How to help someone with no self confidence?

In My Humble Opinion
21

Surprise her into undertaking experiences that might usually be outside her comfort zone. Like rock climbing, or hiking, something physical would be good. Jumping into a pickup game of, well, anything, really.

If she’s not social, pop her into a couple of social situations, for short periods. She may only need one, really surprising, fun experience to help draw her out a bit.

One experience, that she cannot help but feel proud of herself for completing.

Clearly there are a lot of different things that could be challenging for her. You know her best, perhaps you can come up with something that will stretch her a little? She needs to remember what it feels like to be proud of herself. Challenge her to something that will give her that feeling again.

One of the greatest lessons anyone can learn, in life, in my opinion, is to remain openhearted, in spite of having been hurt. It’s definitely a choice, and yet it feels so counter-intuitive. If you help her to this lesson, you’ll truly be giving her a gift.

Sounds like she could use a lesson in compassion too! The lesson of compassion is only half learned if you only develop it for others. If you cannot manifest the same compassion for yourself, that you would have for another, you still have some learning to do. Having compassion for yourself, being able to let go of your mistakes, is an absolutely required skill for moving beyond our screw ups/traumas, in life.

I wish her nothing but the best, and agree about the clergy recommendation. More experienced, hands on, freely available, family counselors, are hard to find!

22

Generally, I think self-confidence is something you do, not something you feel. (Sort of like love itself.) I think it’s a bad idea to constantly reassure her - this will only reinforce her anxiety and make her dependence on your opinion even stronger. In fact, I think her journey toward self-confidence needs to have as little to do with you as possible. Which isn’t to say you shouldn’t be there to support her as she explores new activities and begins to get a stronger sense of self. But if you assign yourself sole responsibility for her happiness and self-concept, you will be miserable and it won’t help her at all. She needs to get her own thing going and realize she’s worth being with on her own merits.

And she needs therapy for the trauma. I’d strongly recommend prolonged exposure therapy which resulted in what I can only describe as a miracle for my own PTSD. I understand you can’t afford this right now. But even some basic sliding-scale community clinic work would probably get her going down a good path. (Stick with the cognitive and behavioral therapies; IMO general talk therapy is a horrible way to treat trauma.)

And I recommend a couple of books which may help. Radical Acceptance and There is Nothing Wrong with You.

23

Feeling Good is the more popular of the two, but Learned Optimism worked best for me personally. I suggest you read through the Amazon reviews for each, and see if any of them strike a chord with you as something that might help your friend.

24

“The way it works is, you do the thing you’re scared shitless of first. You get the courage AFTER you do it, not before you do it.”
–Archie Gates, Three Kings

25

Once again, thank you all for the advice.

She spent the last 5 days with my family, and it seemed to help her a lot. By the time she left today, I could see a real improvement in her. I think hanging out with my family and the advice in this thread will help her a great deal.

26

One thing I would caution about being in a relationship with someone who lacks self confidence. You may find yourself in a constant state of having to provide them with validation for every action or decision. They might have abandonment issues and act possessive or jealous when you spend time with other people or interests. IOW, they become dependent on you to provide them with self confidence. And they become sad, anxious and dejected and cause you to become guilty and eventually resentful when you fail to do so. And you will fail to do so because their lack of self confidence is a giant void that can never be filled.

27

When you compliment her, make sure it’s on measurable, spellable things. Also, don’t overdo it: my sister-in-law complains that she can’t go shopping with her mother because “the woman would find me pretty in sackcloth and ashes!” - don’t do that.

“You’re the most beautiful woman in the world” - first, she’s probably so only in your eyes, and second it’s neither something she’s responsible for nor something objectively measurable.

“Ohmy, these spaghetti are perfect!” - mouthgasms don’t have an ISO unit of measure but they’re quite evident.

28

msmith537, I’m beginning to see what you mean. She is constantly apologizing for things she thinks she has done wrong, when no apology is needed. I haven’t seen any possessiveness yet, but it is something I’m worried about. I’ve seen it happen to others, and if I’m not careful I could see it happening to me.

Nava, thank you for the advise. I do tend to overdo the compliments, and it never occurred to me not to.

I did find a pleasant side to helping her regain her self confidence. In doing so, I’m regaining my own as well.