Somewhere along the line as many of us were growing up, we felt some sense of unworthiness. This could have been because of your role in the family. Maybe you were the baby who everyone saw as incapable; or the first-born who could never do it right; or the middle-child who was invisible.
It could have happened in school when other kids bullied you, or with teachers who disapproved of your behavior or academic performance. Maybe you were never good at sports and were the last kid picked for a team in gym class. Perhaps the authority figures at your church frowned upon your shenanigans.
One single incident could have speared you with a sudden (mistaken) belief in your unworthiness, or it could have happened over time, like a slow burn.
Thinking of yourself as faulty, you started questioning and doubting yourself—how you felt, what you wanted, your ability to make decisions, to think correctly, behave correctly. You lost trust in your capability and your goodness. You felt undeserving and undesirable to be around…even for yourself.
I remember in 9th grade one of my teachers went around the room and asked each student to share with the class one thing that he/she was good at. Every classmate had at least one thing to share, and many had two or three. When it came to me, I went blank. In front of the entire class I responded that there was nothing that I was good at. The teacher was obviously in disbelief and kept prodding me for information to find one positive thing, I couldn’t do it. I remember feeling so embarrassed and humiliated. I was looking around the room and observing my classmates shaking their heads at each other in disbelief. Some couldn’t look back at me because they were feeling sad for me. What is most interesting is there were many things I was good at. Swimming, running, volleyball, baseball, soccer, track, floor hockey, basketball, English, etc. But because of low self-worth and a lack of self-trust, I second guessed my own goodness with everything!
In order to restore self-worth, you began to seek approval and belonging—and because you didn’t trust that you’d get those by being you, you began to lie to create a persona which took away your power. You became a chameleon, wearing and hiding behind different masks for different groups. You learned that by being who others wanted you to be, you could be accepted as good and worthy.
Giving up your power only deepened your self-doubt. You began to believe that everyone else knew better than you did — and here you have sat, for a while, going around and around, asking yourself,
“Do I trust myself to do this right?”
“Am I good enough to have this?”
“Where do I have the power?”
“When am I being myself?”
“Where am I acting as if?”
“Who the heck am I?”
Think about it: your decisions have been made to escape feelings of insecurity and unworthiness; to be more trustworthy, when deep down, you believed you weren’t. You may feel that you have “arrived” because your decisions brought you material wealth or a good career, but every one of those has an invisible, gold chord attached to your self-doubt.
Can you relate?
This isn’t about pain. It’s about hope. Showing you how you came to be where you are now gives you great power. It’s not that you “are” any of the bad things you may still think you are—it’s that an early break in your self-worth set you on a predictable course.
Many of us come from some sort of abusive background–whether it was verbal, emotional, sexual or spiritual. Many of us grew up feeling different, unimportant, and insignificant. That’s when the real split occurred. And the truth is we have never come back from that. The deepest place of pain for us is that we have never really learned to love and trust ourselves.
That can change. And it all starts with making a NEW decision based in self-worth. A DECISION to un-learn what you’ve been taught. To love yourself enough to come from a place of security and confidence by embracing the fact that you are at choice from this point forward.
What is one thing you can do today to set yourself on a deeper journey towards self-trust and love?
