89: Healing Low Self-Esteem & Building Self-Confidence (One Step at a Time)
So many of us struggle to feel confident in who we are, and often feel insecure. In this episode, I answer a question from a listener who wants to know why they have low self-esteem and how can they begin to build confidence. In this episode, I will share learnings from my own experiences healing my self-esteem, insecurities, and self-worth.
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I share four areas where I think many people’s insecurities and low self-esteem originate, and I also discuss four steps for building confidence in your own life. My intention for this episode is to assist you in healing your insecurities and building your self-esteem and self-worth one step at a time. You deserve to feel secure and confident in who you are.
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Timestamps ⏱️
Introduction: 00:15
Poem: 01:54
Question 1: 04:25
Outro: 34:00
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This podcast was transcribed by an AI tool called Castmagic. Please forgive any typos or errors.
Amanda Durocher [00:00:01]:
Welcome to New View Advice. I'm your host, Amanda Durocher, and I invite you to join me here each week as I offer advice on how to move through whatever problem or trauma is holding you back from living life to the fullest. Let's get started. Hey there, beautiful soul. My name is Amanda Durocher, and this is New View Advice. If you're new here, this is a healing centered advice podcast where I offer guidance for the healing journey. It's not my intention to give you all the answers. I believe you have all the answers you seek.
Amanda Durocher [00:00:27]:
You just may need a new view and a little help along the way. Thank you so much for tuning in to today's episode. Today, we will be discussing why so many of us struggle with low self esteem, and how to build confidence in ourselves and in our lives. We all deserve to feel confident in who we are, But, unfortunately, so many of us feel insecure and don't know how to embody confidence within ourselves. In this episode, I am answering a question from a listener who wants to know why they have low self esteem and how they can begin to build confidence. In this episode, I will share learnings from my own experiences healing from low self esteem, insecurities, and low self worth. I will also share 4 steps for beginning to build confidence in your own life. My intention for this episode is to assist you in healing your insecurities and building your self esteem and self worth one step at a time.
Amanda Durocher [00:01:10]:
You deserve to feel secure and confident in who you are. My hope is that after you listen to this episode, you will feel empowered to take steps towards building confidence within yourself. If you haven't checked out my website, I invite you to check it out after this episode for more free resources, including journal prompts, meditations, blog posts, and podcast episodes about the healing journey. You can check that out at newviewadvice.com, and today's episode show notes will be at newviewadvice.com/89. Before I jump into Today's listener question, I wanted to share a poem I wrote this weekend with you. I wrote this poem when I was struggling with some of my own insecurities, so I thought it could be helpful to share in today's episode. With that, let's jump on into the poem I wrote and then the listener question. So this is a poem I wrote over the weekend.
Amanda Durocher [00:01:57]:
I was feeling insecure in my own life. I still struggle with insecurities, and they don't run my life anymore. At one point in my life, they definitely ran my life, but there are still times I find myself feeling insecure and feeling just like I'm not enough. So I wrote this poem, and in honor of all of us who struggle with insecurities, this poem is dedicated to all of us. On Sunday, I was feeling so low and insecure. I was having bad thoughts and feeling so hurt. I had memories playing on repeat of times when people were so mean. When they called me cruel names and ignored my existence, I was left all alone and feeling so worthless.
Amanda Durocher [00:02:34]:
Like, I did something wrong and was internally bad, so I cried in my bed wondering what could I do to no longer cry and feel so blue when I heard a small voice so quiet and tender. It said, why do you cry? You're already enough. I said, are you sure? These people say different. The little voice in my head laughed and said, oh, don't you listen to those people who hurt you, for they hurt themselves. It's why they treat you in this unfortunate way. Their hurt caused them to hurt others, but none of that means you're worthless. No way, no how, for you are a being so great and so loving. It's not your job to listen to criticisms.
Amanda Durocher [00:03:09]:
Instead, it's your job to empower yourself because true love comes from deep within and can never be taken once remembered. So lift up your chin and say real loud, I love myself always, and I'm enough and worthy. Because you, my darling, should be very proud for you have overcome so much suffering. And stand apart from the crowd, you've remembered to follow your heart, which most People never even dare start. So go about your day with a new perspective that life is a gift and those insecurities no longer serve you. For you are ready to step on a new path filled with wonder and awe and epic delight. So remember those fears are all in the past, And today, you can be new and be free at last. I thank the voice for the pep talk and got on my way to something new and enjoying my day.
Amanda Durocher [00:03:54]:
Thank you for letting me share that with you. I found that helpful when I was feeling low, so I hope it helps somebody out there as well because That poem's not just about me. It's about all of us. We're all always enough, worthy, lovable. And if you're here healing, I just honor the path you're on because it can be challenging at times to look at our deepest insecurities, but it's also truly liberating. So with that, let's jump on into today's listener question. Hi, Amanda. Thanks so much for your podcast.
Amanda Durocher [00:04:28]:
It has really helped me through the difficult time I've been having. My question is, why do I have low self esteem? I feel like I am insecure about everything. How do I begin to build confidence within myself? Any advice would be helpful. Thank you. Thanks so much for this question. I think so many people struggle with low self esteem. So first, I want you to know you are definitely not alone. Like I shared with my poem, I struggle with insecurities and feelings of low self esteem and low self worth myself sometimes.
Amanda Durocher [00:04:55]:
So I think that as we heal, we begin to feel more confident. But I think one thing to note about confidence is that it's okay if we're building confidence over time. I really believe it's 1 step at a time. We begin to feel confident and begin to learn how to validate ourselves and love ourselves. It doesn't have to happen all at once, And I know that's how it's been in my own life. I don't know too much about your situation because your question is a bit vague. So I thought I would share Four areas in my own life that I've noticed have contributed to my low self esteem and my impurities and how by bringing awareness to these 4 areas, it has helped me to understand why I was struggling with low self esteem and to begin healing, and building confidence. I chose these 4 areas because these 4 areas have been really impactful in my own life, but I also think that These 4 areas will be helpful for people out there.
Amanda Durocher [00:05:49]:
So you may not see yourself in all 4 of these areas. You may see yourself in 1. You may see yourself in 2. You may see your situation in all 4. I'm not sure, but I just wanted to note that these are 4 areas I've seen in my own life. They're 4 areas I think that people people will be able to relate to. And I also don't think they're the only causes of insecurities. So everybody's journey healing from low self esteem And looking at their own insecurities is going to be personal with you in your own life.
Amanda Durocher [00:06:14]:
It may be different, but I hope that as I talk about these 4 areas, maybe you're able to see and bring awareness to to even a different area in your life by seeing how I sort of break down and how I saw that each one of these areas has impacted me and my self esteem. So the 4 areas in my own life that have really impacted me and left me with low self esteem and have been areas that I've needed to heal and look at are 1, parental criticism, 2, lack of a mentor, favorite teacher, coach, but really lack of that external validation growing up, 3, loss of friendships in my youth and bullying by my peers, and 4, the impact of trauma. So let's start with 1 in talking a bit about parental criticism and the impact our parents can have on our self esteem. So in my life, I found my parents to be critical and also to be absent. So I've talked about it throughout episodes, but my father wasn't really around growing up. He worked a lot. So my parents were together. They're still together, but my father wasn't really around.
Amanda Durocher [00:07:13]:
And that definitely impacted me because when he was around, he wasn't always kind. He was often very stressed and could be angry, and that impacted my self esteem because I never got words of affirmation. I never got, Amanda, you're doing great. Amanda, you're doing enough. If anything, I received criticism from my father. And the same would go for my mother is that when I was growing up, I received a lot of criticism. The words I received left me feeling like I wasn't enough. A big pattern for me growing up was that I was a very emotional child, And I was constantly told that my emotions were wrong.
Amanda Durocher [00:07:49]:
They were bad. They were too big. They were too large. They were incorrect. And by receiving that my real experience was wrong over and over again, that created within me a lot of insecurities in myself because I was battling within myself the idea of, well, this is how I feel, but I'm being told it's wrong. So I grew up very confused because I didn't know how else to be because the feelings I was having were real, but I was being told they were wrong. So then I was like, I'm wrong. Throughout different episodes, I talk about the difference between shame and guilt, And shame is internalizing I am bad.
Amanda Durocher [00:08:25]:
I am wrong, but it's taking on a mistake or an experience rather than guilt, which is I did something bad. I did something wrong. Meaning that you could see that that's outside of yourself, And shame is an internalization of these different experiences we have. And so throughout my life, I felt a lot of shame for who I was, and a lot of that began within my family structure. Everything I said was wrong. Everything I did was wrong. Everything I felt was wrong. I was constantly met with this idea that I was difficult and that what I did was wrong.
Amanda Durocher [00:08:59]:
So that didn't help me to build self esteem because Self esteem and confidence comes from the validation that we're doing okay, we're on track, that we're learning, and that everything Thing we're doing is just part of a big learning experience. Instead, I internalized that I was wrong and I was off track and that I couldn't get back on track because everything I did was wrong. So I think that having critical parents, absent parents, Negative parents, depressed parents can really impact our own self esteem. So I wanted to mention that one and how I noticed in my own life. I've really had to heal that, and to validate myself along the way that a lot of the feelings I had when I was a child, actually, every feeling I had was led. Even if in a certain circumstance, it may have seemed, quote, unquote, wrong, it was always valid. It was always coming from somewhere. And what I needed at the time were adults who helped me to see why I was feeling the way I was and taught me how to be in good relationship with my feelings.
Amanda Durocher [00:09:58]:
But instead, I was criticized a lot, and that really has impacted me to this day. A second area I wanted to mention That I found has really impacted my self esteem, and I talked to my partner about this one yesterday, and I know it's impacted him as well, is the lack of having a mentor or the lack of having a supportive teacher or a coach who's like a cheerleader, getting that external validation from an adult when growing up. I hear people all the time. Successful people will talk about how they got to where they are, and they'll talk about a coach who left a huge impact on them and told them that they could always make it and help them become better and better at what they do or a mentor who really took somebody under their wing, help somebody to see their potential and to continue down the hard path. So many of us aren't given that chance and aren't given that mentorship, And I've found that to be really detrimental in my own life. And I know my partners felt that way too that he never felt like he had mentorship or he never felt like he had guidance. And so he's blamed himself for certain things that are really outside his control and certain things that he never could have known, and I've done the same thing where You end up blaming yourself for mistakes you made, but it's like you didn't have anybody to show you any way different. So you've just been learning on your own, so So you don't need to blame yourself for making a mistake, but sometimes when we get to certain ages, we feel like we should be at different places in our lives.
Amanda Durocher [00:11:22]:
You know? I know my partner and I feel that way a lot, that we're learning how to not judge where we are with our lives. And one thing we've noticed is that much of what we do in various aspects of our lives, We've had to learn on our own with little guidance, and I think guidance and having that supportive person can really help with self esteem. And if you haven't had it, it can really contribute to low self esteem. I do believe confidence comes from within, and we're gonna talk about that. And I do Think we need to learn how to internally validate ourselves. But if we've never experienced external validation or we experienced very little of it growing up, I think it just contributes to the our own self talk. If you were always surrounded by critical people or mean people, it's easy to internalize that dialogue because you're not taught how to internally validate yourself. You know, for me growing up, I didn't ever have a teacher who I can look back and say, oh, that teacher made a difference in my life.
Amanda Durocher [00:12:17]:
But I have friends who do. I have friends who are teachers because they had a teacher who made such a difference in their life, and I can just see how having that Adult figure growing up who was a positive influence can really impact people in a positive way. The 3rd area I wanted to bring up for me that I noticed Contributed to my low self esteem was loss of friendships and bullying by my peers. And so I called this one out specifically because I was thinking about it yesterday, and I was like, have I always been this insecure? I've definitely worked through a lot of insecurity, but I still struggle with insecurities for sure. When I was thinking about it, I realized prior to 5th grade, I actually wasn't so insecure. I wasn't perfect. I had a lot of my own demons still at a young age, but I wasn't so insecure. I was comfortable with my peers.
Amanda Durocher [00:13:07]:
I was able to put myself out there socially. I was able to be funny, and I had opinions, and I was proud of them. And I was kinda proud of who I was. And for me, at the end of 5th grade, I had a friend whose sister died, And that was a very traumatic and confusing time for me. The way that that death was handled in my life was not very helpful. It had a ripple effect, honestly, on the rest of my life. And what I found through that experience is through that death, I became depressed, and I had a lot of hard feelings. And nobody had space for those feelings.
Amanda Durocher [00:13:41]:
My family felt I had too many feelings, and my friends felt that I had too many feelings. And the girl whose sister died was my age, so she was in my grade. And everybody thought that I was being selfish and that only she should have so many hard feelings. I look back and I think, oh my gosh. I don't know why people can't just be empathetic to a 10 year old who's depressed about learning about death for the 1st time, but whole another topic for another episode. But that experience caused me to lose a lot of friends. And for me, it was because of this grief I experienced. But in your own life, you might have a moment where you were secure before, and then you felt insecure ever since.
Amanda Durocher [00:14:18]:
And I just think that finding those moments can be really helpful when healing because for me, it first took seeing that middle school, I was really insecure. Elementary school, I wasn't as insecure. And then it was like, what happened? Like, why did that happen? And then I was able to see, oh, right. I went through this trauma. I went through this grieving process, And I didn't have any guidance through it, and I didn't have any support, so it created these beliefs about the world. And that was really helpful for me when healing because I was also able to see why I became insecure, why I became so afraid of losing people, and have empathy for myself. You know? When we're healing insecurities and we're building confidence. A big part of it is going to be learning how to be kind and understanding with yourself rather than judgmental.
Amanda Durocher [00:15:01]:
I also put bullying under this one because being bullied throughout middle school, high school, and into college left a major impact on my life. Being bullied definitely devastated my self esteem. I wasn't bullied before middle school, and then bullying mean girls, Negative feedback negative feedback about my body started to begin in middle school, and I didn't know how to handle it. And a lot of times, I would bring these things to my mother, and she'd tell me I was overreacting or she'd say, oh, well, just don't be friends with those Bullen. If you know middle school and high school, it's not that simple to just let it go. At least it wasn't for me. Some of these people I was trying to be friends with were my friends for, you You know, 10 years up into that point my entire life, some of these girls I was trying to become friends with, it felt like a lifeline. Like, if I just Didn't try any more than I would have no friends, and that devastated me.
Amanda Durocher [00:15:52]:
And I didn't have any confidence in myself, and The bullying I experienced was really harmful, and a lot of the words said to me at those ages has haunted me. Honestly, I view it as haunting. Like those voices and those ghosts that live in your head until you take the time to be with them and to see that the harm that was caused you when you were 10 was by other 10 year olds and that, you know, nobody's perfect at those ages and that it's okay to let those go and that they're not true. So many of us have experienced cruel words throughout our lives, and we internalize it as truth. And it's really through that awareness, through witnessing ourselves rather than identifying with those Painful wounds, if that makes sense, but, like, witnessing, so, like, taking a step back and seeing it from an outside perspective that we can see that So many of the cruel things said to us were never true, and I believe that really about all cruel words. They're not true. You're always enough. You're always lovable, and you're always worthy.
Amanda Durocher [00:16:48]:
And it's us who forgets that, and it's the world that teaches us differently. And the healing process, the healing journey is just a journey of remembering your worth and that it's safe for us to be confident in who we are. A special mention I wanna throw under this category that I think other people may struggle with is that early relationships. So just bad relationships in general, these could be romantic relationships, friendships, Different relationships you had at a young age or even later on in life. You know? Some of the relationships I had in college really impacted my self esteem as well. But bad romantic partnerships and bad relationships can also really leave us with low self esteem. The 4th area I wanted to mention that contributed to low self esteem in my life and I think contributes to other people's low self esteem is the impact of trauma. There's so much to be said on the topic of trauma.
Amanda Durocher [00:17:42]:
It's a complex experience, and I talk about it in a lot of these different episodes. But the traumas I've experienced throughout my life have impacted me in many ways, and one of them has been contributing to my low self esteem. So I've talked a lot about the different traumas I've survived throughout the many different episodes. When preparing for this episode, I thought I would just mention experiencing Sexual trauma in my teen years. So if you're new here, I experienced a sexual assault and rape in my freshman year of high school. I was attacked by a group of boys, and there were bystanders. So there were people who watched it happen and did not intervene. And I was also brought there by a friend who also didn't intervene and sided with the guys afterwards.
Amanda Durocher [00:18:26]:
I mentioned all those pieces because what Happens with trauma is that we create beliefs about ourselves and the world in an instant, and they dictate the rest of our life until we We heal that trauma until we look at that trauma, until we process the pain and the experience. And very often, a part of healing from trauma is healing the fact that something happened that you could not control. So what happened to me when I was a teenager, when I was 14, I could not control what happened, but in that moment, I created a lot of beliefs about myself because that's what we do. We want Not to think that there's something we could have done to prevented what happened, and so we create beliefs so it won't happen again. For me, I developed extreme low self esteem after this experience. I can't even put into words How devastating experiencing that was. And I mentioned not just the violence I experienced, but the bystanders because the fact that there were other people pulled there, and they didn't intervene has also really impacted my self esteem. And I know I'm not the only one who's experienced a trauma or experienced something in life that Other people saw and didn't say anything, so that's why I'm bringing it up.
Amanda Durocher [00:19:40]:
And I'm bringing it up because it took me a while to really understand how that bystander effect has created a lack of confidence in myself, low self esteem, and a fear honestly of other people. And you may have not experienced what I experienced. And I left trauma for last because I think every one of these areas has impacted me deeply. So I don't think that the horrific trauma I Survived was worse than my parental criticism. I think my parents' criticism created just as many negative beliefs about myself as this horrific trauma I survived. So I want you to understand that if you hear my story and you're like, well, I didn't survive something like that. That's fine. I'm glad you didn't.
Amanda Durocher [00:20:19]:
And I also believe that so many different things can contribute to low self esteem. I just wanted to bring up trauma because I do know how much it's impacted me and my confidence in myself. I also wanna just go back to the bystander thing real quick because I think another place that the bystander effect happens is within family structures. So you may find, as you're healing, that realizing you were, like, screamed at by your mother and nobody ever intervened was really painful for you or that you had a brother who used to beat you up and nobody would say anything and that was really painful or you had a father who physically abused you and nobody stood in, but people saw it. You may find you have to heal those other layers too of people knowing, people who you trusted knowing that you are experiencing this trauma and not intervening, not standing up, not stepping in on your behalf. And when we experience that, when we experience a world that mirrors back to us that they're not gonna take care of us. It can contribute to low self esteem, so I just wanted to mention that here today. So now you may be wondering, okay.
Amanda Durocher [00:21:19]:
I see some areas of my own life that may have impacted me. How do we build confidence? How do I heal from this low self esteem? So step 1, I would say, would be self awareness. So it's what I just described. It's looking at your fears, your insecurities, The moments you feel like you have low self esteem, are you more anxious in social settings? Do you feel like you have higher self esteem by yourself, or do you have high self esteem at work but low self Seem with your family. Begin pinging and paying attention to when you feel like you have low self esteem and when your insecurities are the strongest. And I also wanna quickly mention that what I just described in the beginning part of this episode is years' worth of self awareness. I did not come to all that self awareness overnight. It has been years of me peeling back the layers, understanding why I'm the way I am, and then seeing how all these different elements of my life have contributed to who I am, contributed to my low self esteem and my lack of confidence, and That has taken time, so I'm not sure where you're at on your healing journey.
Amanda Durocher [00:22:26]:
But when we're beginning to become self aware, we want to Peel back the layers 1 by 1. So you want to ask yourself, say you're insecure when you're at work. You know? I would just start asking myself, why am I so Here. Here. Why does this particular person make me insecure? And just start paying attention to what comes up. Does a specific memory come to mind? And if a memory pops in your head of a teacher being cruel or a mean girl or a small parental criticism, don't judge it. Don't think it needs to be something bigger or that the memory that's coming up is, quote, unquote, nothing. You know, trust what comes up.
Amanda Durocher [00:23:00]:
It's coming up for a reason. There's likely emotions still behind that experience. You may even say to yourself, oh, I've already healed that. If it's coming up again, allow it up again. Allow yourself to see what else is there. I've really learned this through healing from trauma is that it's so layered, and there's so many different pieces that want to be witnessed and healed in so many different feelings that aren't able to be felt in that moment that I've had to just trust when a layer arises. It just is what it is. And the more I allow it up and I don't judge it, the easier it is for me to process and the more loving I am towards myself.
Amanda Durocher [00:23:41]:
It's really those judgments we have of ourselves that can keep us stuck and keep us from peeling back the layers. You know, I view self awareness like an onion, healing like an onion, where the core of that onion is really our remembrance of our enoughness, of our worthiness, of our lovability, of our amazingness, right, our power. And the world, our families, our relationships, and ourselves have put layers over that enoughness, layers of lies, layers that have formed a hardened shell around us. And when we choose to step upon the path of healing, we begin to peel them back and be like, oh, I no longer wanna play that story, or I no longer wanna believe that phrase because that's a lie. Say you internalized, I'm stupid, and you realize that's because you had a father who called you stupid all the time. And then you may be like, I don't really wanna internalize that anymore, but you likely have to allow yourself to see that your father called you stupid, have a lot of feelings about having a critical parent, Having a parent who instead of supporting you and uplifting you, tore you down and made you believe something cruel about yourself that involves a healing process. And once you fully feel like you've honored that experience, you can peel back that layer. And the great thing about peeling back layers is that once we peel them back, they're gone.
Amanda Durocher [00:24:52]:
They're gone for good. We no longer need to carry that baggage anymore. And then there's often another layer and another layer. And it's not to say there's another and another layer to intimidate you. It's just to understand that if a new layer arises, no need to judge it. No need to be angry at yourself. Why? Why is this still bothering me? It's just understanding. It's just part of the process, and it's how our consciousness and our bodies are able to help us to heal Heal because we can't heal everything at once.
Amanda Durocher [00:25:19]:
Because truly, what happens at each stage with each layer we peel back, we build more self love. Of. We build more confidence. We build more worthiness. And with that new level of love, we're able to look at the new layer in a new way. So it's really, like, with each layer we peel back, we gain a jewel. We gain a gem, and we take all those gems with us moving forward, and it makes the process easier moving forward. I hope that makes sense.
Amanda Durocher [00:25:45]:
Okay. My 2nd piece of advice for building self confidence is when you begin having self awareness, you're gonna have some uncomfortable feelings come up, And I invite you to be with yourself and be with those feelings and find ways to process those feelings. So this weekend, when I was having difficult feelings around insecurity, I wrote a poem. Creativity is one of my favorite tools for feeling my feelings. I find that I sit down with my pen, and I'm upset. And then by the end of writing a poem, I feel much better. A different part of me is able to come through and speak to me. I find journaling to be really helpful, meditation, nature, Just allowing yourself to cry.
Amanda Durocher [00:26:21]:
I even had that happen this weekend too. I had been ignoring something that was up for me, and I allowed myself to just cry about it because I'd been running from crying. I'd been keeping myself so busy. And then when I finally sat down to meditate, that's what wanted to come up, tears. And when I allowed them to come up, I felt better afterwards. You know? Sometimes we just need a good cry. Sometimes we need to feel anger. So when you begin allowing these layers up, you begin having self awareness around your insecurities.
Amanda Durocher [00:26:47]:
Also allow yourself to process and move those feelings. It's a very vulnerable process. We're sensitive during that. We're allowing things up that we've buried. And because of that, that leads me to my 3rd piece of advice, my 3rd step for building confidence, which is to surround yourself with supportive and loving people. When healing insecurity is in low self esteem, it's really important to begin to notice how certain people make you feel. Who do you feel supported with? Who do you Feel loved with. Who do you feel is compassion in your life? Surround yourself with people who uplift you.
Amanda Durocher [00:27:18]:
Spend time with the people who assist you in feeling better about yourself. So this may be friends, family, a loving partner. This may be a coworker. And if you feel like you can't even think of anybody in your life who's super Supportive. You may need to find a supportive person. So this could be a therapist, a coach, a mentor, or a guide, but It may be something you wanna consider because I think, as I mentioned, when we're building our confidence, it's really important for us to feel supported by our loved ones. It's vulnerable. And when we're vulnerable, we kind of feel exposed.
Amanda Durocher [00:27:50]:
And when we're exposed, it's easier for us to feel, like, that hurt. Many times, we build up walls in order not to feel hurt. And when we're healing, we're vulnerable, so it's important to surround yourself with compassionate people throughout the process. And so when you're taking the time to think about who's supportive, I also invite you to think about who's not supportive in your life. Who is critical? Who triggers your insecurities more than anyone else? When we're building self esteem, it also requires some boundaries. As I mentioned, it's a vulnerable process, and so it's important to take care of yourself. And if someone in your life triggers these insecurities or blatantly lowers your self Steamed through criticism, mean words, name calling, or cruelty, I invite you to set boundaries with that person. You may need to end the relationship.
Amanda Durocher [00:28:34]:
You may just need some space. You just may need to have a tough with that person. An uncomfortable conversation, you may need to tell somebody how their words make you feel. So many people are critical and don't even recognize it's criticism. They don't recognize how their words hurt somebody because people talk to them that way, so then they just talk to other people that way, or it's how they talk to themselves. So it may just involve you letting them know how they're speaking to you feels critical and hurtful. As I mentioned, some people just don't know what they don't know. And so you don't have to cut everybody out of your life, but I do invite you to take some time to be intentional with who you're surrounding yourself with as you're building your confidence and seeing if there's some people who are negatively impacting you and who you may need to set boundaries with, who you may need to cut ties with, or who you may need to talk with.
Amanda Durocher [00:29:23]:
And the 4th step, my last step for building confidence is to begin to uplift yourself through self compassion and positive self talk. I think this step is always the most important step, learning how to be kind to ourselves. You know, I wish the world gave us loads of external validation. I wish that people were kinder to one another and that we learned at a young age that were enough, and it's safe to make mistakes. And we felt like we were guided and supported from a young age. Unfortunately, for so many of us, this is not the case. So this is why learning how to build self confidence within is so important. I was thinking about this in my own life too.
Amanda Durocher [00:29:58]:
And by the time I was receiving positive feedback, it wasn't until my late twenties that I was receiving positive feedback because I was finally doing the things I was good But by the time I was receiving this feedback, I had already received too much negative feedback throughout my life that I Created so many negative beliefs about myself that I couldn't even believe the positive feedback. The 1st 25 years of my life, nobody complimented To me, like, nobody was like, oh, you're doing great, Amanda. You know? I received a lot of criticism or a lot of indifference, and I built a lot of beliefs about myself. So by the time I was receiving positive feedback, it just was too late for that external validation to make a difference. I really believe with children, external validation can make a big difference, providing that safe and supportive environment for children. But in our adulthood, if we haven't received that or experienced it, it doesn't mean we're not worthy of it. It just means we have to really learn how to build it within. It's so important to build self confidence within, and this is done through these steps I've mentioned and really by learning to be kind and understanding with yourself.
Amanda Durocher [00:30:57]:
Be compassionate with yourself. Catch those negative thoughts and begin telling yourself a new story. I always like to say you're the protagonist of your life. You are the main character of your story. You deserve to be the hero of your story. You deserve to be the one who reaches the top of that mountain, whatever that means for you. And the truth about life is that we're all the main characters of our own stories. So if you're looking for somebody outside of you to externally validate you, they may not.
Amanda Durocher [00:31:27]:
They may be an antagonist in your story, Or they just may be the leader of their own story, so they're too busy doing them to validate you. And there's nothing right or wrong about that, but that's why when we Embody that main character energy, we realize we have the power to change our life course. That does not mean it happens overnight. It just means that we recognize that we might have experienced some shitty things. We might have had people say some not so nice stuff to us, but we have the power to choose new. We have the power to embody confidence. We have the power to learn from our mistakes rather than internalize our mistakes, And we have the power to step forward on a new path and to create the life that we want to create. But So often, in order to create the life of our dreams or in order to embody our authentic selves, we have to take time to become aware of how the past has influenced us.
Amanda Durocher [00:32:21]:
Just like you're the main character of your story, no one else is going to understand what that experience has been like. No one else understands what it has been like to be you, so only you can really honor the story you have lived. And so it becomes a privilege, like I said, and an honor to do that for yourself, but doesn't make it easy. It's extremely difficult. There are times where I'm like, woah. How did I get here? But it's through compassion it becomes easier. It's through compassion that we're able to heal ourselves and move forward and build that confidence. And just to wrap this up, the steps I mentioned are to bring self awareness to your negative self talk, to your insecurities, to allow yourself to feel your feelings, to surround yourself with supportive people, and to begin to uplift yourself through self compassion and positive self talk.
Amanda Durocher [00:33:10]:
I've really found these 4 steps to be really helpful in my own life and building my own confidence. I used to have debilitating negative self talk. I used to be so insecure. There were days I couldn't even leave my house. Or in the past, when I used to drink, I used to only feel confident when I drank. And then when I was sober the next day, I would mentally beat myself up. And it's been through healing and through these steps I talk about in this episode that I've really learned how to love myself and how to honor myself and how to understand my insecurities aren't a bad thing. It's not a bad thing that I've had low self esteem.
Amanda Durocher [00:33:40]:
It's like a symptom of what I've survived. It's a symptom of the life I've lived, and it's through healing our emotional bodies and our mental bodies that we're able to become confident. So I hope something in this answer was helpful. Thank you so much for this question. I'm sending you all my love. Thank you so much for joining me for today's episode of New View Advice. Today, we discussed why so many of us struggle with insecurities and low self esteem and how to begin building confidence. If you haven't already, I invite you to leave new view advice podcast a 5 star rating and subscribe to the podcast.
Amanda Durocher [00:34:15]:
Reviews and ratings and subscribers really helped to bring more people to the podcast and helped me to continue creating more content. So if you enjoyed today's episode, I would love You to leave a 5 star review and subscribe to the podcast. Thank you again for joining me for another episode of new full to offer you a new view on whatever you may be going through. Sending you all my love. See you next time.
