Dear Dandan,

I want to say something about addiction, because I suffered from an eating disorder, and I know how it can destroy your self-confidence even further. The main cause of addiction is not that you have weak willpower, but that some emotional needs weren’t met in your childhood. The addiction is there to sooth the pain of that loss. For me, it was the pain of being criticized, of never being good enough for my mother. For you, the pain may be something else, perhaps the pain of never being able to make your mother happy, which resulted in your self-esteem issues?

My self-esteem issues were caused by my mother directly criticizing me and having no compassion for me. Your mother might have not criticized you, but she was often sad and depressed for various reasons. A child cannot bear when the mother is sad, he wants to make her happy, so he’s trying everything in his power. If he fails, he will feel bad about himself, not good enough, not worthy enough. He will blame himself, even if it’s not conscious. The result is lack of self-esteem, even though your mother might have never spoken badly of you.

So I think I have grown up weak with insecurities partly by genes and also the way we were brought up.

Yes, it depends both on our character and temperament (on genes, as you say), and on the way we were brought up. You are a sensitive and compassionate person, that’s why you couldn’t bear to see your mother suffer, so you tried to help her. But I’ve explained how you still might have ended up hurt and with low self-esteem.

As I said I will focus the workouts and what I can do to imrove my confidence and satisfaction of accomplishment. So I will probably be busy setting up the equipments and getting started with the workouts for this transformation challenge now.

It’s worthwhile that you’re now trying to do the workout challenge and do something that will lift you up from lethargy and feeling bad about yourself. However, I know from experience that it can only boost your self-confidence temporarily. The wound is deeper and it won’t go away with any outer accomplishment. It will only go away if you actually deal with your wounded inner child. Until you heal that core wound, you won’t have lasting success.