How do you find your sense of worth? I ask this, because a good friend recently posted a question in response to one of my reflections that had been shared by mutual friend. The question that she asked was a simple one, but as often happens in life, the simplest questions can have rather complex answers. Yet the more I thought about it, I more I came realize that the answer wasn’t complex at all.
It’s just kind of a difficult one to swallow.
She was wondering how to get past her feelings of not being worth her own effort, or of someone else’s, and as soon as I read her question the answer came loud, and quick and strong. Forgive me if I use a little stronger language than normal as I answer this, but I’m going to do it as if I’m talking to her face-to-face, but also to you, one on one.
The answer is simple. You have to stop believing the bullshit that you are not.
And I get it, that doesn’t sound like much of an answer. If anything, it probably sounds kind of callous. Believe me when I tell you that I don’t mean it that way, but in order to get through all the programming that has taught you to believe this lie, sometimes it’s necessary for me to get really honest, and call it just how I see it.
The truth is you are worthy, but somewhere along the line, someone told you that you’re not.
And you believed them, probably because they held some kind of a position of authority over you. Maybe it was in a church or some organization, or maybe it was a parent or a family member. They probably didn’t use specific words, but the way they treated you left you made you feel like there was something wrong with you.
Then as so often happens, the voice that was used against you became the voice that you used against yourself.
You probably spent years living what you thought was the truth, holding back your voice, playing small, and doing the things that everybody else expected of you. They taught you to distrust your own instincts, to suppress your opinion under the weight of theirs, and to stay in the place which they had assigned to you. A place which served them, but did not serve not you.
The hard truth is that if you don’t feel worthy of your own effort, it’s because you don’t know yourself at all.
The only you that you know is the one they’ve created for you. And here’s the horrible secret, in order to keep you down, life layers so much pain over your own truth that getting there and finding it is so damn hard. You’ll have to face emotions that you have buried for so long, and you’ll have to face truths that you would do anything to hide.
It’s not for the faint of heart, but the journey of coming to know who you really are has a treasure at the end of it that has no price except that of radical honesty, and radical self-awareness.
Because once you truly come to understand who you are, you’ll start to understand why you deserve the very best that you have to give to yourself. You will come to see yourself very differently from the way that you do now.
Part of the respect that you’ll have for yourself will have been earned by the very fact that you took the journey and did the work. That you hung in there when you wanted to scream, when you wanted to throw up, when you had to let go of a thousand comforting lies in order to cling to one difficult but worthwhile truth.
The truth of who you were all along.
And here’s the kicker, the thing that will surprise you probably more than anything else. Once you have the tools to understand yourself, and you’ve taken that journey, you’ll start to see the truth of everybody else. Your whole damn world will change because once you know yourself, you’ll find that you can understand everybody else. You’ll see the truth of them, not the lies that you’ve been taught to believe.
Once you understand your worth, you’ll suddenly see the worth of everybody else.
And then everything changes. How you show up in the world changes, because you serve knowing the worth of the person you’re serving. You treat yourself differently, because you realize how very much you deserve the best you can give yourself. You’ll step out of the world of judgment, torment and shame and fear into a world full of wonder, imagination and beauty.
When you find yourself surrounded by people of incredible worth, you’ll see your worth reflected in them, and theirs in yours.
Don’t get me wrong, it doesn’t mean things are easy. If anything it’s harder, because suddenly you understand why they don’t treat themselves the way that they should, and you’ll bite your tongue and hold back your tears because all you want to do is help them recognize their worth.
That’s where I am; that’s why I write this. I started this work to understand myself, and in doing so I came to understand and care for all of you.
Listen to me very carefully. Your worth is greater than that which you can understand right now. But hang in there, because I’m just getting started showing you all what you mean to me, and showing you the truth of yourselves.
The journey starts here, and I am here for you.
Now, and always.
— Dr. Alan Barnes
@maddrbmusings