[EXCERPT FROM ESSAY TODAY I ASKED MYSELF MY STORY][I AM A WRITER, NOT A DOCTOR. CLICK TO READ MEDICAL DISCLAIMER]
I have come a long way with my worth since my reckoning at rock bottom.
While shame and the subsequent self-loathing nearly cost me my life, I’m grateful in retrospect to have been leveled down to my lowest, where the most basic, most fundamental truths were the only things that could satiate me.
Everyone needs a great flood at some point in their lives to wash away all the bullshit and faulty framework of our unauthentic selves. Since that time, I’ve been able to focus on rebuilding my house on “rock, not sand” if I may be so bold as to borrow a metaphor, so when the floods come again, as is inevitable in life, “who I am” will continue to stand.
And I have founded my house firmly upon my worth.
While I’m still largely susceptible to feelings of unworthiness because I am a human and a woman living in the social media age, I have not yet encountered a question able to dethrone my worthiness.
Am I pretty enough to matter? Am I smart enough to be here? Am I important enough to speak up? Do I deserve respect? Am I AM I ENOUGH?
I am worthy enough to matter. I am worthy enough to be here. I am worthy enough to speak up. I am worthy of respect. I AM WORTHY.
And that goes for every single one of us.
Although for those who think that leaning in and embracing our worthiness is just an officious license to exert ourselves over others, please note the beautifully simplistic checks and balances system within the design. No one (regardless of their ability to drive in traffic) is our superior or inferior—our souls are all of equal worth and value. Therefore, I cannot consider my worth more valuable than someone else’s or exalt my worth over theirs if our worth is all equal—it defeats the entire purpose. Behaviorally speaking, I think the true balance we seek to find in this life is how to treat others according to their worth while not conceding ours in the process.
I understand this is a difficult concept to justify, especially if we have been at the receiving end of any grave wrongdoing. But I’m a firm believer that the more someone wrongs, takes advantage, mistreats, or brings pain to other people, the more they distance themselves from ever genuinely knowing joy—and while that is a far cry from the justice some of us deserve, it’s hard to imagine a full, well-lived life without knowing what the warmth of true happiness feels like.
Until tomorrow,
Tess
Click here to read more of the essay Today I Asked Myself My Story
- I Don’t Know About You, But Am I Really 32?
- Today I Asked Myself My Story
- My First Run Back
- Today I Asked Myself About My Worth
- Today I Asked Myself About Rebuilding With Worth
- Today I Asked Myself About Discovering Shame & Finding My Worth
