Hey, I was wondering if you had any resources about dealing with insecurity, jealousy, lack of self-esteem, comparing oneself to others and such? I’m not actually poly. It’s just that I guess the people who had or have those issues and were poly must have a lot of very interesting stuff to say about it.

Boy howdy, do we!

Poly-specific resources:

A good place to start is my mental health resources page - it includes recommendations for books and some online self-help resources specifically about self esteem!

Here is the More Than Two hub on jealousy and insecurity, which includes a free ebook and a great little article about becoming a more secure person.

The Polyamorous Misanthrope has a lot of good resources, so poke around that blog as well! Here’s one of their pieces on overcoming insecurities.

The Polyamory Society Self-Improvement Program includes a section on positive self-affirmation and another on fighting self-defeating or negative messages.

Patheos ran an article about self-love and polyamory, and Psychology Today has a piece on managing jealousy in polyamory.

General resources:

I cannot recommend enough the work of Brene Brown, specifically Daring Greatly and The Gifts of Imperfection. 

Because we live in the future, there are tons of apps out there to help build self-esteem! Here’s a list of some, and here’s another one.

Also: therapy!!! Therapists are there for exactly this kind of issue! (You’d think I get kickbacks from the rich and powerful therapy mafia for how often I say this, but sadly that is not a real thing and I don’t make any money off this blog.)