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.