Self-confidence tips—powerful ways to impact your thoughts about yourself and the actions you take (or don’t take) because of how you regard yourself—exist because self-confidence isn’t passive. It’s not something someone merely has or does not have. Self-confidence is a skill, and like all skills, it takes practice to develop. Self-confidence is an active process encompassing both thoughts and actions.

Self-confidence isn’t reserved for a lucky few; instead, it’s something absolutely everyone can develop—including you. The following five self-confidence tips are potent ways to cultivate and increase self-confidence.

Five Powerful Self-Confidence Tips

1. Develop a sense of yourself. An effective starting point for gaining self-confidence is discovering who you are—who you really are, at your core, as opposed to what you think others want you to be. This is a process that is intentional and active. Explore your interests, values, desires, wishes, inspirations, style, strengths, and more, and record these in a way that is meaningful to you: a journal, a collage, a photo essay, etc. Actively and intentionally exploring and recording who you are creates a strong foundation for self-confidence.
2. Accept yourself fully. You are a human being, and as such you are multi-faceted and imperfect. Knowing, acknowledging, and accepting your strengths and your weaknesses help you gain self-confidence. When you focus on what you perceive are glaring flaws and proceed to beat yourself up for possessing them, that’s where your attention lies. Your emotions and actions follow your focus. Rather than ruminating about your human weaknesses and trying to resist them, accept them as part of who you are. Notice, accept, and move on. Shifting your attention to what you do right rather than wrong enhances self-confidence.
3. Give yourself permission to want. Many of us are taught from a young age that desire is selfish, even bad. Naturally, that destroys self-confidence. Wanting things is the core of healthy goal-setting. When you beat yourself up for wanting something, you get in your own way and make it hard to create and pursue goals. Then, when you’re blocked from achieving what you want to, your self-confidence takes a dive. Know yourself. Know what you want. Give yourself permission to want it. This allows you to set goals and take steps to make them happen, which increases self-confidence.
4. Live fully in the present. Low self-confidence is, in part, connected to being stuck in the past or worrying about the future. That increases anxiety and decreases self-confidence. Rather than getting worried about what you “should” do or “should/should not” have done, live fully in the present moment. Be mindful of what’s going on around you, what you are thinking, and what you are doing. Challenge negative thinking and embrace the positive right now.
5. Develop your whole self. Self-confidence is about positive thoughts and actions. These don’t always have to do with achievements. Quite the contrary, actually, for getting caught up in having to constantly achieve sets up unrealistic expectations, thus reducing self-confidence. Instead, allow yourself to simply be. Discover things about yourself and in your life that create a sense of peace and joy, and do them. Develop hobbies, explore your interests, practice self-care, connect with others, volunteer, make opportunities to laugh. Allowing yourself to enjoy your life boosts positivity and increases self-confidence in a fun way.

Building self-confidence is like honing any other skill. It doesn’t just happen; instead, it takes effort and practice. Taking charge of your self-confidence directly affects quality of life. The mere act of actively putting to use the five tips for self-confidence provides powerful results for everyone. Yes; you, too.

Because self-confidence is so important to mental health and wellbeing, it’s common for people to want to know how to increase their self-confidence. Self-confidence is the courage someone has to know himself, believe in himself, and act on those beliefs. Self-confidence is self-respect and positive self-regard. To improve self-confidence is to improve the quality of one’s life.

Christopher Peterson (2006) asserts that self-confidence is connected to

•  Life satisfaction
• Happiness
• Positive coping skills
• Optimism
• Achievement
• A sense of control over one’s life

Self-confidence is something everyone can, and deserves to, have. It’s natural to feel that your own self-confidence needs a boost. Here, then, are ways to improve and increase your self-confidence.

Self-Efficacy and Success Increase Self-Confidence

Achievement contributes to self-confidence (Gerber, 2003). When someone achieves something meaningful to her, even small things, she feels a sense of accomplishment. This increases her sense of self-efficacy, a component of self-confidence that has to do with the degree to which someone believes she can do something.

Achievements and successes contribute to self-efficacy, and together these increase overall self-confidence. Then, when someone’s self-confidence is improved, she is equipped with greater courage, optimism, and can-do spirit; this, in turn, increases the effort she puts into her tasks, contributing to more success. Experiencing success increases self-confidence, and increasing self-confidence contributes to success in a perpetual upward spiral.

Self-confidence is linked to concepts known as agency and pathways. Agency refers to someone’s determination to achieve her goals. Someone’s belief that they can create the way (the path) to achieve her goals is known as pathways. Experiencing success and possessing agency and pathways improves self-confidence (Peterson, 2006).

It makes sense that experiencing successes contributes to improved self-confidence. However, experiencing success can feel daunting when someone lacks self-confidence. Fortunately, there are things to do to boost self-confidence while you are creating successes in your life.

Improving, Increasing Self-Confidence When You Don’t Think You Can

It’s true. Experiencing success improves self-confidence, and self-confidence leads to successes. How can someone jump into that cycle if he doesn’t feel very confident in himself and his abilities? What if he tries to succeed but fails? What then?

First, relax and ease up the pressure you place on yourself. As much as self-confidence comes from achieving successes in life, it also comes from making mistakes, from being imperfect. Did you know that the more you are aware of your imperfections, the more your self-confidence will increase?

A big source of self-confidence is self-acceptance. Accepting oneself and increasing self-confidence is a process that involves both thoughts and behaviors. Feeling the pressure of perfectionism increases anxiety and decreases self-confidence. It make someone reluctant to set goals and to try to achieve goals they do set; in other words, the quest for perfection decreases someone’s agency and pathways, and it destroys self-confidence.

Self-confidence comes from accepting who you are as a human being, all of your strengths and weaknesses. Some ways to accept yourself and improve self-confidence include:

• Notice your thoughts that chip away at your self-confidence. Consider them. How accurate are they? What evidence can you find that these negative thoughts are wrong?
• Replace the critical thoughts with more realistic and positive ones. Keep doing this until you believe it (this takes time, so be patient with yourself).
• Define your goals, big and small, clearly. Knowing what you want is the first step to succeeding.
• Decide steps for achieving your goals. Every step you reach is an achievement that will improve self-confidence.
• Create positive relationships with others. Reach out to just one person and create a connection.
• Practice assertiveness: expressing yourself while acknowledging someone else improves self-confidence.
• Find role models from your past or present. Whose confidence do you respect and admire? How can you emulate it?
• Allow yourself to make mistakes, and love yourself for them.
•  Practice, practice, practice because improving self-confidence is a process rather than an event.

Creating goals, attending to your thoughts, connecting with others for positive experiences, envisioning role models, accepting yourself fully, and practicing these things with patient persistence will improve self-confidence. This will increase successes, which will further increase self-confidence. Self-confidence is something everyone can continue to improve and increase, and with it comes an improved quality of life.

You have the power to gain self-confidence. A lack of self-confidence tells you that you don’t, but you absolutely do. Just how, though, do you get self-confidence?

Self-confidence isn’t something someone is just lucky enough to have or is unworthy of having. Self-confidence is something someone creates. Gaining self-confidence is an active process. People intentionally work to get-self-confidence; further, self-confidence is something people must continue to tend to over time.

How To Get Self-Confidence? Act! Do!

Getting self-confidence is about creating it for yourself. Getting self-confidence is about doing, about taking action to start believing in yourself. To gain self-confidence is like gaining any skill. It takes determination and practice and involves doing things, big and small, over time.

Getting self-confidence can feel like a catch-22. It requires actions and practice to acquire it, yet a lack of self-confidence can make any action feel impossible. For that reason, it can be tempting to wait until you have a little more self-confidence before really diving in and taking action to get more self-confidence. Unfortunately, without doing things to build this skill, self-confidence won’t develop.

Gaining self-confidence, then, is about doing things in spite of insecurities and anxieties. The following ideas are examples of how to gain self-confidence through acting and doing:

• Identify goals (personal, work-related, social, etc.); knowing what you want in life is an important first step in gaining self-confidence
• Build the skills you need in order to accomplish your goals; take classes, read books and articles, increase physical fitness. Doing what it takes to achieve your goals helps you believe in yourself
• Do something you enjoy every day; feeling good and experiencing success is a fun way to increase self-confidence.
• Increase social connection and involvement by reaching out to a friend, doing volunteer work, or performing small random acts of kindness.
• Identify your strengths and determine ways you can use them to meet your goals. Acknowledging and drawing on your strengths helps you gain self-confidence.

To Gain Self-Confidence, Shift Your Thoughts

Do you think you can’t get self-confidence? Think again. According to cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT), thoughts are incredibly powerful. Our thoughts shape how we perceive and interpret the world around us as well as ourselves. Our own thoughts can build us up or tear us down. Thoughts can encourage and motivate, or they can discourage and create apathy. In order to gain self-confidence, it’s important to become fully aware of your thoughts and, if necessary, change them.

Negative thoughts, often called faulty thinking patterns, lead to low self-confidence. When you’re barraged with a steady stream of put-downs, doubts, negative comparisons, and accusations, it’s nearly impossible to feel self-confident in anything.

Each and every person can control the quality of her thoughts. Your thoughts are just that—your thoughts. You actively think, and you can learn the skill of actively thinking positive thoughts that help you gain self-confidence.

Even if you’ve spoken harshly to yourself for a long time and thus have very little self-confidence, you can turn your negative thoughts into realistic, positive ones.

The human brain possesses a quality called neuroplasticity, which means that it’s flexible and can learn and be re-trained throughout life (Rufus, 2014). Science says that you can learn new things and gain self-confidence. The following skills come from CBT and will help you get self-confidence:

• Tune into your thoughts to increase awareness of them. Writing them down is helpful. What negative things are you telling yourself?
• Look for patterns. Are you telling yourself that you must be all good, perfect, and if you’re not then you’re all bad
• Are you yes-butting, discounting the positive things about you that others remark about? How are you talking to yourself?
• Closely examine your thoughts and thought patterns. Look for evidence that they’re true. Look for evidence that they’re false or that there are exceptions.

The result of both taking action and changing your thoughts is a new self-confidence. Gaining self-confidence requires action and hard work and lots of practice. As you do and think and practice, you will begin to accept your whole self—all of your strengths and weaknesses—you’ll experience success, and you will gain self-confidence.

Why do some people suffer from a lack of self-confidence while others are self-assured, confident in who they are and what they do? Someone with low self-confidence might very likely respond that she doesn’t deserve to be confident because there is nothing worthwhile about her. That, though, is a false belief caused by a lack of self-confidence. Someone doesn’t lack self-confidence because she’s unworthy; someone lacks self-confidence for very specific reasons that have nothing to do with her inherent value as a human being.

Having low self-confidence isn’t someone’s fault. It’s a result of external circumstances and/or faulty thought patterns that feel real. Even when it’s someone’s own thoughts that contribute to a lack of self-confidence, the lack of confidence is because of how someone thinks about things. Low self-confidence is never caused by who someone is at his core. What, then, causes a lack of self-confidence?

Low Self-Confidence Happens When Other Needs Go Unmet

Human beings have basic needs that must be met for both survival and thriving. Psychologist Abraham Maslow developed a theory asserting that people are motivated by certain basic needs, needs that build upon each other. Envision a tub of blocks that you plan to use to build a model house. You can’t put on the roof until there are walls under it. Maslow’s needs are that way. You must fulfill the bottom layers of needs before working on higher ones.

Maslow uses the term “esteem” to encompass everything that is included in self-esteem, self-efficacy, and self-confidence—all related but slightly different concepts. Esteem, self-confidence, is rather far up the pyramid. If the underlying needs aren’t met, it’s very difficult for someone to have self-confidence.

According to Maslow, the following needs must be met, in order, before the need for esteem is met:

• Physiological needs such as food and sleep
• Safety needs such as a secure shelter, order, and stability
• Love and belonging needs such as human connection, intimacy, and friendship

If any of these basic needs are unmet, someone’s self-confidence is likely to be lacking.

External Influences Can Cause Lack of Self-Confidence

Often, low self-confidence is learned through experiences and interactions with others, sometimes from a young age. When someone of any age encounters these situations, self-confidence can drop:

• Frequent verbal put-downs
• Being bullied by peers, workplace supervisors, etc.
• Involvement in toxic or abusive relationships
• Living through difficult circumstances (poverty, illness, divorce, single parenting, unemployment, etc.)

Thoughts and Focus Can Cause Low Self-Confidence

The above situations are external to the person, outside his full control (of course he can choose to act to improve his situation, but the people and events themselves aren’t in his control). It’s possible for needs to be met and external influences to be positive and still have low self-confidence; no one tells someone that he is worthless, yet he has little self-confidence.

Frequently, someone’s own thought patterns chip away at his self-confidence. For example, these faulty beliefs are associated with lack of self-confidence:

• Having an external locus of control, believing that life, in general, is outside one’s influence
• A tendency to self-blame.
• Learned helplessness, the belief that nothing one does will improve anything
• The acceptance of every negative thought about oneself as true and accurate (listening to the harsh inner critic and accepting everything she says at face value)

Lack of self-confidence is caused by unmet basic needs, external factors beyond one’s control, and/or faulty thoughts. Lack of self-confidence can cause a sense of shame, depression, and anxiety, and it can be a factor in personality disorders such as narcissistic personality disorder and borderline personality disorder (Stone & Stone, 1993).

It’s important to recognize that your value is inherent. Your value isn’t dependent upon anything; instead, your value is there because you are who you are. None of the causes of a lack of self-esteem are part of you at your core, which means that you can address them and gain self-esteem.

Learn how to gain self-confidence.

You can improve your emotional wellness, that state of being that means understanding and accepting the entire range of human emotions and living well through the ups and downs of life. Emotional wellness is within reach of everybody. It’s a skill that is learned and a trait that can be developed rather than something someone is born with or without.

These emotional wellness tips will help you build this skill.

10 Emotional Wellness Tips

1. Develop awareness
   
   The more in tune we are to our emotions, thoughts, and behaviors, the more we can take charge of them and the less control they have over us. Practice paying attention on purpose. Rather than waiting until you feel overwhelmed or out of control, stop frequently during the day and assess how you’re feeling, what you’re thinking, and what you’re doing. Becoming aware of your shifting emotions lets you tend to them before they flare.
    
2. Separate yourself from what happens around you
   
   In acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT), this is known as defusion (you are de-fusing, unsticking yourself from an emotional situation). Contrary what it often feels like, we are not tied to what is happening around us. We also aren’t the sum of our problems. When you mentally and emotionally separate yourself from events and others by focusing on your strengths, values, goals, and actions, you begin to stop taking things personally. Your self-criticism diminishes. You become emotionally healthy.
    
3. Accept your feelings
   
   We are human with a wide range of feelings. Emotional health does not mean having only good feelings, nor does it mean ignoring the bad ones. Letting yourself feel all your emotions reduces their punch because you’re not fighting and resisting—and thus focusing on—them.
    
4. Develop your perspective
   
   Cognitive behavior therapy (CBT) and rational emotive behavior therapy (REBT) are two approaches to mental health that address thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. Both assert that problems aren’t our problem. It’s our thoughts and feelings about the problems that become difficult ("What is Mental Wellbeing? Definition and Examples"). Begin to see things from different perspectives. Is there good in a bad situation? Could the person who just snapped at you have a reason for her behavior other than you?
    
5. Reframe
   
   This is also known as cognitive reappraisal and is similar to perspective-taking. To be emotionally healthy is to be able to look at things in new ways. In reframing, you find the good in situations. Someone with social anxiety, for example, might accept his fear of attending a dinner and see the event as an opportunity to enjoy good food. He plans to enjoy the food and talk to two people he knows will be there. This way, he still has some anxiety, but it doesn’t overpower him.
    
6. Laugh
   
   Humor is powerful. Finding something amusing in a rough situation shifts our emotions. Laughing is good for us. As you develop your perspective, include adding humor to your life. Even taking laugh breaks and watching funny videos is good for emotional health.
    
7. Practice mindfulness
   
   Mindfulness is an excellent tool for emotional wellness because when we practice mindfulness, our focus is on what’s going on right here, right now, in the present moment. Our strongest emotions are usually about the past or the future. Staying mindfully in the present keeps us grounded.
    
8. Enhance emotional regulation
   
   Emotional regulation involves keeping our emotions in check. We are aware of them, we allow ourselves to feel them, but we don’t get consumed by them. Emotional health means our emotions don’t dictate our actions. Impulse control is part of emotional regulation. Practice noticing your feelings and choosing not to act on them.
    
9. Don’t try to pursue happiness
   
   Emotional health doesn’t mean forcing positive emotions. Looking for happiness is a trap because the more you “look” and try to force it, the further away you become. You miss all the good that is truly within you and around you by trying to force yourself to be happy. Emotionally healthy people let themselves feel their emotions, express them appropriately, and move on.
    
10. Be optimistic
    
    While emotional health isn’t forcing positive emotions, it also isn’t about sticking to the negative. Optimism is a component of healthy perspective-taking. It means knowing that bad situations and feelings exist, but they aren’t permanent, and they don’t define you. A glass-half-full is a common description of optimism. Perhaps, though, there’s a better way to think about it: Imagine you have a glass that tips over and all of the water spills out. Do you throw away the glass, feeling that it is worthless, or do you pick it up because you know you can refill it? Practice picking up your glass.

As you make these 10 emotional wellness tips part of your life, you will improve your emotional wellness and be emotionally healthy.

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Self-confidence is a term that appears in many contexts, from improving mental health to helping people meet business goals and more. Self-confidence is more than a buzz word; it’s a genuine concept linked to mental health, wellbeing, and a positive way of being in the world. Self-confidence includes both feeling and doing.

Self-confidence is not so much a single idea as it is a process that involves how someone thinks about himself and others as well as how he functions despite challenges and uncertainties. Self-confidence applies to someone’s inner, private world and to his outer world around him.

This is the broad definition of self-confidence. What, specifically, is self-confidence?

Self-Confidence Definition: What Is Self-Confidence?

In her book The Portable Therapist (1992), Susanna McMahon explains that self-confidence is “a way of being in the world that allows you to know yourself and to take care of yourself.” Mary Welford (2013) says that it’s about being aware of when we’re struggling and having the strength to commit to doing something about it. Anneli Rufus (2014) asserts that self-confidence involves self-respect and having the courage to tell the truth about who you are, what you like, and what you believe.

Self-confidence, then, is the courage to know yourself, believe in yourself, and act on your beliefs. A definition of self-confidence is a positive feeling about oneself and the world that leads to courageous actions born out of a sense of self-respect.

The above definition explains what self-confidence is. These examples illustrate what self-confidence can look like. Self-confidence means:

• Valuing yourself for who you are regardless of the blunders you make, the type of work you do or don’t do, etc.
• Feeling good about yourself; feeling worthy despite imperfections
• Being courageous enough to stand up for yourself and be assertive
• Knowing that you’re worthy of others’ respect and friendship
• Knowing and accepting the whole of you, both your strengths and weaknesses

See also "5 Self-Confidence Tips that Provide Powerful Results"

Self-Confidence Definition: What Self-Confidence Is Not

To better understand what self-confidence is, it’s helpful to know what self-confidence is not. Self-confidence is not:

• Believing that you’re perfect, or thinking that you should be perfect
• Holding yourself to unrealistic expectations and standards
• Living a life free of problems, pain, and difficulty (but self-confidence does help you cope with life’s problems, pain, and difficulties)
• Being selfish (quite the opposite, for when you’re confident in who you are and what you can do, you’re more likely to reach out to and connect with others)

Is Self-Confidence the Same as Self-Esteem?

Self-confidence and self-esteem are very similar but not quite identical terms. Self-confidence can be defined as positive feelings about self and world that impact someone’s actions. Self-esteem is sometimes described as the degree to which someone values him/herself. There’s also a concept known as self-efficacy. Self-efficacy is someone’s belief in her ability to accomplish something.

These three concepts aren’t identical to each other; however, they are closely related. Self-esteem emphasizes someone’s feelings about herself. Self-efficacy emphasizes the degree to which someone believes she can do something. Self-confidence, with its emphasis on both acceptance of someone’s whole self and how she acts in the world because of it, is perhaps a perfect merging of self-esteem and self-efficacy.

The Meaning of Self-Confidence: A Quality-Of-Life Issue

How important is it for someone to develop self-confidence? The central issue relates to the quality of life. Self-confidence influences the life someone creates for herself.

A lack of self-confidence negatively impacts someone’s quality of life. Having little self-confidence creates feelings of

• Self-doubt
• Unworthiness
• Inferiority to others
• Apathy
• Loss of enjoyment
• Anxiety, depression, and other mental health challenges

In contrast, self-confidence creates

• Awareness of strengths, limitations, and how to live your life with both
• Acceptance of one’s faults; the realization that perfectionism is neither possible nor desirable
• A feeling of being complete
• A sense of inner peace
• An experience of balance between one’s strengths and weaknesses
• The ability to create and experience happiness

Self-confidence is experiencing genuinely positive feelings about yourself while accepting your faults and foibles. A definition of self-confidence is acting assertively because you believe in your inherent worth. Self-confidence means that even when you don’t like things about yourself, you love your whole self.

If you're thinking about marriage counseling, maybe you're wondering "what's in it for me?" Find out how to get the most out of marriage counseling.

Long lasting, successful marriages can be hard work and it's normal for couples to encounter rough waters at times. In fact, it's inevitable. As a relationship therapist, I've seen enough struggling couples in my office to know that it's very common for people to run into trouble and need a little outside assistance. It's an act of bravery for people to drag their weary selves - and their personal issues - into a therapist's office and lay them at his/her feet. Reality dictates that not everyone will be able to salvage their marriages. Sometimes the tangled weeds of resentment are too thick or the love as it once was is truly gone. However, I believe in the counseling process to help those really wanting it. Having witnessed all types of couples with all sorts of attitudes, I've been able to identify some things that people pondering marriage counseling should consider prior to beginning the process. If you're considering marriage counseling these points will help you and your partner get the most out of your time, effort and money!

Here are my five tips to get the most out of marriage counseling that applies to both you and your partner:

1) Acknowledge A Problem Exists: How do each of you define the problem? Believe it or not, it's not uncommon for one of the partners to deny there's an issue. Or, the partner says something like, "Well, if he's upset about....then it's his problem." Guess what... If your partner has a problem that is relationship-related then it is your problem because it's a problem of the marriage.

2) Acknowledge You Might Contribute to the Problem: It's helpful to view marriage as a system - where there's a certain homeostasis or balance occurring between the two elements of the system (the partners). The two parts can't help but impact and interrelate with each other. When one of you behaves in a certain way there's a reaction by your mate - and vice versa. It's a rare day when one person is solely responsible for all of the problems in a marriage. There are cycles or dances occurring constantly. As they say, "it takes two to tango."

3) Be Willing to Consider Behavioral Change: A willingness to make adjustments in how you each act with each other for the sake of the marriage will take you far in the counseling process. By taking this position you're saying, "You're worth it. This marriage is worth it. I'm willing to meet you halfway."

4) Monitor Your Expectations: Be aware of your expectations of the therapist. I know the look. A couple sits before me on the couch, eyes pleading, "Fix me." Or I will be asked directly, "Tell us what you think we should do." If I had a magic wand next to my chair, I'd pull it out and use it but I don't! My role of a marriage counselor is to guide, explore, increase awareness and educate about aspects of healthy relationships. The most powerful change occurs between the couple - not as the direct result of a fancy trick I've pulled out of my bag.

5) Be Patient: The amount of time marriage counseling takes is dependent on a number of factors including the amount of resentment built up, length of time being unhappy and willingness to do things differently, to name just a few. It's definitely an investment of time, effort and hard earned money which can be frustrating and stressful for some people. This is totally understandable. Try to stay focused on the goal - which is to get you and your partner on track again with a solid relationship foundation. Remember, this is a life long investment.

Marriage counseling can be a number of experiences to different people; powerful, stressful, enlightening, emotional, insightful, connecting, upsetting and so on. If you feel your marriage might benefit from it, I encourage you to discuss the previous points with your partner. Ideally, you agree with all of them but if you don't, this doesn't necessarily mean marriage counseling isn't for you. These are only suggestions to assist you in increasing the odds of getting the most out of the process. A skilled marriage counselor can still help you navigate through the murky waters - if that's what you both want.

About the author: Lisa Brookes Kift is a Marriage and Family Therapist and writer, with a private practice doing individual therapy and couples counseling in Marin County, California.

Living with PTSD can be a nightmare. It can feel as though the trauma that caused PTSD was just the beginning of a horrendous journey into a dark, marshy bog full of quicksand from which there is no escape. Living with PTSD is like a nightmare because PTSD isn’t just about the traumatic event. Living with PTSD is a nightmare because of what someone thinks the trauma and PTSD mean about him/herself.

Living with PTSD Can Be a Nightmare Because It’s All-Encompassing

Trauma encompasses someone’s entire being. PTSD causes distress and impairment in functioning in so many areas of someone’s life. Someone’s ability to do well at work, at school, with tasks at home, in social situations, or any other important area of functioning is significantly diminished because of PTSD (Physical and Emotional Effects of PTSD).

PTSD changes the way someone thinks, feels, and acts. PTSD impacts the way someone thinks about him/herself and about others. PTSD is associated with:

• Reduced income
• Absenteeism
• Physical, occupational, and social disabilities
• High medical costs and medication usage.

Because PTSD pulls someone ever deeper into quicksand so that he/she is surrounded by the negative effects and feels he/she cannot escape, living with PTSD can be a nightmare.

What is Living with PTSD Like?

Just as nightmares are frightening, disorienting, and all-encompassing, so, too, is living with PTSD. All aspects of life, night and day, can be extremely difficult because general functioning is impaired (How to Help Someone with PTSD).

Often, someone experiencing PTSD after trauma remains fixated on the traumatic event. To outsiders, it can seem as though the person is just ruminating, choosing to think about it rather than letting it go and moving on. This, though, is inaccurate. Trauma and PTSD change neural pathways, and all of the myriad effects of PTSD keep the person stuck. Fixating on the trauma isn’t intentional, no more than having a nightmare is intentional. Someone with PTSD would likely much rather think about something else; the fact that he/she often can’t is part of the nightmare of living with PTSD.

Living with PTSD can often be a struggle. PTSD barrages people with intrusive thoughts, memories, flashbacks, and nightmares. Someone experiencing PTSD is typically compelled to avoid many people, places, events, things, and discussions in order to avoid intrusive memories. Thoughts and emotions become negative; indeed, sometimes, people can’t feel anything positive at all. Additionally, someone living with PTSD is in a near-constant state of arousal, constantly on alert for danger. All of this is incredibly exhausting for someone living with PTSD.

Dating or Living with Someone with PTSD

PTSD can greatly interfere with relationships. It becomes difficult for someone with PTSD to relate to partners, family, friends, coworkers, and others. In turn, dating someone with PTSD or living with someone with PTSD can be incredibly challenging.

It is common for someone living with PTSD to experience:

• Anger
• Distrust
• Anxiety
• Depression
• Guilt
• Shame
• Self-blame
• Communication problems
• Difficulties with problem-solving
• Inability to feel close or intimate; or, conversely
• Overly dependent, needy, and clingy

Living with someone with PTSD or even dating someone with PTSD can be hard, too, because dealing with the effects of PTSD can take all of someone’s time and energy, leaving little to give his/her partner.

Partners, friends, and family members of someone living with PTSD often begin to feel

• Hurt
• Shut out
• Angry
• Distrustful
• Pressured
• Stressed

Relationships can be harmed by the nightmare that is PTSD. Often, a vicious cycle begins (Sutton, 2011): Because of PTSD, the trauma survivor has difficulties with problem-solving, communication, trust, and intimacy; the loved one reacts to this with hurt, anger, stress, etc.; this reaction intensifies the survivor’s PTSD symptoms; the loved has an intensified reaction. This nightmarish cycle can be part of living with or dating someone with PTSD.

Living with PTSD Can Be a Nightmare, But People Wake Up

PTSD can indeed be a nightmare, for the trauma survivor as well as those in his/her life. There is good news, though. With time, PTSD treatments, using PTSD coping skills, and dealing positively with PTSD, people can and do wake up from the nightmare of PTSD to discover their beautiful lives.

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The goals of emotional wellness include those things that keep you mentally and emotionally healthy so you can live your life without being controlled by your emotions.

To get a better understanding of the goals of emotional wellness, let’s first examine what emotional wellness is. It’s a way of being with yourself and the world around you. It refers to being aware of all of the different human emotions and understanding how you feel, think, and behave when experiencing them. Beyond that, emotional wellness is the ability to separate yourself from your emotions, knowing that how you feel doesn’t accurately and thoroughly represent who you are.

Emotional wellness isn’t an either-or concept, something that someone either has or does not have. This wellness exists on a spectrum that ranges from poor insight and emotional regulation on one end to high emotional awareness and the ability to let emotions flow without getting stuck in them on the other end. People move around on the spectrum. No one is stuck in a certain place.

Therefore, the overall goal of emotional wellness is to have a healthy relationship with your emotions so you exist on the higher end of the spectrum. Here, you will still feel the range of emotions. Here, you will have good days and bad days. You’ll have positive interactions with others as well as negative ones. A goal of emotional wellness isn’t to live in a perfect world filled only with positive emotions. Instead, it’s to experience ups and downs and live well anyway, away from the control of your strong emotions.

6 Goals of Emotional Wellness

Striving to live with emotional wellness is a wonderful gift you can give yourself. The goals of emotional wellness are many, and together, they help you create your best (not perfect, for that doesn’t exist) self in a quality life. Your journey will include the goals of emotional wellness, such as:

1. Life satisfaction
   
   This is the ability to see the big picture rather than blowing bad experiences and emotions out of proportion. You know that a terrible day doesn’t mean a terrible life, or that an argument doesn’t mean a relationship is doomed ("What are Emotionally Healthy Relationships?").
    
2. Being active with your emotions rather than a passive target for them
   
   One of the goals of emotional wellness is to be able to shift your attention to something more positive and constructive than what you’re currently feeling. For example, when angry, you can choose to do something (leave the room, go for a walk, turn your attention to someone or something else) rather than allowing the anger to overtake you, freezing you in a state of rumination and hate. Even with strong emotional wellness, you’ll get angry sometimes. It’s what you do about it that is important.
    
3. Emotional regulation
   
   There are elements of emotional regulation among the other goals of emotional wellness. Emotional regulation is a skill that you can develop that involves pausing and thinking before impulsively reacting when emotional. Emotional regulation also involves intentionally choosing not to be defined by your feelings.
    
4. Becoming a distant observer
   
   A path to emotional regulation, being a distant observer involves letting your feelings and thoughts exist and just stepping away from them, observing them as if they were happening to someone else. Observing your feelings rather than remaining trapped in them gives you more control over your emotions because you become more objective and your feelings are muted.
    
5. Being comfortable with discomfort
   
   Negative emotions are uncomfortable, so to end the discomfort, we often act impulsively to release them. Have you ever been hurt by someone’s words and found yourself snapping back, saying things you later regret? Discomfort is often behind this and other emotional reactions. When we can pause, take a few slow deep breaths, and become that distant observer, we can learn to let those uncomfortable feelings just exist without immediately reacting to them.
    
6. Making peace with what you can’t control
   
   This is also known as acceptance. Much of our emotions, the negative ones that take a toll on our mental health and wellbeing, relate to struggles against things we wish we could change but can’t. Accepting the unexpected or those things out of our control won’t magically make the changes we want, but it will drastically increase your emotional wellness by freeing you and giving you control over that which you can affect: your thoughts, feelings, and actions.

All of these goals of emotional wellness help lead to the ultimate goal: to create a life we love and live it fully, enjoying the good and handling the bad with grace.

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Coping with the physical and emotional effects of PTSD on your life can be very difficult, but you don’t have to feel like you’re a victim of the trauma and of PTSD. You can develop and use PTSD coping skills to reclaim yourself.

Coping skills are active, stand-up-and-take-charge mechanisms. PTSD coping skills are things that you do to

• Manage emotions, anxiety, depression, and more in the moment
• Regain control
• Take back your thoughts, feelings, and behaviors
• Reclaim your body and end the pain and other physical effects of PTSD
• Take charge of your life

It often can seem as though trauma and the resulting PTSD stole your power. By using PTSD coping skills, you begin to take it right back.

Coping with PTSD: Identify What You Need Right Now

With PTSD, people have to deal with many different things at once. The effects of PTSD can be devitalizing and overwhelming because they involve so many different things: physical effects, emotional effects, intrusion symptoms, avoidance behavior, negative changes in thoughts and mood, and heightened arousal (PTSD Symptoms and Signs of PTSD). All of these chaotic effects make coping with PTSD challenging.

The first step in developing PTSD coping skills is to become aware of what you need in the moment. When you are feeling upset, off, and generally not up to dealing with PTSD or anything else, pause and listen to your thoughts, emotions, and body. What needs the most attention right now? What part of you needs soothing? It can take time to develop the ability to be still and pinpoint exactly what needs attention in a given moment, so be patient with yourself as you learn to do this. It just takes some practice and awareness.

Once you know what it is you need right now, you can choose a coping skill that will best meet that need.

How to Cope with PTSD: A List of Coping Skills

The list of coping skills is seemingly infinite. Different things work for different people, so give yourself time to see if something works and change it if it doesn’t. Also, the more coping skills you have at your disposal, the better equipped you’ll be to cope with PTSD.

Here’s a partial list of coping skills to get you started. Hopefully, these will inspire other ideas that work for you.

• Practicing slow, controlled deep breathing
• Using progressive muscle relaxation
• Using Aromatherapy (breathing in various essential oils, using lotions, candles, etc.)
• Visualizing (mentally picturing a calming image, setting, and envisioning yourself there)
• Distracting yourself (objects, books, etc. at your disposal to shift your focus)
• Practicing mindfulness (being present in the moment with all of your senses)
• Gardening
• Having a bucket of sand on hand to manipulate
• Coloring
• Having a hobby
• Exercising
• Having a water bottle with you to stay hydrated
• Blowing bubbles
• Taking a shower or warm bath
• Learning anger management techniques
• Creating sleep routines to facilitate better sleep
• Keeping in touch with a trusted friend or family member

Why Use PTSD Coping Skills?

Building a toolbox of techniques for coping with PTSD allows you to actively and systematically re-create the life you want to live. Using coping skills for PTSD is empowering because it helps you pull out of PTSD’s strong grasp.

PTSD treatments, such as therapy and medications can help, but learning coping skills may be your best ally against PTSD. When you actively put your coping skills to work for you, you are living in the present. You’re not thinking anxiously about the future, and you’re not fearfully stuck in the trauma of the past. Coping with PTSD with coping skills means that you are beginning to transcend the trauma.

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