How Emotions Management helps to improve Self-esteem

Knowing what emotion you are feeling at each moment of the day allows you to have better control over your reactions and your decisions. On the other hand, knowing how to handle that emotion that you are feeling makes it easier for you to have greater security in yourself, because handling emotion implies knowing how to express it.

Therefore, if you know how to adequately express and discharge your emotional tension, an available space is left within you to feel well-being. This well-being gives you the security of having done what is right for you, and the result of that is a direct improvement in self-esteem. That is why I have decided to write this article to emphasize the need to know how to manage your emotions so that your self-esteem improves.

• Related article: "The 4 Components of Self-Esteem (Explained)"

The relationship between self-esteem and emotions

Self-esteem and emotions are not the same, but the truth is that there is a direct relationship between the two concepts, and both have an influence on your general well-being.

When your self-esteem is high, you feel your authentic emotions and you use them to express your individual uniqueness. That is to say, you love yourself and see yourself as you are, you respect and value yourself with your qualities and you are interested in working on your areas of personal improvement. You are also satisfied with your present, you feel joy, and you appreciate what surrounds you and what happens in your life, with an attitude of unquestionable acceptance.

• You may be interested in: "Emotional management: 10 keys to master your emotions"

Low self-esteem curbs natural emotions

When you have a low level of self-esteem, your concept of yourself is distorted by the pain of your experiences and the result thereof, and that makes the perception of your emotions negative. also does that you try to avoid feeling or expressing those emotions with which you feel uncomfortable / or with which you fear being rejected / or not being valued / or in your environmentsuch as frustration, rage, anger, self-pity, or sadness.

It is common that, faced with these emotions, if you have low self-esteem, you generate defense mechanisms, or even use filters with which you express emotions different from the ones you feel, or even that you deny yourself / or what you are truly feeling with the experience that you occupies.

Emotions you don't feel cause confusion

That causes you internal confusion, and it also confuses the people around you, no matter how well they know you, because your emotions do not help them orient themselves with you.

That means you find it more difficult to identify what you need, because the way to do it correctly is through your true emotions.

The discomfort that you feel as a consequence is inevitable, because by not recognizing what you need, because of not feeling or not expressing your true emotions, you can't satisfy your need, you can't even identify it. And the non-satisfaction of your needs puts you in a circle of personal dissatisfaction and frustration, which further reduces your level of self-esteem because internally you think that either you do not deserve to have what you need, or you are not capable of get it. And in both cases your discomfort is guaranteed.

How to improve self-esteem by managing emotions

Follow these tips to strengthen your self-esteem and make it balanced.

1. Use filters consciously

The first indication would be to understand that using filters to express what you feel is okay, as long as you are aware of that filter and use it only in those moments in which you know that the damage of using it is less than the fact of not expressing yourself with authenticity.

2. Create internal permission for your emotional feeling

Do not forget that you may also have to enable internal permissions with which feel free to feel what you feel. Sometimes the way in which you have been educated, and the learning that you have done in your childhood of which emotions could be felt, and which not, for reasons beyond your control, certainly, has made you not allow yourself to express what you really feel, and that affects all your behavior emotional.

• Related article: "Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT): principles and characteristics"

3. Follow the steps of emotional management

You should also keep in mind that managing emotions involves a series of steps:

• Identify what you feel: name it
• Make an understanding of what it is, where in your body you feel it and, if it causes you discomfort, to what intensity.
• Observe what kind of reactions what you feel causes you, what things make you want to do, and if they are destructive towards you or towards another (judging, blaming, isolating you, attacking, letting yourself be attacked, manipulating, etc.).
• Reduce tension with a relaxation technique, or with physical exercise
• Look for other types of reactions. The decision of how to act is in your hands, use your mental control to modify the negative interpretation that you are probably making of the facts.

4. Be aware of your need and cover it

At this point it is very important to become aware of what you would need to do so that the discomfort that pushes you to those negative reactions ceases to exist, because there is the key to the need that you have to take care of, that is, the need that you have to satisfy, to recover your well-being, and from there, realize that you and only you have been the architect of your improvement.

5. celebrate your achievement

When you manage to consciously choose another way to express what you feel without hurting yourself or anyone, so that when you look back you feel proud of your actions (don't react), and you have taken care of your need satisfactorily, without leaving it in the hands of anyone, is when you can mark it as an achievement, so that it is added to the favorable emotional account, and your levels of self-esteem rise.