BUILDING YOUR
SELF-ESTEEM

by Dr. Fred Mendoza

A deadly psychological virus is on the loose! It robs people of the quality of life they could be enjoying. It intimidates its victims from reaching and actualizing their potentials. It inhibits them from realizing their desired future. It incapacitates them from becoming successful, productive and useful members of society. This deadly psychological virus is inferiority--a feeling that has turned into a deadly complex.

Both psychology and the Bible offer answers. One offers insight; the other changes lives. I know. The answers in God’s Word changed mine.

Psychological View

Academic literature on inferiority complex is dominated by Alfred Adler, 1870-1937, an Austrian psychiatrist, psychologist and educator whose teachings on inferiority remain unsurpassed to this day. His simplistic definition of inferiority complex is: “the inability to solve life’s problems.” His whole philosophy is summed up in the belief that “life is an unceasing struggle for superiority by a being who feels himself inferiorized.” His main doctrine is that: “behavior is determined by compensations for feelings of inferiority”. In its wider version, this Adlerian psychological doctrine postulates that:

• Behavior is purposive and goal oriented: the goal is to overcome feelings of inferiority.
• The desire for superiority is mainly a reaction to the feeling of inferiority.
• Behavior is not necessarily dictated by a person’s past experiences, as a person can decide to improve his present and future life, regardless of unfavorable past experiences.
• Behavior is calculated to compensate feelings of inferiority that put down a person’s sense of self-worth.
• Compensations are thoughts, feelings, words, attitudes, actions, accomplishments, improvements, rewards, or the approval of others that are used to increase one’s sense of self-worth.
• When feelings of inferiority are adequately compensated, the feelings of inferiority subside.
• When feelings of inferiority persist because they are not adequately compensated, they turn into inferiority complex.

Symptoms

What are the symptoms of inferiority complex? Although one writer said, “everything can be a symptom,” here are some symptoms that are commonly associated with this complex.

• Inability to do the ordinary demands of living a healthy, happy and productive life.
• Self-devaluation.
• Low perception of personal self-worth.
• Self-rejection and even self-hate.
• Feeling of chronic discouragement.
• Persistent feeling of insecurity, guilt, shame and anger.
• Using one’s power, wealth, education or influence to assert superiority over people.
• Anger and jealousy toward others who are perceived to be better or superior.
• Disassociation from other people who are perceived to be better or superior.
• Undue calling of attention to one’s self.
• Putting down other people to feel important.
• Trying to appear superior and knowledgeable by always being right.
• Over-reactions that give exaggerated importance to the least little setback.
• Retreating before the most insignificant obstacle.



Root Causes




According to Adler, the causes of inferiority could be physical, psychological or sociological.

When a person feels inferior because of inborn or acquired physical defects--too short or too tall, too fat or too thin, cross-eyed, or any bodily deformity due to sickness or injury--his cause of inferiority feelings is physical.

When a person feels inferior because as a growing child he was unwanted, unloved, rejected, abused and neglected by his parents or guardians--his inferiority feelings are psychologically induced. Conversely, a child could be inferiorized by being spoiled and pampered by his parents and learning to be irresponsible and overdependent upon others when he becomes an adult.

When a person isolates himself from others and becomes preoccupied with his feelings of inferiority as he unfavorably compares himself to others who posses more desirable physical, mental and material assets--the cause of his inferiority feelings is sociological.

Consider these linear summaries:

• Self-perception . . . self-worth . . . self-esteem: inferiority complex could be caused by a person’s lack of healthy and proper self-esteem that comes from devaluating self-perception.
• Sense of impotence . . . Insufficiency . . . Insecurity . . . helplessness: inferiority complex could result from a person’s sense of total helplessness to solve life’s problems.
• While there are those who use their inferiority feelings as stepping stones to a successful and meaningful life; unfortunately, there are those whose inferiority feelings turn into inferiority complex--why? Here are possible reasons:
• In childhood, they had been programmed by negative messages from their significant others that they’ll always be inferior. And they have internalized these messages.
• As they grew up, their series of repeated failures had convinced them that they don’t have what it takes to succeed in life.
• Internalized negative messages and repeated failures as they were growing up had conditioned their minds to believe that they are destined to fail.
• Consequently, they have given up hope to solve their life’s problems.



Psychological Approach




Adler believed that in every lifestyle of failure, inferiority complex can be found. How can inferiority complex be overcome? Let’s trace the steps to the Adlerian solution of inferiority complex, before turning to God’s Word. To begin with, all human beings have feelings of inferiority or sense of inadequacy. Examples: A beggar feels financially inferior to a millionaire. A college freshman feels educationally inferior to his professor. A 90-pound man feels physically inferior to an Arnold Schwarzenegger. An ordinary citizen feels politically inferior to the nation’s president. When a beggar, a college freshman, a physical weakling, or an ordinary citizen are motivated by their feelings of inferiority to compensate their inferiority by improving their lot in life, their feeling of inferiority is actually working for their good.

Here’s a summary of Adler’s teaching on how to overcome abnormal feelings of inferiority:

• Compensate your areas of personal weakness by developing yourself in those areas or other areas to enhance your sense of self-worth.
• Challenge and renew your deeply ingrained irrational beliefs that make you think you cannot change and improve your life, and renew your thinking.
• Be a contributing member of a community where your sense of self-worth is improved by serving and benefiting other people.

This psychological solution to the problem of inferiority complex is helpful but the biblical teaching on how to overcome inferiority is more definitive and encouraging. Biblical Teaching

As Christians, our sense of healthy self-worth and proper self-esteem is not based on the cultural criteria of self-worth which are: physical looks and prowess, level of IQ, educational attainment, material wealth or networth, power, influence, prestige and popularity. Rather, our sense of self-worth and self-esteem is based on God’s gifts to us:

• God created us in His own image and likeness (Genesis 1:26-27).
• He loved us unconditionally even in our sinful and devalued condition before Him (Romans 5:6-8).
• He paid for our redemption with a supreme price, the blood of His Son (1 Peter 1:18-19).
• He extends to us the privilege of becoming members of His spiritual family (John 1:12-13).
• He has given us everything we need to become holy or whole like Him (Ephesians 1:3-6; 1 Peter 1:15; 2 Peter 1:3-4).
• He has done a radical change in us when He placed us in Christ (1 Corinthians 12:12-13; 2 Corinthians 5:17).
• He has given us spiritual gifts with which to serve Him and others for His glory and for our fulfillment (1 Corinthians 12:7-11; Romans 12:6-8).
• He has given us the ability to adjust and to adapt to any difficult situation (Philippians 4:10-13).
• He has given us the Holy Spirit as a mark and a deposit that we belong to Him (Ephesians 1:13-14).
• As Christians we are never helpless because we can face all the vicissitudes of life knowing that God is for us, not against us, and knowing that nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ (Romans 8:28-39).
• As Christians we can forget and leave our past behind and move on with God until we see Him face to face (Philippians 3:12-16, 20).

Our feelings of inferiority can be changed with feelings of sufficiency, adequacy and confidence in God by:

• Seeing ourselves as God sees us in Christ,
• Valuing ourselves as God values us in Christ,
• Seeing our future as God sees our future in Christ,
• Living in the power of God’s Spirit who dwells in us,
• Facing the challenges of life with the wisdom and the ability of God, and by
• Discovering and using our spiritual gifts to serve God, the church and the world.

I attest to the validity and applicability of these biblical principles for overcoming inferiority complex. Born to poor parents in a remote barrio in the Philippines, I was almost crippled psychologically by feelings of inferiority up to my teenage years. But God has enabled me to overcome my abnormal feelings of inferiority by improving my educational, economic and social status through hard work and determination. More than this, God has done a redemptive reconstruction on my spirit, my soul and my mind that rehabilitated me from abnormal feelings of inferiority. God even healed me when I was dying of typhoid fever at age 16 and called me to the ministry. My major victory over inferiority complex came when I was baptized in the Holy Spirit in 1957.

At age 31, in 1971, after planting three churches in the Philippines, I relocated to California with my wife, Perla, and our 5-year-old daughter, Naomi to further my education. I’m older now, with university degrees in psychology and in education, with formal training in theology and with a lifetime on-my-knees study of God’s Word. God has blessed my life and ministry as a gospel radio broadcaster in the Philippines, as an Assemblies of God missionary from California to Singapore, where I had served as president of Asia Theological Centre for Evangelism and Missions for four years. Today, I’m leading a large and growing church in Pomona, California, which my wife, my daughter and I had started as a home Bible study 18 years ago. God has blessed us with a ($12 million dollar) prime property, beautiful church facilities and a very talented and loving church family who are mostly professionals and a Bible School for training home-grown ministry leaders.

The biblical cure for inferiority complex is capsulized by Paul in Romans 12:1-2 where he teaches us to respond to God’s mercy by: offering our bodies to Him--in whatever condition they may be--as a perpetual offering in an act of worship, and by renewing our mind in order to experience God’s transformation in our lives. This renewing of our mind is done by replacing the carnal and worldly contents of our thought life with the principles of the God’s Word.

If you are struggling with inferiority complex, here are sure ways to overcome:

• Be born into God’s family by receiving Jesus Christ as your Savior.
• Derive your sense of self-worth and self-esteem mainly from your personal relationship with God.
• As a child of God, allow the Holy Spirit to change you day by day into the likeness of Christ.
• Entrust to God your inborn physical and mental deficiencies that cannot be changed.
• Ask God for grace to live with or to go through unchangeable life situations.
• Reinterpret your life history in light of God’s plan for you.
• Put redemptive meaning and value to your painful life experiences.
• Believe that you are not a helpless victim of your self-devaluating experiences in life.
• Live your life with hope in view of Christ’s return.
• Always remember that in Christ you are somebody!
• Think, speak, and act like you are really somebody in Christ.

This biblical approach to overcoming feelings of inferiority worked for me. It will work for you.





This article was published as a chapter in the book “Trusting God: Strength and Encouragement for Troubled Times”, (Copyright 2003) by Onward Books, Inc.