When you live alone, or virtually alone, as in my case, there is no one there to "help." I look for bolstering of my esteem from some on the net I trust but, on the whole, I deal with things by myself- as I always have. I go by a few basic philosophies as I go through the day- "take what you like and leave the rest," "whatever happens, happens," and "don't tread on me." The latter is to keep me from being an utter and complete doormat for those that would have designs on some sort of harm to me or who think me an easy mark for some sort of scam or other bullshit. I do have a couple of people in my life now that ask me how I am feeling (didn't have that until 6 mos. ago) and try to get me to talk about and name feelings I have so that I can express them. Just having those few people in my life is self-esteem building in and of itself. Of course, I don't expect them to stay because another underlying "philosophy" I have is that "nothing in life is permanent, only fleeting," but I am happy with what I have now.

This is a really good question and I will be interested in the responses to it. I am codependent and look for approval from others to feel good. I really need to learn how to change my beliefs about myself. It is way to easy to beat myself up when I don't perform the way I think I ought to. I used to have a friend who helped me when I would say something like "I didn't handle that very well." He would say to me: "Compared to who?"
So, I have been trying to say that to myself.

That is a very good idea oknow one of the problems of co-dependency is that we are always trying to compare ourselves to others and worse, an image of others that does not include their imperfections.

I call this the "grass is greener" effect.

With low self esteem we are always subconciously trying to justify our belief that we don't handle things very well.

I talked with a guy once who told me to imagine what the "new" me or "real" me would do in different situations. It let me picture how I could be and want to be. It did help me view myself differently.

This was incredibly good advice nolaguy, we all need to be reminded from time to time about what we really have to offer.

I finally learned that the only approval we need comes from GOD and ourselves, this is helping me with my self=esteem, seeking approval from others only lead to disappointment, so i'm relying on me and my GOD!

I have a fun chalk board sticker on my wall. It's a circular eraseable chalk board sticker that says "Be more"
Underneath I list all the things I am..and am working on being.
*Mother *rock climber *cycler *yogi *artist *vocalist ..and I work on being more...learning more...becoming expert at more of what I am and adding to my list of what I am doing to "be more" I read in a good psych article that states that the more we are ....the more stable our base and our grounding when things get extremeley trialsome in our lives. So I am trying to build up my "be" list so I know I can "be" all these other things when I might not feel so good about one of the things on the "be" list.

I have done a lot of reading. This has helped me a lot just as a source of inspiration. Also focussing on my strengths has worked well.

This discussion is so helpful, great work guys!