Recognize your worth
Cherilyn Schutze MEd., LPC
Value and worth are essential to one’s self-esteem.
Too often, we are quick to devalue ourselves, our good qualities, and our accomplishments. Instead, we let the noise inside our heads and the outside world tell us we’re not good enough, not worthy of good things happening or worthy of the people in our lives. These are lies we tell ourselves and lies we end up believing.
In his blog, The 10 Thought Habits of Self Worth, Michael Stanwyck states that, “…low self-worth is often the cause — not the effect — of hardships in your life, whether they are financial, relational, physical, and so on.”
Think about this for a minute—
“…LOW SELF WORTH IS OFTEN THE CAUSE—NOT THE EFFECT—OF HARDSHIPS IN YOUR LIFE…”
That seems counterintuitive doesn’t it? We often think that it is because of our hardships, that we have low self esteem. It may start there, but it doesn’t end there.
If you break it down, it makes perfect sense. When something doesn’t go as expected, or when we run into hardship, we take that hardship and make a meaning out of it. All too often the meaning we make is a negative thought about ourselves. Once we start down that trail, it’s hard to come back. It can become a snowball rolling down hill, picking up more negativity as we move through life, developing expectations that things will go wrong, that we don’t deserve for things to go right, or that we aren’t good enough to have joy, peace and happiness in our lives because of something that happened in the past.
BUT THE REALITY IS, YOUR PAST DOES NOT DEFINE YOU AND…YOU ARE GOOD ENOUGH!
The key is to start believing in yourself. If you don’t, who will?
If you don’t value yourself and recognize your worth, there can be serious consequences, such as depression, anxiety, and/or the inability to reach your full potential in relationships and in life in general. So what do we do about it?
Remember the story of The Little Engine That Could? That little train had to get up a big hill that seemed like an impossible task, but then the little engine began to say to itself, “I think I can, I think I can, I think I can.” Pretty soon it was saying, “I KNOW I CAN, I KNOW I CAN!, I KNOW I CAN” And…you know what?! IT DID! We need to be like that little engine, recognizing that we are stronger than we think we are. We need to tell ourselves “I CAN!”; “I AM WORTHY!”, even when it seems impossible; even when we don’t believe it.
Recognize how you talk to yourself.
Valuing yourself and recognizing your worth is really the culmination of all the perseverance reminders. First, you must recognize how you talk to yourself. Because our brains are hardwired to go to the negative, it is very easy to doubt ourselves, judge ourselves, and not trust ourselves. But with a little practice talking back to that negative voice in your head, you can begin to turn that around and start recognizing your worthiness.
There is a saying I often repeat to my clients, “What fires together, wires together”, so when you are thinking negatively about yourself, you are hardwiring that into your brain, teaching it to believe the negative thoughts. The amazing thing about the brain, however, is that it learns by doing. So, when you force yourself to think the opposite (reframing), you are firing and wiring new positive connections. Just the very act of saying something positive, creates new pathways and wires new connections in the brain. Remember, you don’t even have to believe your reframe yet. The more you practice, the more the brain learns and the less negative it becomes.
I saw a meme on Instagram the other day by @Nicoleslachslscw that said, “When you act like you don’t matter, people treat you like you don’t matter.” This is such a good reminder that we teach people how to treat us, so if you don’t believe you are worthy of respect, healthy relationships, love, etc., what can you expect from others? How will you have space to receive respect, love, healthy relationships, and the ability to fulfill your potential?
Healthy self esteem isn’t about being prideful and ignoring your flaws. As humans, we all have flaws, that’s part of what makes us human. Valuing yourself is about the balance between recognizing your good qualities along with your flaws and being mindful of both of them. It’s about knowing your strengths, learning from your mistakes, determining your limits and being humble.
Having a healthy self esteem leads to confidence, healthy relationships, and ability to grow and learn from life’s lessons.
THE MAYO CLINIC LISTS FIVE SIGNS OF POSITIVE SELF WORTH:
Assertiveness in expressing your needs and opinions
Confidence in your ability to make decisions
The ability to form secure and honest relationships — and less likelihood of staying in unhealthy ones
Having realistic expectations and being less overly-critical of yourself and others
Being more resilient and better able to weather stress and setbacks
Positive self worth lowers the likelihood of developing depression, anxiety, and relationship problems. So, pay attention to your thoughts and learn to reframe them. The next time you find you are feeling down on yourself, feeling unworthy, unlovable, or not good enough, think about the little engine that could and talk back to that negative voice in your head. As my brother often says, “Don’t ever say anything about yourself that you don’t want to be true.”
