WEEKLY THOUGHTS #14
SELF-WORTH & HOW TO FIND IT
What is self-worth to me?
Self-worths are images that come to my conscious mind that describe who I am, what qualities I have and how I see myself in interaction with others and with myself.
The statement above is completely wrong. Let me explain. If I have a set of qualities/habits/characteristics: kind to others, truthful and polite, it can be harmful to others. Why? Imagine a situation I am talking to a friend whom I have known for some time but we still don’t know each other so well. We went for a coffee and a walk together.
We sat on a bench and he asked me, “What do you think of my plans to quit my job?”
I may answer: “I think you should do it but I also think that you might suffer for not gaining any money at the beginning.”
What seems like a quite normal answer, gives my friend the sense that I am: polite, kind and truthtelling but he might “expect” a different answer - particularly that I should mostly support him. And that is not what I am doing because I am also truthful and that means I will tell what I think is true to me and how I see the reality even if it’s someone else’s.
This story is not real but what’s coming out of it is that I might have some qualities or habits that my friend doesn’t appreciate in me. This brings me to the point that my answer to the question from the beginning is now becoming quite vague. A statement that my self-worth is some image of how I see myself and how I interact with others may be harming someone. So I am asking myself if I see that my qualities or habits are harming someone else, is it the true self-wroth? Or it is the wrong formulation? Or it is a wrong understanding of this whole thing?
And I think it is. How our brain sees things and creates opinions about such stuff as self-worth can make us blind because of the blanket that is covering the real truth.
What can we find if we uncover this blanket and how to do that?
Let’s start with the work - uncovering that blanket of plain words that are not helping us. I have good news in the beginning - we already did the first half of it. We asked ourselves this question - What is self-worth to me? That is the part of realization which is one of the most crucial and always the most profound and “easy” thing to do. That’s the first thing - the realization. After the realization comes questioning the questioned. We are human beings that are capable of critical thinking and usually, two questions are better than one, as they bring more answers and clarity to the discussed topic. So, what can you do? Ask honest questions, like somebody else is doing it to you. Imagine you are your friend who is doing the honour for you by listening to you and asking you questions to get to understand what you have to say. And the third thing is the most challenging - finding a new answer to your question.
See, I initially thought, naturally that my self-worth is based on the fact of who I am, and how I am in interactions with others but in the end, now, I am realising that was the unconscious part of my brain talking. What I am gonna replace the initial answer with is this: “My self-worth is based on the fact that I am self-worth by myself.“ That’s it. Super simple. If you can follow this strategy:
Realisation
Questioning
Inquiring
I believe that you can find many more topics similar kind that the 3 steps that would be super helpful for you to overcome and change old habits, old patterns and old thinking.
Because I know, you can do it!
Take care.
Love & hugs,
ZlatkaK
