Self Worth ~ Feeling Good About Who You Are
If you are like me, you first heard this quote many years ago. Also, if you are like me, you knew that there was truth to it and still felt inferior.
To have self-worth is to have moved beyond the belief that valuing ourselves is egotistical. It is recognition that we are unique and loveable, just as we are. Only when we have come to this point can we really begin to be our true selves in the world or take full part in relationships.
Self-Worth Starts in Childhood
As a tween, I remember very clearly brushing my little sister’s long beautiful hair and telling her how beautiful she was. My mother very quickly admonished me: “Don’t tell her that, it will go to her head”. And so it was reinforced. The message was subtle. A lifetime of not valuing me began. I didn’t realize it until midlife; I had considered being less than to be a virtue.
The ironic thing is an awareness that Eckhart Tolle made very clear in his book “A New Earth”. To paraphrase ~ when we feel superior or inferior we are being egotistical. The very thing that I was taught was from the ego. Words cannot say how freeing it was to learn that valuing and loving myself just as I am is truly free of ego.
It may help to look back at your childhood and question where you received the message that you were not good enough – perhaps not loveable. And then consider if you want to go on believing that. As long as you believe it and continue to put yourself down, others will, too. Law of Attraction and your life experience will provide endless ways to prove you right!
In choosing to look at your self-worth today, you are being asked to look at the wounded child within, who didn’t receive the love he or she needed and is still looking to be validated from outside. You must find the wounded part and hold this child in love. Feel for yourself. Be kind to yourself. Parent yourself as you would have wanted to be parented then.
If you try to manipulate the people around you into giving the reassurance or security you feel you lacked, you will ultimately be disappointed. Your partner, boss or colleague can never give what you don’t have within.
A Radical Way to Look at Self-Worth
Begin to see how power and control are played out in your life. The fact is that your victim role is based on the belief that you can’t get power any other way. But in seeking to please and appease, you are just as guilty of trying to control the people around you – into staying around and being nice to you – as someone who is obviously dominating.
On the other hand, you may be concealing your innate sense of worthlessness behind a facade of superiority. Rather than valuing yourself, you are measuring your worth by your roles and your material success, or lack of it. You may have convinced many, including yourself, that this is who you are.
Measuring yourself by where you live, who you know and what you do could be leading yourself from the truth. Your real worth is in the essence of who you are.
The Paradox of Self-Worth
The paradox is that as long as you go on believing that the trappings of your life make you special, you will never feel special and loved for yourself.
It is interesting to notice that at the core of feeling inferior or superior – is low self-worth.
This is one of the Core Dynamics of Common Problems – Looking for Yourself Where You Are Not. To receive a free report that describes how this dynamic and others keep you from being who you really are go to www.coachcora.ca
It really is time to stop trying to prove yourself and imagining that others are better than you. Or that you are better than them. You are infinitely precious and truly amazing in your uniqueness. The moment you connect with that, your life will begin to change.
If this article resonated with you, request a free session to learn more about how to reconnect with the essence of who you really are.
