Poor self-concept?

Always putting yourself down? You can begin—right now—to restore and replenish a healthy self-esteem. It all starts with a simple truth: there’s nothing wrong with you. Never was.

You may reflexively balk at that statement, especially if insecurity has been calling the shots. But it happens to be irrefutable. Beneath your current dissatisfactions and surface judgments, there exists a you that is inviolate—untouched, undamaged, and whole.

The word inviolate, from the Latin inviolatus, describes something so sacred or pure that it must not be violated. Yet every time you put yourself down, diminish your worth, or indulge pessimism, that’s exactly what you do—you violate you.

Stop doing it.

Granted, you may not be able to instantly flip from black to white and start gushing with self-love (although that would be nice). But you can begin, right now, to neutralize your negativity. That single shift—from self-condemnation to self-acceptance—is where genuine healing begins.