Estella Tse 9/16/25 Estella Tse 9/16/25

Belief in Self: Light x Darkness

When the Depression hits, it’s an oppressive and thick smoke that covers my perspective of self and the world. It overtakes my innate optimism and hopefulness. My belief in myself gets buried and takes a lot of energy and effort to “find” again. Today is one of those days.

Some writings and musings for the day:

What does it mean to Believe in myself?

Courage. Persistence.
Ability to Overcome Storms.

The things that happen to and around me are out of my control.
I can show up as my authentic, honest self.

And trust that the rest will fall into place…..

Estella Tse 9/15/25 Estella Tse 9/15/25

Misconceptions of Self Worth

In my healing journey, the hardest bit for me is centering my self-worth and confidence in myself - instead of others or external things.

It’s one of the reasons why daily social media engagement isn’t good for me. It’s too easy to place my self-worth in the hands of others - in likes, engagement, shares. THAT is too fragile an ecosystem to place one’s self-worth. In the algorithm and economic choices of a major corporation, nonetheless! No thank you!!

My default setting was to let others decide for me my worth.
And it’s taken a LOT of work to place my worth in myself.

One of the mental health practices I do is to ask myself: Where is your self-worth today? Is it in you? Is it hanging out upstairs? Is it completely not around and is out dicking around about town?

The steps to self-compassion and feeling assured in myself is to respond with….