# Self-Esteem and The Core Self

People that don't have self-esteem issues will have a hard time identifying 
with this topic. The seed of self-esteem or self-love is normally planted 
when you are a child. Your parents or your direct environment have a big 
impact on this as you grow up. Depending on how much you may have missed 
affection and validation in childhood, you may suffer from a fundamental 
lack of confidence, possibly even to extents that make you question whether 
or not your life's worth living. This often results in the urge to create 
a strong identity to compensate. When people grow up and realize that 
their identity is a facade, they break down and are left with their core 
self which they experience as worthless and weak. An exercise that has 
worked for my viewers is to look in the mirror daily for several weeks and 
give yourself the time and space to value yourself. Doing so will, over 
time, bring natural confidence as a byproduct. Healthy self-esteem is the 
foundation of how you look at yourself and how you look at the world. It 
cascades into being more easily inspired and also reflects in your actions 
inspiring others around you. Doing this exercise can bring back to the 
surface aspects of yourself that you have repressed and neglected 
throughout your life. You might start repeating the story in your head that 
you are not worthy or smart or cool enough, but that is not what you are. 
Your existence is enough to make you valuable. When realizing this, your 
self-esteem will grow and shift from a victim mindset to a validation 
seeking one. And once you have enough of that, you let go and realize you 
don't have to prove yourself to others any more. That is when you know you 
have built an emotional foundation on which you can start building an even 
stronger rational framework.