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May 2024

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Is it Self Worth, or Just Your Pride Talking?

About a year into my healing process, I can better hear my inner voice. These are all the honest thoughts that I had barricaded so deep beneath that I couldn’t hear for a long time.

So when I was confronted with a suspicion that a lot of my life decisions were based on the fact that I thought myself unworthy, I was confused. 

“That’s weird..” I told my therapist “I always thought I was really great. If anyone asked me how I felt about myself, I’d say I’m kind of awesome.” 

I have finally solved this riddle. That this was my PRIDE speaking, not my SELF WORTH. How can I tell the difference? PRIDE needs outside participation. It is constantly seeking to validate – the proverbial “the lady doth protest too much” moment where you are constantly needing to convince the self and the world (in one way or another) how great you are. In my experience they are things that sell a self narrative to hide something else: looks, relationship status, job, whatever you need to advertise your value to the world.  One huge tipoff that it’s pride not a genuine self worth: it gets triggered easily at any notion or suggestion in its contradiction.

SELF WORTH feels very different. It is a powerful, calm inner knowing. It doesn’t need an audience with an outsider; it needs no approval, nor applause. If someone feels differently, it is more likely to say “oh well, they’re entitled to their opinion” and move on. It gets its fuel from the self; a self acceptance and trust is all it needs. I have never felt such an inner power in all my life until now. 

 

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Is Your Emotional Health Neglected? (+Journal Prompt)

Consider these two scenarios:

1) Your kid comes home to you with a black eye and a cut up lip.

2) Your kid comes home saying her classmates were mean and ended up eating lunch alone. 

Perhaps you might react differently to the two situations.

 

Most of us know that we have an emotional side that inevitably comes out from time to time. We’re happy to see our friends. Our coworker is being an ass and we feel outrage. There is an accident on the road, and we are stressed. We often live believing that this is the full scale of our emotional landscape- the bursts that happen from time to time. 

Because it is not visible, it is harder to recognize its enormity and the impact it has on us. This makes it harder to give it as much importance as the physical. Perhaps that’s why we might be more inclined to get more alarmed and prone to act upon the first scenario in comparison to the second. 

We might also be more inclined to set aside time to get into the gym and spend money on expensive workout gear, versus setting aside time to spend with ourselves to reflect on how we are feeling. We often just don’t put the same importance on the emotions, leading to its inevitable neglect. Just to be clear, when neglected it doesn’t go away. It is still ever present, manifesting in distressing ways, until we are ready to listen with compassion. More on this on a coming blog. 

In one of the most significant books on my healing journey, “Complex PTSD: From Surviving to Thriving”, Pete Walker dedicates an entire chapter called “What if I was never hit?”, helping us understand that the same amount of pain and trauma can happen on an emotional level. Sometimes the effects are even more devastating because it’s hard to understand the gravity of hurt that can happen that are invisible, making us deny to ourselves or even to loved ones the pain we are in. 

While physical health is important, today I wanted to bring awareness on the not-so-visible aspect of our health. A lot of us weren’t taught to consider it, so here it is: an invitation for you to spend a moment checking in on how you’re doing. You deserve it. If you don’t know how to do this, I have provided journal prompts below for you to write about somewhere. 

Advocating for your inner self,

 

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Journal Prompts to ponder:

What are your beliefs about the emotional landscape? 
Do you prioritize your emotional well being as much as it deserves? 
If not, why do you think you neglect it? 
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On “being your authentic self”: what does it really mean?

First, the why on the deep dive into authenticity: I was clearly having an issue on forming the kind of healthy, meaningful relationships I’ve wanted in my life. In fact, I’d say in some way we as a culture are. There must be a reason why we have a prevailing loneliness epidemic across the nation.

Trying to get to the bottom of it, I discovered:

AUTHENTICITY & VULNERABILITY -> MEANINGFUL CONNECTIONS.

So clearly this authenticity piece is rather important to get there.

When I started my healing journey, I saw some form of “Be your authentic self!” plastered all over social media. I really don’t like conceptual words like “authentic” being thrown around without some kind of anchor to how it shows up in the everyday life. We can get into a rabbit hole of intellectualizing the hell out of it, but ultimately avoid any real personal connection, where healing happens.

I decided to get really honest, asking myself “How does the word authenticity show up in YOUR head?” My mind tells me “Well, I know what INAUTHENTICITY is:

Omg, i love your skirt_

Interesting. In the deepest, most honest places, my mind equates inauthenticity as kind of this over the top, dramatic fashion of  “fake”. We are getting somewhere. 

I’d say the vast majority of us are no Regina George. We aren’t often like the characters in reality TV and don’t walk around being “over the top fake”. Not consciously, anyway. So how does it REALLY show up? In the most stripped down, simplified sense, my therapist defines it as:

Authenticity = When your inside matches your outside.

Meaning authenticity is NOT:

  • When I’m sad but don’t want others (or myself) to know I’m sad, so I put on a smile or act overly something else. Like bubbly.
  • When someone close to me does something that is upsetting but choose not to say anything, giving some reason like “maybe I’m over reacting” or “they can’t handle it”  because deep down I’m afraid of things like confrontation or their reaction.
  • When I’m “super easy” to work/be with because deep down I don’t want to be “that gal” that rocks the boat, acting very agreeable.
  • When I go on a date and spend time playing the character I’ve had temporary success with.
  • When I edit texts and emails over and over again because deep down I’m hoping to portray a certain image of myself.
  • And many MANY more.

For me, what authenticity looks like is not hiding behind a lot of people pleasing behaviors. 

I will say that this work has had some “prerequisite” learnings before I was able to make these discoveries, which were 1) being able to sit with myself to honestly have these thoughts and 2) learning to commit to acceptance of whatever I find inside, so I could actually “hear” what’s happening. But we’ll save that for another post.

If this speaks to you in some way, I encourage you to ponder/journal about the following.

Deep inside, what does your mind believe is authentic/inauthentic? 

How does it actually show up in your life? 

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Bushy pits, and the art of not over apologizing.

I went to my weekly physical therapy session the other day, but ended up with a different therapist than the usual. When asked if I was ok taking off my shirt for the massage, I obliged; I was wearing my sports bra after all. I usually keep my arms glued by my side, but that day she wanted to get my upper arms as well.

And that’s where it got hairy (pun absolutely intended).

I’d gone in au naturale = not having shaved my pits. She started lifting my arms, and I started wanting to apologize profusely for my faux pas. Something to the tune of “Oh God, I’m SO SORRY if I knew I would be doing this I would’ve shaved..” I guess I must’ve healed enough to be able to take a beat to think, because laying on that massage table, think I did:

Had I actually done something wrong to warrant an apology?

A while ago I worked with a trainer who would stretch me out at the end of every session. I would often say “oh man, sorry I’m so sweaty!!” She then said something I won’t soon forget. She noticed people so often apologize for sweating after a hard workout, even though if you take a second to think about it, it’s normal. What was most meaningful to her observation was that by far most one of those apologetic folks were women.

So this time, I bit back my apology and worked hard through my hateful thoughts. “Oh geez, she’s probably appalled”, “I’m so gross”, “What’s wrong with me?” and all the variety of ways my mind wanted to apologize for being human. Instead, when she was done, I gave her a smile of appreciation with a well deserved “thank you”, and walked away. I gave my brain another experience to reinforce that I don’t have to apologize for myself when I don’t feel “perfect”, as if that is an inconvenience to the world.

To be absolutely clear, I’m not saying that all it takes to heal a worthiness wound is to apologize less in general. No, we know far too well that working in absolutes is never the answer. In some cases I make the case that we need to get better at putting our ego aside and learning to apologize. This over- apologizing because we feel we owe it to others when we clearly don’t, is another beast. And learning to do it less sure helps support the work I’m doing on the inside, and the message I’ve been teaching to my inner child.

Do you ever find yourself over apologizing?

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Coming out of a not-so-rainbow, dark closet.

I’ve been hiding out, too afraid to be myself in the world. Afraid? No, it’s not strong enough. Utter soul shattering terror.

“Programmed” with different protocols of what to say and how to behave in different situations, I always hoped to be liked and therefore “safe”. In the last year of healing I learned that in doing so I have long abandoned my SELF in a dark closet, hoping never to be discovered.

Well hello world. It’s time to come out.

This blog is my equal to jumping out of the plane for someone who fears heights, swimming in the ocean for someone who fears the depths, or singing in the middle of Time Square if stage fright is your thing.

In sharing my honest experiences, I unapologetically choose take up space in the big vast world. My deepest hope is someone feels seen, feels understood, and walks away with a little bit of healing.