

You and your imagination are in charge of your response. It's yours.

I often get anxious. What is anxiety? Mostly it is worrying about a future, unknown event. My husband is not home from his business trip when I expect him? "What if my husband's plane crashed?" I think. Could happen. But so could, "I bet he stopped to buy me a present!" You protest, "That's highly unlikely!" but so is the plane having crashed! We know it is probably not either one but if you have to go "there" why not go where it is sunny and wistful instead of where it is cold and rainy? Who knows, you joke with your husband later, "I was hoping you were late because you stopped to buy me a present" (and give a cute pout :-) and maybe next time, he does!

You are not particularly interested in world hunger and its resolution. It has nothing to do with Bob!

What would you find interesting? Go do/work on that. I got a college degree at 21, exactly as "expected". Ho hum. I was raised to expect that so that it is an achievement, I was "cheated" by my parents/background of any sort of celebration of getting a degree that most people (in my era) did not get. I got my first degree in 1972. However, I am really impressed with my great grandmother, she got TWO bachelors degrees, one in 1881 and another in 1882! Why is her degree of more "worth" than mine to me?

What do you want? I got braces on my teeth when I was 29/30 and I had to cash in my 401K to afford them. I paid the $2000 myself back in the day when I did not make much money and it was difficult, etc. I am very proud of that. I cared enough about myself and my health and I figured out how to "get" those braces myself, not borrow from my parents or complain that they "should" have paid for them since I probably should have had them as a teenager, etc. I had a 401K to cash in! Hey, look at me trying to be fiscally responsible

Most of my self-concept is based on traits in myself that I enjoy my development of. I have a really good sense of humor, for example and enjoy that. Like intelligence and sense of direction, I probably inherited a pretty good sense of humor but how it is "used" or IF it is used is all "me". I am often able to help others with my sense of humor, my sense of self. I have learned/taught myself and am relaxed about my "mistakes", my efforts that don't quite work out the way I expect? My husband once made a pointed, teasing remark about me and I added to it and my stepson was just amazed that I would "admit" to having that "flaw." My mistakes are not "Me", they are just evidence of my education, I'm in there learning and I have yet to get very many 100% on tests, all the time? Sure, looking back some mistakes are comical, now that I know better?

I still remember 1st grade and how on the first day the teacher wrote something up on the board and we were to copy it down the best we could. She then collected the papers. None of us knew how to write yet, much less read (this was back in the 1950s :-) so she told us what it said and we went on to being first graders and learning what one learns in first grade. The last day of class, the teacher wrote the exact same thing on the board and had us copy it. We did not remember that first day's exercise at first, not until she handed back the papers she had collected then so we could see how much we had improved. I think self-concept is like that.

We do not "know" when we start out that we are "stupid" and "worthless" and we do not get any real evidence of that, just our parent's and care giver's opinions and they are not here for "us" they are here for themselves. I inherited intelligence, I know beyond a shadow of a doubt I cannot be "stupid" so when my step mother called me "stupid" one time too many when I was 23, I decided I did not like that, my self concept was not going to take that insult anymore. My stepmother was often physically abusive and I remember thinking, at 23, that I did not care if she killed me (??!!!) I was not going to stay there and take it and I turned and went up to my room, her calling after me to come back (why she would kill me, I wasn't doing as she commanded). All kinds of good things came from that one act of mine. I learned that my stepmother had not known/realized/wanted to hurt my feelings (she was crying more than I was), never mind my mistaken impression she might kill me Of course, now you could call me "stupid" and I would just look at you funny, not understand what you were saying! There is no conflict anymore within me as to whether or not I am stupid or "deserve" to be called stupid, etc.

It takes a lot of thinking and hard work to figure out what one's genuine self knowledge/concept is in the first place and then to improve on that. Other people's comments down through the years are not "us" and may not even be what we think which will be what one has to figure out and wrestle with.

Last but not least, you say you are not very likable, intelligent, or exciting. You can try to become those things if you want and that you are trying is worthy of support? You are what you are. That knowledge alone is enough for, "Okay, here I am, world!"