Two Essential Psychology Terms Nearly Everyone Confuses and Gets Wrong

You may think the terms self-esteem and self-love refer to the same thing .Self-esteem and self-love build on each other but are critically different. Awareness of the way these elements differ provides critical insights. Self esteem and self love influence each other.

 Self-esteem:

Self-esteem refers to our level of feelings of accomplishment, success, and self-respect.  Building self-esteem involves listening to the inner talk inside of ourselves.  That inner talk is tied to our self-esteem and performance. Self-esteem influences inner dialogue which influences performance.

The way we build confidence in our skills and know ourselves to be capable.

Examples of expressions of self-esteem:

"I'm a good mom."

"I'm great at handling the crunch of tax season."

"I'm a a protective dad".

Some people are extremely high functioning and have high self esteem, but they have little self-love.

I practiced law with a colleague who was a mentor of mine.   She was an excellant litigator. I remember one case she argued and I found her closing argument mesmerizing.   She worked hard and was highly motivated to fight for the underdog.She had high self esteem.

However, I learned later that my colleague didn't have a lot of self-love. That saddened me deeply. She confided in me that she had bulimia, an eating disorder, which was wreaking havoc with her health and her relationships.

Sometimes, not all the time, every rule has an exception, but sometimes an eating disorder is a reflection of a lack of self love.

My amazing mentor had high self-esteem, high confidence and determination, and was extremely high functioning, but she had very little self-love.

Imagine that I say  to myself one morning while getting ready for work, "I have an ugly smile, I need to keep my mouth closed."  I get on the bus and there is an older gentleman whistling a tune which makes me smile. I catch myself and, embarrassed,  close my mouth immediately. I get off the bus and go to work. Chances are that those feelings toward myself will accompany me into work and may impact  my performance at work. My thoughts about my smile reflect poor self-esteem.

Poor self-esteem is very different from self love. Self love is to unconditionally love ourselves even when our performance does not meet our expectations. 

Self love doesn't mean we're exceptionally happy with every area in our life. We still want to grow. We still want to be the best person we can be, but we do it without condemning ourselves. And we love ourselves for who we are.

Do you love yourself?

Even when you make mistakes?

Can you be there for yourself?

Do you care about you? 

Is it okay to love yourself as much as you love others?

One of my clients wanted to get a divorce, but she held on and held on month after month . She felt guilty and terrible inside because she loved her husband and she didn't want to hurt him.  She found him to be a wonderful human being. But she felt stifled in the relationship and that despite great efforts were not growing together.

Still she held on to the marriage and on to the feelings of guilt and shame.

"I don't want to stay with my husband, but I'm not leaving because I care about them."

I asked, "Do you care about you? Do you love you?"

She thought," I do love myself, but I still can't break it to my husband. I can't tell him that I want to leave."

I inquired, "What are you afraid of if you leave?" 

She asked," What if this is the best relationship? What if I'm  not made to be in a romance? What if I'm not meant to have passion? What if no one else would want to know me? My husband knows more about me than anyone. Who else would ever know me like that?"

"I feel like I'm not good enough." she said, " I feel like no one else is going to want me."

This client is a highly functional engineer for large aerospace company. She loves her work, she loves her husband, but she doesn't love herself very much.

Self love is  loving ourselves unconditionally as much if not more than we love others.

 Get Your Free Break-Up to Brilliance Workbook!  Start the journey to an amazing life today.