Self Confidence is a super-power. Once you start believing in yourself, the magic starts happening.
Unknown
As a young girl, I didn’t have a bad childhood. If I had to look back on my early years, I couldn’t say that it was a horror movie. In fact, I had it pretty good. I had parents who loved me so much that my siblings thought I was one of their favorites. I belonged to a thriving church, a good school, had fun toys, and served in the church. I had everything a girl my age should’ve wanted. To make things better, I was a champion at public speaking; representing my school at every public speaking engagement and music function. I had won several elocution competitions, debates, quizzes and awards for singing too. I had more certificates than my siblings (who are quite extraordinary themselves), more accolades than most kids my age, and was spoken of as an intellectual, talented little girl. Yet somehow, none of it was enough. I was far from the prettiest at school. I had bugsy teeth, and eczema on my legs and hands AND I was a Christian. This left me vulnerable to severe bullying, even to the point of physical harm. What’s worse: I could not stand up for myself. Even worse: I believed I deserved it. What happened? How could a (at the time) straight-A student who had everything have such a low view of herself? The very thought of believing in myself made me nauseous. How on Earth could I possibly believe in someone so un-extraordinarily average? To this day, I’ll never forget the day that I believe plummeted my image of myself. I was in first grade, so I was about 6 years old. My youngest sister had just been born not too long ago. I absolutely adored her and was SO happy that I had another sibling. However, at the time, my father had been traveling a lot more than he used to and my mom, having had a c-section in her late 30s had multiple health issues that she was struggling with. She was alone with 2 school-going kids and a newborn and because of that, I often felt neglected or unimportant at home. She tried her best to give me time, but I had just gone into ‘BIG GIRL’ school and so a lot of her time with me was spent on doing homework, packing my bags, and getting me ready for the next day. On the other hand, I’d watch her lovingly sing to my baby sister and cuddle her all the time. I’d be talking to my mother, but my sister would cry and my mother would have to pause our conversation to attend to her. So although I was happy to have a sister, the sense of jealousy and inadequacy set in. I began to believe that my sister was more loved than I was.
One particular day, I went in to school and my mother would make me wear knee high socks to cover the eczema on my legs while others wore ankle length socks. There was a school assembly and one of the girls who I considered to be my very best friend at the time, used her time on the mic to humiliate me, calling me a donkey, bunny rabbit and a leper that no one wanted. I remember so clearly, being the shortest in my class and being at the front of the line trying to hold back my tears as everyone laughed. Later that day, this notorious boy came and slammed my head into a desk, essentially cutting my chin saying “nobody likes a donkey.” From that day, barring one boy, the entire class refused to sit with me and if the teacher made them, they made my life a living hell. This bullying continued till grade 8 and with every passing day, my self-esteem plummeted further.
As I look back on what went wrong, here are a few traps that I believe I fell into: 1) Comparison: I had an over-achieving brother, and a highly talented sister, and belonged to the wonderful Asian community that loved to compare. Although my parents never intentionally compared us, I faced it everywhere else and eventually believed that I was not good enough. 2) Dependency on accolades: As mentioned earlier, I had won plenty of awards and recognitions. This gave me a sense of pride that I began to depend on and once it became less frequent, I began to feel unimportant, unvalued, and extremely unhappy.
3) Performance: Every time I won something, I remember hearing my parents saying they were proud of me. As a result, I believed that in order for them to love or be proud of me, I had to perform. Before we go on with this story, let’s break down what low self-esteem really is: According to WebMD, Low self-esteem is when someone lacks confidence about who they are and what they can do. They often feel incompetent, unloved, or inadequate. People who struggle with low self-esteem are consistently afraid of making mistakes or letting other people down. Along with the traps I mentioned already, there were other factors that played a role. Firstly, I sucked at math! This made my teachers and fellow classmates call me dumb, stupid and all kinds of ‘endearing’ names. The bullying played a huge part as well. There were elements of abuse, misplaced guilt from religious beliefs, and a perception of being unloved (even though I was absolutely loved) by one of my parents. My lack of self-esteem turned me into a discontent perfectionist, a socially disengaged child, and someone who could not keep friendships. I would constantly doubt myself, and be trapped in an endless pit of self-pity, fear, and inadequacy. I felt broken. I felt ashamed. I felt hopeless. Until I didn’t.
It wasn’t until I was in my early teens that our pastor’s wife sought me out and began to try and help me. She noticed that I liked to people-please. I would change my opinion to fit the crowd and was afraid to be different. She sat down with me in the most gentle way and began to unpack for me the causes of this poor self-esteem. My mother changed my school and I was no longer severely bullied and the process of healing began. So what turned it around? 1) I needed to discover my identity - My identity for so long was this high-achiever, older sister, and good Christian girl. It lay with superficial titles, accolades and things that man had given me. It wasn’t until I was taken on this deep dive of who I really am in Christ that I began to realize none of these things mattered. 2) I had to accept unconditional love - Up until now, I could not believe that unconditional love existed. I could not accept that I was worthy of it and the idea of unmerited love felt fake and fairy-tale-like to me. I don’t think I fully accepted that unconditional love existed until I had my daughter.
3) I had to tell myself that I was worthy - I told myself every day that I am lovable, I am worthy of love, I am good enough. Whether my family or anyone around me told me or not, I had to ensure that I told myself. I felt so awkward in the beginning, but eventually, I saw the difference. 4) I needed to talk - For so many years, I’d bottled in everything I felt. It was too much to talk about and I was too afraid of people’s view of me. It wasn’t until I began to really talk it out that the healing began 5) I needed to accept God into my heart - Although I had already given my life to Him, I kept him out of my heart and emotions. I needed to surrender the hurt, unforgiveness and bitterness I had been carrying and allow him to replace that with his love.
6) I had to repent - I had for so long defiled God’s child by disqualifying what he had qualified. I had to realize that I was essentially calling him a liar by choosing to believe something different from what he told me, and for that, I repented.
7) I needed to forgive myself - I had become my biggest critic. I had rejected myself time and time again and funnily enough, I had to forgive myself and embrace my imperfections too.
The journey to break through was not easy, nor quick. It took me over 10 years and to this day, I still find myself fighting it at times, but here are a few scriptures I cling to
There are so many more verses and scriptures I could add, but I’ll end with this. The world will fail you. Your parents, your spouse, your friends, and everyone that you love. Each one will fail you at a certain point in time. God however does not. God sees you as breathtakingly incredible and loves you more than you can love anyone in this world. Whenever you find yourself feeling low about yourself, go back to the cross, go back to salvation. It ended there. Remind yourself about who you really are. Speak life into your spirit and allow your identity to permeate. Words have power, so let's not forget that. Negative words have to be rebuked and canceled out - even words you’ve spoken over yourself. It is a battlefield, but it’s one where the only outcome is victory, because the King of Kings is on your side!
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