By now you may know I talk a lot about self-esteem, self-belief and living non-apologetically as our true selves. It’s something I’m supremely passionate about. Everyone I come into contact with, I wish to ignite a new spark of self-belief within them. That is my mission in life, to get to the core of YOU and to help you to realise how awesome you are.
When doing any self-esteem work with clients, the first thing we look at is the disconnection of external objects of worth.
We all get stuck in these patterns of believing that there is something that we have to have / be / acquire / or become, before we can accept ourselves fully. Whether it’s a possession, a habit, or a certain “thing” that we attach to, whatever that is, we convince ourselves that it represents our worth as a person, and only once we get that thing will we be able to feel that true internal acceptance.
We get used to thinking that our body, fitness levels, weight, possessions or job defines us as aperson.
We live with this mind-set of “as long as I have / keep X, Y, Z – I’m ok, I am someone.”
To truly disconnect with these objects of worth can result in feelings so incredibly powerful and liberating, it’s not easy to do, but it’s something I actively work on with many clients as I believe it’s the core to so many of our emotional battles.
My interest in this stemming mainly from the body / physique / diet states of worthiness originally – witnessed in the beliefs of so many clients that they have to look a certain way before experiencing self-belief, the complete inability to experience any true acceptance until a certain goal weight or physique was achieved..
It started to rock me to me core, the more and more I saw the more I was determined to call this out. Especially as I was living that place personally, too.
The reality of that mindset needs to be understood; if you haven’t got any self-belief at the start of your journey, you probably won’t have it at the end either.
To attach your entire sense of self-worth onto how you look physically attaches nothing but limitations and conditions to your worth as a person.
We should have no limitations on our worth and there should be no conditions attached to your core self-esteem.
These things we strive for are external, they are fleeting. If we have a goal that we want to work towards, great – goals are good. Whether that is to run a marathon, get into a certain dress or simply to make different food choices – these are wonderful goals to have if they come from a positive place in you.
But as soon as you attach your self-worth as a human onto to that goal, you are giving your own enormous, and highly valuable power supply away.
By unplugging your charger from your true core self and re-attaching it to this external goal, you are letting go of your own self-worth – not gaining more of it.
What’s so bad about external goals? They can be taken away….at any time. They are never guaranteed, they are often temporary, they may not be sustainable and in some cases, they may never even materialise at all.
With the loss of that energy within the core of yourself, you crumble and wilt. Your sense of self become weak as it’s power has been taken away, or worse – you have chosen to give it away.
As I talk about this so often, it can sometimes become easy to think I have it all figured out. But I don’t, I definitely don’t – and one of the ways I recognised this was just recently, I was hit with a bit of epiphany one evening last week. The way you can tell an un-helpful core belief hasn’t been completely disconnected in us is when on the surface it seems to improve, but then actually on examination you can see that it’s been transmuted into another area of your life.
So I figured something out, something that we are sabotaging ourselves with, something we actually do a lot and it’s having the exact same effect as the situations above.
When you get to a point of truly disconnecting your worth with how you look, you feel like you are on fire, it feels awesome and you feel indestructible. You feel like She-Ra!
“STEP BACK – I am MORE than enough!”
But what happens when you stumble onto the realisation that you are still defining yourself by an external factor?
HUH? What?
Your Job.
We’ve finally got over the panic about how our looks will be judged by this or that person, it’s cool and liberating we feel fearless!
But then we get hit with the first question we always get asked when we meet someone new…
“So, what do you do?”
You stand tall and proudly announce your job title, because now you are more that your looks – you are an intelligent being.
But again here you are, waiting for a reaction “….will they ask me more? What will they think?”
And then you realise that your job isn’t really who you are. It’s just another way for you to get acceptance and recognition from a stranger.
It’s not you. That’s not WHO YOU ARE, because that title could go any time, too. That isn’t guaranteed forever either, just like the physical stuff.
What happens when you retire, or worse – if you lost your job tomorrow, who do you become then?
You stay the same person.
But if you have attached your worth and self-esteem to that job title, it’ll feel very different. Just like if you’d attached your worth to a dress size, or a handbag, or a house or even another person.
N.B I think this last one is imperative for our self-esteem, to disconnect from that worth given via others – “I am so-and-so’s wife / friend / colleague / sister”
It’s so incredibly dis-empowering for us and our self-esteem to become attached to relationships because we fear our loss of identity without them.
Who do you become without those things, or that person – are you “less” without them?
What are you instead? Well, this is the KEY to all this. Let your “I am…..” become true to who you really are, let your true essence shine!
It’s a vast subject, one that I could discuss for hours. But I’m not gunna. I want to leave it there for today to let you mull this over a bit.
Where do you see evidence of your own self-worth attachments?
So, I feel like next time someone asks me a question that requires an answer beginning with “I am…” I need to think really carefully about how I answer it… and I absolutely invite all you lovely ones to do so also.
Today – I am creative, energetic, caring and passionate.
Jump in and comment with your own “I am…”
Ciao for now,
Heather x