How I Learned That I’m Kind of a Big Deal

Unconditional love corresponds to one of the deepest longings, not only of the child, but of every human being. –Erich Fromm

I would rarely, if ever, say this outloud: “I am not worthy of real love. I do not deserve the best for me. I am going to settle for this person, or for this thing in life because I can’t get what I really want.”

I would be embarrassed to say those things outloud, but it is what some of my actions reflect. I don’t know where this idea came from, the idea that I don’t deserve good things, but I DO know that part of my own low self esteem came from secrecy and living a life out of integrity.

It feels SO good to live honestly – to simply be honest about where I am. When I did a list of resentments with a mentor, it turned out that the person that came up on the list the most was ME. I had caused more harm to myself than anyone- I compromised my own boundaries, I failed to speak my own truth, I went along with what others wanted instead of standing up for my own desires, I discounted my feelings and my intuition only to find out repeatedly that I was right.

After doing a lot of writing, and verbal processing with a close, wise friend, she suggested that MY part (my responsibility) in the anger I felt had to do with the fact that I had abandoned myself. I always fear that people will leave me, and ironically, I ended up leaving myself- by not speaking my truth, sharing my feelings, communicating my boundaries, etc.

After writing myself a letter of apology and a commitment to do something different –and THIS is my point in writing all this– I noticed a shift in my self esteem. I didn’t connect the change with this action until this week, but I really feel like taking responsibility for myself and committing to take better care of myself actually made me like myself more.

It is a small step, but an important one.

I had a friend tell me once ago that while praying for me, he visualized me wearing an extravagant royal robe- but that it had been given to me by other people. God wants to remove that…so He can replace it with something much better given to me by HIM. Taking responsibility for myself is a step in this process: while I KNOW God uses other people to speak to me, I also know that my self-worth should not be coming from other people. It should come from within.