Life Style and Mental Health:
  "Attitude and Self-Esteem are Keys to Mental Health"

One in four Americans experience a diagnosable mental illness.

Feeling good about yourself is self-esteem. It is an important part of the identity that everyone develops during childhood. Your self-esteem is greatly affected by two sets of expectations: What you expect of yourself and what peers expect of you. These expectations need to balance for you to generally feel comfortable with who you are.

High self-esteem is essential for an emotionally rich, rewarding life. How you see yourself affects every part of your life. Your self-esteem is partly the result of choices you make daily. The value you place on yourself is the key to making positive choices.

Without self-esteem, you may be so busy putting yourself down for your weaknesses that you don't see your strengths. Do you see yourself as a loser? This self-image can feed on itself and make you feel even worse. It also makes you more likely to accept put-downs from others, and to keep negative attitudes and behavior that just reinforce your low opinion of yourself.

A lack of self-esteem contributes to many other problems that can affect your life. You may feel overwhelmed with a sense of how inadequate and inferior you feel, as well as suffer from painful emotions like jealousy, loneliness, anger, and boredom.

Identifying your emotions and exploring the possibilities of a need for developing a more positive self-esteem, may be the first step towards overcoming a poor self-image. An additional step, may be seeking professional help from a counselor or psychologist. If you felt that counseling would benefit you, what would keep you from following through and finding a counselor. Are you feeling embarrassed? Why?

What you are feeling is the result of stigma.

You may feel that seeking out helps, labels you a loser, rather than seeing yourself as taking positive steps for improvement in your life.

Stigma is caused by a fear of the unknown, a set of false beliefs that stem from a lack of awareness and understanding. It is a judgmental conclusion you make on yourself or that others make. You don't think the worse of someone who begins a healthier diet of starting a consistent exercise program for better physical health, do you? Then why put a stigma on improving your mental health.

There is definitely substance to the old adage:
"Your attitude is everything!" Your attitude is your mental health.