Why You Need To Know Your Worth
The first step toward ending self-abandonment
Many of us have only a vague understanding of who we truly are. Of course, we know the roles we played and often the ones we were assigned to without our consent.
But what is underneath all that?
For a long time I thought knowing who you are was the first step on your healing journey. A bit like finding your way back to yourself requires that you have an idea where you need to go.
While this makes sense on a logical level, it’s also a bit demotivating. Because getting a solid idea of who you might be can take a lot of time. And then the answer might even be that you are not one fixed individual that is cast in some kind of form.
I know, I know... this is more complicated than it needs to be. But here is the good news:
Knowing you are of worth is much more important than knowing who you truly are.
Yes, you just need to know your worth. This may sound almost too simple and trivial. It most likely is. Yet finding out you have value can still be a big eye-opener.
Maybe it’s because value is such a vague word. On material things we can put a price tag, not so when it’s about us humans. And that’s a good thing.
Long story short, let me start by showing what it means when you see yourself as having no particular value.
The Problems With Feeling Worthless
Value is a relative measurement that we use to compare one thing with another.
When something is of low value, there consequently are other things of higher value.
So when you see yourself as of low value, this also means you regard some other people as more valuable than you. The people, not their jobs or money they make...
Accepting bad behavior:
When you see yourself as a small potato, you might accept being thrown around like one. Or take the family scapegoat role. It only works when the scapegoat accepts or internalizes being seen as lower value and therefore carries what the family puts on their back.
Life has to be earned
When you see yourself as of low value, you basically think you don’t deserve any of the nice things without having worked hard for it.
Giving up too fast:
Why should you even try big things when all you see yourself as is a tiny, insignificant being? You can spare yourself pointless struggles and just stick with the things that you think are realistic in your tiny world. So in a way, seeing yourself as of low value is kind of a reinforcing mechanism.
Seeing yourself as defective:
This one is probably the toughest. Even if we see ourselves as low value, we don’t like to be in such a powerless state. So we try with self-improvement, healing all the broken parts. But we might lose ourselves by focusing on fixing a false reality we were either made to believe or once chose as some kind of coping mechanism.
When there is nothing defective or wrong with us, the attempt to repair anything is pointless. But it could easily take half a lifetime before we find out that simple truth...
Now let’s compare this to the state of being aware you are of value as a human being.