When You Feel Like You’re Not Enough: How Hypnotherapy Helps Rebuild Self-Worth

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Not enough. Not enough for your parents, not enough for your partner, not good enough, attractive enough, capable enough.

This insidious belief, a part of an umbrella label of low self-worth, feels so private yet is so remarkably widespread amongst the population. In Brené Brown’s well-known book Daring Greatly, she finds a staggering 85% of the men and women she interviewed could recall a school incident that was so shaming that it changed how they perceived of themselves as learners and in no small way moulded their growth into adults. This complex and multifaceted emotion of shame, or unworthiness, is so widespread in fact that it invites a curious paradox: If a significant proportion of the population don’t feel good enough, then surely we’re enough for each other?

Regardless, this feeling can have us speak negatively about ourselves, not just every now and then, but frequently. An inner voice might criticise how we look, play down our efforts, or pre-emptively shrink us down before anyone else has a chance. Self-talk like that can wear away at our sense of safety within ourselves. We start doubting ourselves more, we don’t believe we’re allowed to take up space, or to feel proud of who we are.

But it doesn’t just stay within ourselves, it can outwardly affect how we interact in our relationships. If your partner carries a similar core wound, it can propel the dynamics in a sour way. You might be able to relate to the following: One of your insecurities might trigger your partner’s, and a prolonged silence may be read as rejection, or perhaps a need for reassurance may be met with defensiveness. Over time, both partners can find themselves tiptoeing, second-guessing, or trying to “earn” love, even though, deep down, neither one of them questions the other’s worth.

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This pain comes not from a lack of care or love, but from the ways low self-worth can distort our own perception. When we don't believe we're enough, we may misinterpret neutral cues as criticism, or brace for abandonment before it arrives. This “dance” can become one of mutual protection and disconnection, again, not because the love isn’t there, but because both people are guarding their wounds. From studies, felt misunderstandings in these dances are consistently linked to lower life satisfaction, lower motivation, higher perceive stress and along with this, imbalanced cortisol profiles.

Before we address low self-worth in relationship dynamics, it can help to shift focus inwards, a place where anxiety lives. Trying to repair low self-worth through a relationship can often place a lot of strain on the connection, the stakes can be quite high especially when insecurities are flared and the results can be fragile or short-lived.

A good way to think about it is through a football analogy: it’s a good idea to improve your home performances before you start relying on away matches to carry your season. When your foundation is solid on familiar ground, it’s much easier to show up with stronger sense of steadiness and presence elsewhere.

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Where Does “Not Enough” Come From?

Whilst a sense of unworthiness can originate from one standout event, it is usually accumulated over a longer period of time. Daniel Siegel’s book The Developing Mind: How Relationships and the Brain Interact to Shape Who We Are states that most beliefs about the self develop over time through repeated interactions with caregivers and social environments.

If you were lucky, perhaps no one told you outright that you were unworthy, but elements of your inner world may not have been met with curiosity, reflection or care. Receiving love may have been conditional. Or perhaps praise was given when you achieved something tangible. Or maybe you were taught to hide aspects of yourself for socialisation reasons.

This is usually carried into adulthood and you may have found yourself unconsciously combatting this sense of not being enough by trying to please others, wanting to do better, or avoiding from this sense altogether. In principle, there is nothing wrong with prosocial behaviours like pleasing others or wanting to improve on something, it is that it is being driven from shame, in order to “fix” the raw and painful feeling of not being enough that can get in the way of open-hearted connection to oneself and others.

We’ll look and see how we can be prosocial without the shame.

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Rebuilding Self-Worth is Possible… But Not in the Way You Think!

Pop psychology blogs that promote positive self-talk used to make waves in the mental wellness space. They’re still around nowadays but they are now marketed with neuroscientific language to increase its attractiveness, like “rewiring neural pathways” or “programming the subconscious”. Whilst they are in some measure helpful, the attitude towards these techniques have shifted in recent years. Research finds that positive self-talk can indeed backfire for individuals with low self-worth causing more distress when well-intended mantras conflict with painful core beliefs.

Self-help tricks such as this will no doubt create short-term benefits such as reduced stress and even an improved perception of yourself but only when they’re believable, and to its credit, the article did state that it is no panacea. Telling yourself “I am enough” might go well if you already feel close to that truth. But, do you ever get an instant internal reply “Yeah right, you don’t really believe that” or something similar?

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The main reason why repeated self-talk won’t fully resolve a low sense of self-worth is this: it isn’t just a thought that you can simply reprogram. It’s well documented in Bessel Van der Kolk’s The Body Keeps the Score that negative, impactful experiences are wired into your body, nervous system and unconscious mind. Positive self-talk may briefly influence your thinking, but core wounds of unworthiness are often stored in implicit memory (rather than explicit, verbal memories), in other words, they are stored in the body, and they are shaped by past attachment and emotional experiences, as mentioned earlier.  

Therefore, repeating a phrase without genuinely feeling safe or being emotionally engaged doesn’t allow a new belief to root itself properly. Most self-worth wounds are relational in origin, so consistent and corrective relational experiences are what the brain really needs. A place where you can be seen, heard and feel safe, and therapy can be such a space for having those needs met.

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How Hypnotherapy Can Help

In my practice, I often facilitate guided hypnosis (or guided meditation, similar principles) to help you experience something different: safety, calm, trust, control. This may involve a safe-space visualisation or a gentle round of attending to the breath, focussing inward and learning to create a state of relaxation by connecting to something stable inside that feels okay to hold.

Beyond this initial exposure, the deeper work unfolds in a quieter way in future sessions. You don’t get “put under” or made to perform. In fact, quite the opposite: I encourage authenticity in your response, we work at your pace, you have full control of how you want to explore your inner phenomenon, there is no strict structure at all.

Through subsequent sessions, depending on the conditions, we begin to learn to tune into how your body holds these beliefs and how your narrative mind protects you with stories that once helped you survive. And an aspect of yourself that doesn’t feel enough may have been doing its best to keep you away from something deeply vulnerable, something that might need your care and attention the most.

I call this working hypnotically with you, rather than doing hypnosis to you. It’s the way we stay with what’s real, grounded, current, alive and ready to be understood, in a way that works for you.

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What Clients Begin to Discover…

Clients often arrive with the belief that something in them is too far gone, that the “not enough-ness” you have carried for so long is completely blended with who you are as a person to ever shift.

However, given time and courageous opportunity, you begin to notice something else. 

It might be something as simple as standing your ground in a conversation, and later realising you didn’t spiral with guilt. Or hearing your partner deliver a compliment, and this time, actually letting it be rather than rushing to deflect it. Or maybe you caught yourself before you habitually apologised and chose not to out of respect for yourself, and even the other person. These might seem small on the surface. But underneath is something not to be scoffed at: the start of a different relationship with yourself. Not anchored in fear, but in trust, respect and compassion.

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If you have carried this belief, that you’re not enough, for longer than you’d like to admit, you don’t have to carry it alone.

The kind of hypnotherapy I practice is more than just saying nice things or scripted behavioural changes. I offer a space for you to explore, gently and honestly, what has been driving your pain, and to begin creating new, positive and sustainable pathways forward.

Your worth isn’t something you have to earn or prove. It was buried under years of conditioning, but you are slowly excavating it into new life.

If this speaks to you, you can take the next step in booking a call with me and we’ll talk about how working together can begin to shift the old patterns that have made you feel “not enough” and how a different, more positive and profound experience might take shape.

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