Hello you!
A couple of years ago I started a new note on my phone entitled my self-worth is NOT. The first thing I added to it was how much I weigh. A good start for a girl who’s battled an eating disorder since she was ten. The list goes on. How much money I make, what others think of my work, how many friends I have, how eco friendly I am…
I won’t bore you with the entire list but you get the idea. Every time I find myself measuring my self-worth according to societal metrics or external pressures I add what I’m measuring it in to this list. It’s a simple but effective way to raise my self-awareness and catch myself falling into negative thinking patterns so I can stop any downward spiralling and reframe what would otherwise be a toxic approach to life.
You see we’re subconsciously conditioned to tie our self-worth to the external world and once you start looking you can’t unsee the metrics. Instagram wants me to measure my self-worth in followers and likes. YouTube wants me to measure it in video views, the patriarchy wants me to measure it in youth and western beauty standards. Who do these metrics benefit though? It certainly isn’t me. Those making the rules are the ones who benefit and they’re more than willing to take all our power away. When we hand over our self-worth we’re in dangerous waters of never having or being good enough.
I’ve learnt a lot about myself these last two years. A marriage breakdown will do that for you if you’re willing to take a long hard look in the mirror. I’ve learnt even more about love and I’m still learning. I’m learning what love really is and this was unexpected, but more importantly what love isn’t. Self-love is no exception. My most pivotal lesson has been realising the relationship we have with ourselves is the most sacred of all. It is the root of all our other relationships and the one worth watering first if we want these to benefit.
I’d gotten really good at knowing what my self-worth wasn’t and every time I added to this list I felt another weight of relief. You should try it. I once shared some of my list on Instagram and I got a reply that shook me. If our self-worth isn’t these things then what is it? What a question to ponder and how sad we’ve been so manipulated to serve others we no longer know where our self-worth truly lies. How lost and consequently vulnerable this makes us to the dark forces at work in this world.
Are you ready for the answer… it might shock you - our self-worth just is. We don’t have to do, achieve or be anything to increase it. Our self-worth remains the same because it’s unconditional just by being human. We’re born with self-worth and it stays with us forever. What we have, what others think of us and what we achieve bear no influence on it. This is an illusion and a lie we’ve been fed.
In his book Fierce Intimacy, which is one of the most life changing and brilliant books I’ve ever read, Terry Reel writes healthy self-esteem is the belief that we have worth simply because we are. We’re no better than anyone else and we’re no worse than anyone else either. We’ve nothing to feel superior about and no amount of achievements or striving will ascend us to the heavens. Our inherent self-worth means we’ve nothing to feel ashamed of. How refreshing? How freeing?!
I gave myself a month to practice this way of thinking, repeating these affirmations out loud or in my head and I still turn to my notes on Terry’s self-esteem section now. It goes against everything I was brought up to believe in the most beautiful way. Untethering my self-worth from how others saw me and how much they loved me in particular allowed me to step off the hamster wheel I didn’t even realise I was on. Finally I could turn inwards, ground myself in something solid and live from a place I’d wanted to get to since I first decided I’d finally be good enough if only I weighed a stone less - acceptance, not from others but from myself. I was already in that place - we all are, we just never realised it.
This isn’t to say we can’t engage with the self-worth metrics I’ve talked about and strive for things in life that result in external validation but understanding how fragile this is is essential. My advice is to keep your self-worth where you can see it, right inside your heart softly beating away no matter how many likes you get or how you look. There’s nothing wrong with wanting to look beautiful and striving for that, or striving to make lots of money and grow a huge following. The difference is knowing our self-worth isn’t wrapped up in all of this. We have to separate the two to stay grounded in ourselves. Our sanity depends on it.
Let me know if you give the my self-worth is NOT list a go. Feel free to leave some suggestions in the comments below too so the rest of us can pad ours out.
Lots of love
Jessica xxx
Things that have been adding value this week
The School Of Life Relationships audiobook
Nedra Glover Tawwab’s Instagram account
This Goop podcast episode on The Shadow (there’s also an episode with Terry Reel I’d recommend too)
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Dearest Jessica, it is so troubling to see how society convinced us that success is measurable. Not only that, but it has to be done alone, like the lone wolf ( which by the way does not exist, they always work and live in packs.) I love to draw, many love what I do, but many more may not think much about it or think it is really bad. But that doesn’t stop me from drawing and even showing it in Instagram. I call my self an illustrator and a writer because that is what I do. Never published a book, never gota dime for a drawing, but I don’t care, I am having fun. I will just be, that is enough.
What a great first letter to receive, it feels so light to think in this way like a weight is lifted off our shoulders. I would put on my list that my self-worth is not about being an introvert as I've grown up feeling less than extroverts and it's not the fact that I've been single most of my life. I'll do the list do add more things! One aspect in which I reflected about self-worth has been money and why I'm deciding to make more and my self-worth is not more If I'm poor, it doesn't make me more noble or make others more worthy of a great income.