Fighting for Funds

I’m not sure how it came up exactly, but one day my best friend and flat mate shared that what he liked about me was my confidence. Somewhere deep inside I experienced a devious feeling, like a mean-natured critic who said, “I’ve fooled another one.” That wasn’t even the worst part, I also felt a strong sensation of both fear and sadness. The truth was that I felt broken, ever since I could remember. I lived in fear of others seeing through my façade, but also disappointed that they failed to recognise my underlying pain and need for love and comfort. What I see now, in 20/20 hindsight, is that I wasn’t broken, but my self-worth meter sure as shit wasn’t calibrated correctly either. It got knocked off-kilter at an extremely young age. This is life, folks. The following is what it looks like when I felt shame and tried to live by begging others to give me worth, instead of feeling secure in my authentic pricelessness. 

Of course, I didn’t fully understand those ‘I’m an imposter’ sensations at the time. I did in fact feel confident most of the time and in most situations because confidence typically comes from experience, and f*$% if I hadn’t been through some shit! Looking back at just some of what I’ve accomplished and overcome: I moved out of the house at a young age and supported myself with multiple jobs through high school, I was the first person in my family to go to college and went all the way to a Masters degree in Biological Sciences, I lived through the pain of losing a very close yet drug and alcohol addicted Sister, I suffered with periods of such extreme panic and anxiety that I became agoraphobic, I became determined to get healthy and lost over half my body weight (125lbs/57kg), I experienced the devastation of a mysterious falling out with my best friend of 13 years, I began to climb the ranks of the pharmaceutical quality and manufacturing world, I discovered that I’d never be able to bare child due to a combination of cervical cancer and severe dieting, I lived through the shock of ending my first long-term relationship which came with the added lesson of getting stuck with $7,000 of someone else’s debt, I climbed four of the highest peaks in the Colorado Rockies, I bought a beautiful house before I was 30 and paid off all my debts, I travelled throughout parts of Europe and went to India for work, when certain shit hit the fan and my simple Kansas life went pear-shaped I remembered my lifelong dream of moving abroad and left for New Zealand with little more than a backpack, I got a job and New Zealand residency in record time, made friends and explored its beautiful bush and fjords, when it became clear that a career in pharmaceuticals wasn’t going to workout here I started my own business as a Personal Trainer to some success, I endured the pain of ending my second long-term relationship and accompanying breakdown; yet somehow here I am, a marathon-running operational excellence coach for the largest company in New Zealand. I look back and it’s as if all that happened to someone else, I’m a completely different person. 

Those transitions paralleled lots of other things such as covering myself with tattoos, at times drinking enough booze and/or taking enough caffeine to kill small to medium sized animals and making other fun yet often ill-advised decisions, mostly pertaining to the endless pursuit of love and happiness. Oh, and I couldn’t keep my mouth shut to save my life. After all of that I’m most grateful to finally realise that broken doesn’t mean worthless, but it can lead to dangerous levels of insecurity and leave me emotionally bankrupt. Luckily, worth does not have to be earned, but damn if that isn’t hard to remember when I feel ashamed of somehow not achieving what is expected of me from others or myself.

Instead of permitting my adventures-to-date inspire a sense of accomplishment, it seemed everything I’ve overcome only put more obstacles in my way. Though each was certainly a blessing in its way, they also left marks on my psyche and scars on my body. Along with accumulating experiences, I also accumulated baggage with little to no value. Most originated from my childhood, as it does, which I laboriously dragged into my adulthood while also desperately attempting to hide it and function like a healthy human being. Like some sort of neurotic Santa Clause with a bag of bullshit ready to spread around in the form of chronic approval-seeking, victim stories and false portrayals of superiority. A bag I covered with glitter to fool everyone into thinking it was stuffed with chocolates and puppies, so they’d love me and want me to share my gifts. There were no puppies, but there was a deep-seeded fear of abandonment and rejection that influenced nearly every aspect of my life, ghosts from my past that haunted every step I took. Craving the love I never quite received in my emotionally turbulent youth, I gave everything I had and everything I was to others. When they failed to reciprocate and deliver, I perceived it as neglect because that’s what I was accustomed to feeling, unworthy of affection and attention. BLEAK!

Looking back I see those experiences were underlined with the pain and fear I’ve always tried to keep hidden by confidence. It’s time to take an ugly look at the embarrassing cycle that led to this formidable catalogue. Succinctly, since my own sense of worth is derived from others I put a lot of effort into doings things for people, and take care of everyone but myself. Whether its at work or in my personal life, people fail to appreciate me the way I think they should or in a way I can recognise. I impatiently wait for everyone to ‘come to their senses’ and realise what a priceless gem I am, apologise, tell me how great I am; in short, validate my worth. Devastation inevitably ensues when the words are never said, and their appraisals fall vacant.

All of this completely eluded my consciousness, of course. This is what it looks like when subconscious thought patterns control conscious behaviours. I truly had good intentions, but for all the wrong reasons. For me, Waking up to Worth means putting a stop to my old cycle, to magically turn confidence into security by establishing, owning and protecting my own worth. Realising that I don’t need to earn it, or to have it stamped as ‘valid’ by others estimation of me. Treasuring my gifts instead of continually fighting for funds by allowing others to assess my inherent value.

Waking Up To Worth

When I was in my late teens I went to a renaissance fair and had my palm read. I remembered feeling quite anxious and exposed. Though I put on a great act of unrelenting optimism and happiness to everyone else, this Crone saw through my façade. She told me that I was one of the saddest people she had ever seen; I felt it, I couldn’t even attempt to defend myself against the validity of her words. Christ, $50 was quite a bit to pay to confront my worst fears. I was broken and everyone would know, no one in their right mind would ever love me. But I missed the point that day; she tried to show me a way forward to discovering my sense of worth. Instead, I didn’t even see myself as worthy enough to make a start. We have to walk before we can run.

Many years later, and a world away, I took a spontaneous trip to Hawaii simply because Air New Zealand had cheap tickets. True to my extremely unique nature, I packed a couple of books and running shoes then took off for 9 days dedicated to my favorite hobbies: mindful self-reflection, journaling, running and hiking. I mistakenly assumed the book I brought for a bit of light contemplation would help me begin to shift my obsession with perfection and control, and understand why people develop and maintain perfectionist traits, even to their own detriment (I don’t know any perfectionist that doesn’t drive themselves crazy on a fairly regular basis, and/or expect too much of themselves and others). What happened during those 136 pages, however, was so transformative that I’ve been inspired to revive my blog, having found something truly worth writing about; the concept of worth itself!

I’ll admit up front, this is very personal stuff, humiliating really. The horrifying process of assessing, questioning, re-assessing, pondering, re-re-assessing, owning, understanding and protecting our self worth is not for the faint of heart. My half-assed courage paid off ten fold, as this became a path to unlocking the elusive concept of loving myself. Ah, that fickle mistress! Self-acceptance and love is something we all intuitively know we need for healthy relationships and happier lives; but how?! They are now little more than superficial spiritual Facebook memes. Empty words. We all think we have it, yet how often do we catch ourselves saying things like:

• “I’m such a asshole!”
• “Why I can’t keep my mouth shut?”
• “I can’t possibly ask for help, others might think I’m stupid.”
• “I wish I looked like a super model.”
• “Life would be so much easier if I had more money.”
• “Why don’t people see what I do for them and appreciate it?!”
• “I should eat better, I’m so unfit!”
• “I’d love to tell that person to go f*$% themselves, but that’s not very nice and people would think I’m mean.”

Sad but devastatingly true, these are all signifiers that we feel we are somehow lacking in who we are and what we have; we’re not quite who we want to be or have what we think we need. Or we’ve somehow lost the plot, and deviated from the person we intended to be. The cumulative result? Insecurity in all its various and interesting forms; the creation of shadows as we run, hide from, and hate those aspects of ourselves that we find un-loveable.

Shit like this only serves to make us feel even worse for not loving ourselves; hardly helpful!

Unfortunately, social conditioning makes the statements above seem completely normal. It’s what we hear all around us, on the TV, in movies, and on social media. The world we live in tells us we are what we do and what we have, that our worth must be earned. Well, here I go, I’m climbing out on a very thin branch to scream to the far reaches of the Earth: BULLSHIT! (And I’m probably loud enough to pull it off)

I can now say from experience that having true self worth is a bit like a panic attack or an orgasm; once it happens, asking if it happened is laughably pointless because the feeling is not something we can ever forget. And there it is. Self worth, love and acceptance on the deepest level, is not something we think we have it’s something we feel; a tingle that emanates to every cell in our body.

The fact is that we are all human, gorgeously strange, perfectly flawed and completely limited humans. Regardless of the beliefs pertaining to why we’re here or what the point of living on this orb made of mostly Carbon, Nitrogen, Hydrogen and Oxygen may be, we were all born with worth; an inherent value that does not need to be earned or maintained. We were never without it, nor can we ever truly loose it; but we come pretty damn close when we pour our sense of worth into the material shit we own, and/or the love and approval of another human.

How did reading that feel? Is it believable?

Don’t be discouraged if it’s not, we are conditioned to perceive worth as something that is tangible, assigned and/or earned by people, social status, jobs, etc. The concept of simply being worthy is not ‘normal,’ and can actually lead others to see us as selfish just by putting our own needs before others. Here I go out on my limb again: BULLSHIT!

So, what’s the how? What might help us find a way to re-discovering our worth? I say re-discovering because infants don’t feel like they have to earn love, food and protection from their parents. Here’s an analogy to help:

1. Choose an item that has high value. A heaping pile of whichever commodity one might be loathe to part from such as a stack of gems, blank checks signed by Donald Trump, rare books, a stack of classic rock CDs, the gold coins from Pirates of the Caribbean, irreplaceable pictures of loved ones, or Mac iBooks. Ideally, it personally signifies pricelessness, beyond material worth.
2. Assume the position! Let’s envisage ourselves as this valuable commodity. For example, I’m a pretty pile of emeralds.
3. Imagine every human interaction is a decision to either give a piece of our treasure away or keep it for ourselves, then consider how we might reassess the day-to-day choices we make, and who is worthy of our riches. 
4. We’re having a shit day….. How often do we start out already feeling insecure and worthless, but instead of protecting what we have left we frivolously dole it out, hoping that someone else will re-build our stores? The result is typically devastating disappointment when they fail to validate our worth.
5. Work towards the confronting realization that the only person who has any right to give us worth is ourselves, and ourselves alone. (And yes, that also means we have no right to assign anyone else’s worth; aka being judgmental)

On the days we feel stripped down to one, trying to give anything away will literally require us to break.

Here’s the thing, once we get a glimpse of true self-acceptance and love, learn to protect and own our worth by practicing caring for ourselves in every choice we make; we discover that it is a conscious decision to continue offering ourselves to our partners, kids, parents, jobs, friends, communities, etc. We’re mindfully giving away a piece of our treasure, and sharing it because we know deep down there is an inexhaustible supply. Security. We can make more anytime we want by practicing self-care instead of needing to extract it from others via reciprocity, people pleasing or even manipulation.

I’d be surprised if any of that made a lot of sense as yet, but please keep this concept in mind while reading my own frivolous misadventures. A mortifying look at how I established, maintained and depleted my self worth. Scrutinising all the false beliefs and conditions that kept the concept of self-acceptance and love perpetually out of my reach, and tales of spending my worth in all the wrong places, each in the hilarity and wisdom of 20/20 hindsight. By the end of the series, I’m hoping to convince readers that this courageous work is well worth the effort. When we learn to consciously give our time, money, love or attention authentically from a place of security and self worth, we can 'make it rain' on others without spending a dime or needing anything in return.

Subsequent Articles for Context and a Good Laugh…. Or Cry

Fighting for Funds

Spin Offs:
Sisterly Admiration
The Spectrum
Bah Bah Black Sheep

The book that effected this transformation was Brene Brown’s The Gifts of Imperfection; a book to be read when we have the courage to confront our own shame stories, or when we’re on vacation and fancy a life-altering experience while trying to avoid sand on a tiny island.

Sisterly Admiration

This is an actual email I wrote to my Sister.

Heerrrooooohhh!

I'm writing because I had an interview to be a 'Big Sister' yesterday, and the interview basically asked me a lot about my past to ensure that I wasn't so damaged that I'd f$*% up a little kid. To be honest, it made me realise how much I've changed. It almost felt as if I was talking about someone else's childhood, there was no sense of pain or attachment. Interesting shit, but I digress. I heard myself say something particularly interesting that I wanted to share with you.

They asked me about the people I admire most, and why I admire them. I immediately thought of you.  We are both very alike and very different, Sis. You are the only person who can understand what I've been through, because you've been through it as well; and yet we've both come out of it very differently, coped in different ways. Nature versus nurture? 

I admire your stability, how you can stay in that place and be happy with all the trials and tribulations that come with running a demanding family on very little income. You are a strong representative of the American middle class, and you should be damn proud of that. I admire your skills as a Mother most of all, they are truly exemplary. I laughed as I explained to them how you were tied up all day at a dance competition for the girls, and how that would literally be my nightmare, hahaha. I both envy your life, but also appreciate my own because, Sis, I simply couldn't live that way. I'm not sure if I have a fun-loving ever-changing Tarot-reading Gypsy spirit or an unsettled victim spirit that continually runs from her own shadows; it's probably a combination of both and (hopefully) recently moving away from the latter because I've given that victim the license to heal. Either way the 'conventional life' with a husband, kids and a house cemented into the ground simply won't work for me. It's something that has caused me great pain, because I keep thinking that I'm missing out, that I'm broken because I don't fit the mould. In reality, I've only broken myself trying to fit my ass into that mould and fulfil someone else's agenda. Look at the times I've tried for Christ sake! My track record is deplorable! Haha. I'm whole when I'm free, able to move around on a whim. Anyway, this is supposed to be about you dammit! 

I guess I just wanted to say thank you. Thank you for showing me both what I have and what I don't have, because through you I get the best of both worlds without being attached to the one I can't comfortably live within. After I talked about you they asked if there was anyone else, and I couldn't think of anyone. You are the only person I truly admire. I absorb a lot of little things from many people, but you are the only person I esteem highly enough to impress me, because, well, I'm pretty f$*%ing conceited! 

They next asked how I was with kids and I iterated the hilarious story of the day I took all three kids to the pool and Q gave the girls a lecture about how they all had to behave because 'Aunt Summie doesn't know how to handle children,' hahahahaha. Oh Q, I love him so!

One last note. They asked if I had spoke to you about being a Big Sister, and I said I couldn't recall. It wouldn't occur to me to ask if you'd support me because I already know the answer. You support me no matter what, even when you don't agree with me or it's something you wouldn't do; you support me anyway, and Sis, that's unconditional love. I feel the same for you. I couldn't and wouldn't live your life, but I'm so f$*%ing proud of you for doing it that it makes me want to puke, haha. For me Sis, the sun shines out your ass, it always has even when we were young and I didn't think you liked me. You were the coolest person I knew and always wanted you to approve of me. A friend here asked me once if I'd ever go back, and my reply was simple and brief: 'If my Sister ever asked, I'd be on the first flight out of New Zealand; but under any other circumstance, F$*% NO." 

I love you Sis,

Summer

PS Can I post this on my blog? This is some deep shit!

My Sister's Response: Awwwwww, thanks sis. Love you too! You can write whatever the hell you want......remember, I always support you! 

Me: I'm including that too..... haha.