In my teens, I suffered a lot from negative self-talk, which seems to have been connected to the distorted beliefs about my environment and myself that I mistook as fact.
I realised that on the road to restoring positive self-esteem that what I needed to do was evaluate myself more kindly. Some of the steps I went through in my recovery journey started with me building a positive environment. I worked on giving myself affirmations that were more realistic, worked on developing my core competencies and becoming more open to accepting compliments and eliminating negative self-talk. I worked on what were meaningful qualities to me and became aware of my character defects, and started chipping away at them. Self-esteem is not static and needs consistent effort and takes time and practice.
At Lions Campus, to help teens build their self-image and self-esteem, we focus on effort and achieving small goals, not perfection. We view mistakes as learning opportunities, not failures. Our residents are coached into using positive self-talk as low self-esteem is often perpetuated by self-disparaging negative self-talk statements. This helps improve self-esteem by turning negative thinking into positive thinking. Reframing their view of self is essential to them maintaining life in recovery.
