{"id":67125,"date":"2022-06-01T15:33:08","date_gmt":"2022-06-01T19:33:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/?p=67125"},"modified":"2022-06-14T21:56:35","modified_gmt":"2022-06-15T01:56:35","slug":"self-awareness-and-self-esteem","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/self-awareness-and-self-esteem\/","title":{"rendered":"Nathaniel Branden on Self-Awareness and Self-Esteem"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

What does self-awareness have to do with self-esteem? How can living with self-awareness make you feel better about yourself?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Living with awareness improves your self-esteem by developing your self-efficacy: You react appropriately to your reality, so you make better decisions<\/a>. With each good decision you make, you gather evidence that you\u2019re capable\u2014which increases your confidence that you\u2019ll be capable in the future, and thus your self-esteem.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Keep reading to learn about the connection between self-awareness and self-esteem.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

Why Living With Awareness Matters<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

According to psychotherapist and self-esteem expert Nathaniel Branden, there is an important connection between self-awareness and self-esteem. Specifically, self-awareness improves your self-efficacy, which is an important component of self-esteem. Every day, you make decisions that either do or don\u2019t demonstrate a commitment to conscious living: You live with awareness<\/a> by not buying a drink you can\u2019t afford, then do the opposite by avoiding a necessary but tough conversation. Although you don\u2019t consciously remember most of these decisions because you make so many of them, each decision either nurtures or chips away at your self-esteem\u2014and, collectively, they determine your self-esteem. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Moreover, Branden contends that living without awareness can lead to addiction<\/strong>: You turn to addictive substances to reduce your awareness of your pain. But the tools of your addiction only blunt your pain temporarily. Afterward, your pain returns more powerfully than before\u2014so you need even more of your substance to dull your awareness of it. Branden adds that addiction is only possible<\/em> if you live without awareness: You only knowingly do something bad for you if you ignore<\/em> the reality that it\u2019s bad for you. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

(Shortform note: Like Branden, psychologist Tara Brach contends that addiction is an attempt to escape pain. However, in Radical Acceptance<\/em><\/a>, she argues that addiction stems primarily from an inability to accept yourself<\/a>. As we\u2019ll see, Branden also discusses the importance of accepting yourself<\/a> but doesn\u2019t directly link it to addiction.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Exercises to Help You Live With Awareness<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

How can you live with greater awareness? Branden recommends sentence-completion exercises, which is a tool used in therapy and in psychological research. For two weeks, when you wake up, brainstorm six to 10 endings to prompts, or \u201csentence stems,\u201d like the ones listed below. These endings don\u2019t need to be unique or meaningful, just grammatically correct. Write quickly without self-editing, spending no more than 10 minutes on the exercise. (Shortform note: We\u2019ve included a selection of Branden\u2019s full list of sentence stems for this exercise. He has several more in his books, as well as on his Twitter feed<\/a>.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n