Some tips to making you feel better about yourself.

We all know that life has it's ups and downs, and when we feel down and depressed it's just natural to look for something to console us. We are lucky enough if our family and friends are there to support us and make us feel better when we feel down, but what if we are not in good relationship with our family members or our friends are not always there to give us consolation in our miseries? Those are moments when we may feel really burdened and lonely. In those moments, it is really difficult for many people to find real enjoyment and to feel good about themselves and their lives. There are a lot of new and difficult problems that people face nowadays like financial difficulties due to rising costs of living and more stressful living due to the need to give our family the financial needs and security they need. These are times where people are more concerned about themselves and therefore it's more difficult to find people to trust. We now live in a society where many people try to get as much as they can regardless if they may cause hurt to others. There are of course exceptions to this rule but I am just talking in general terms.

Anyway, I could go further and show many different reasons why people feel down or depressed with their lives. That is why there are more and more people going to psychiatrist or psychologist to help ease their emotional and psychological hurts because they can't handle the pains of living anymore and they need the support of these "experts". Many of these experts recommends the use of some drugs that might even do more harm than good. Well, in some cases they work but in others they don't.

To make the story short, we simply live in a world where there are a lot of hurt and causes for feeling down or depressed. Having read a lot of books about this and have overcome a lot of difficulties myself, I feel that I am in a good position to give advice to people who might be in a "low emotional state" or those we might consider experiencing "bad moods" quite often. I would not say that I never experience "bad moods" or "low emotional states" anymore but I am confident to say that I have conquered them in a general way. Let me share with you some concepts I have learned that may help you feel better about yourself, raise your moods or at least find more motivation to change your attitude for the better. Here are my insights on how to feel good about yourself and your life:

1. Know that feeling good or bad generally starts from the mind. What you think about yourself and your situation can trigger the feelings and emotions that those thoughts entail. For example, if you think angry thoughts it would follow that you would feel angry but if you are thinking peaceful thought, it also would follow that you would feel peaceful. There is this direct connection between your thoughts and your feelings that feelings are instantly created due to those thoughts you are having. So the first thing I learned is that you need to guard your thoughts and think only those thoughts that would make you feel good about yourself. For example, when you wake up in the morning try thinking only of how wonderful your day is going to be. think how blessed you are for having the opportunity to face another day when other people are not so lucky. Count your blessings by thinking of the things you are grateful for in life. Start with this habit of thinking, and start changing those negative and harmful thoughts to better ways of thinking. That way, you are on the right road to feeling better about yourself.

2. Know that your circumstances are not the cause of your "low moods" but it's your attitude towards those circumstances or events that makes you feel down. People may say that what I said in my #1 tip was only applicable if your life is fine and you don't experience difficulties and big problems. This is not the case. It is your thinking and not your circumstances that makes you feel bad. It doesn't matter if you are having difficulties as long as you keep the right attitude, and this attitude would not allow you to feel bad in spite of these difficult circumstances.
So my second advice that supports the first one is to keep a guard to what you say. Words are powerful and what you say has the power to actualize those words. If you have big problems and you say things like "I can't stand this anymore and I hate my life!" It is understandable why you will feel so burdened. But if what you say to yourself in face of that problem is "It's okay and I'm okay. Difficulties are just a part of life and it actually even excites me to face this challenge and try to conquer them. Anyway, everyone has problems and I guess others even have more difficult problems than mine. I am fine being me and I find ways to enjoy myself." How do you think would I feel if you think this way? I would bet you would feel consoled and challenged at the same time. So besides keeping guard of what you're thinking, always make sure that what you say to yourself would be something that would make you feel better about yourself and your life in general.

3. And last but not the least, own your mind and don't let others affect you that much. We all know how other people can have the power to make life more difficult for us. There are people who tries to treat us badly or simply doesn't like us for one reason or another. They would even suggest many negative concepts about us that would try to make us hate ourselves. This last suggestion I gave is a challenge for you to make yourself stronger by depending more on your opinion about yourself and less on what others think about you. You know yourself more than anyone can so why be affected if others have different opinions of us? In this case, it then becomes important to have a deeper understanding about ourselves because our concept of who we are would be the most important factor on how we will deal with other people's criticisms. If there is some truth to what others say about us, just let it be a gauge to where we need to improve ourselves. We didn't have to kick ourselves just because we are not perfect. The truth is that nobody is perfect, so even those who criticize you for having faults have their own faults to deal with.

So the main thing is just don't let other people's opinion be such a big deal. And the best way to do this is to follow the 1st and 2nd advice I gave which is to guard your thoughts and your words because they will determine how you are going to feel about yourself more than what other people would think or say about you. When you are in control of your own mind, no person, things or events would allow you to to feel bad. It starts with the simple habit of thinking only good thoughts and saying only words that would be beneficial to you and doing it on a daily basis. And there is no better time to practice them than NOW. When you persist on this, you will find that your old "thinking" and "feeling" would be replaced by a better way of "thinking" and "feeling", and you would find yourself feeling good about yourself and you will find yourself enjoying your life more. Try it, it works!

Recommended books: You Can Feel Good Again by Richard Carlson and Feeling Good by Dr. David Burns.