Here’s What Inherent Self-Worth Sounds Like

To make your Monday more self-compassionate, here’s a short video for you on how Unshakeable Self-Worth sounds and feels. You’ll hear about belonging, self-respect, and staying true to your values. Enjoy and let me know if it resonates!

Transcript

So what is inherent,

Unshakable self-worth?

Here's what self-worth sounds like.

And not everyone knows what self-worth sounds like or feels like.

It depends on your story,

Your background,

Your history.

I wanna help you enter the mindset of unshakable,

Absolute self-worth.

And hopefully it becomes a part of your day,

Your decisions,

Your life,

Your experience.

And a high sense of self-worth,

It's helpful for everything.

It's helpful for your work,

For relationships.

It's helpful for how you take care of yourself.

It truly impacts every corner of your life.

So how does self-worth sound?

And most importantly,

How does it feel?

Let's enter this state together.

Self-worth is knowing that every being,

Every person you've ever encountered makes 10,

000 mistakes in the course of a lifetime.

And you've probably made about 20 this week,

And that's not an excuse to be mean to yourself.

You can still be on your own side and make mistakes and learn from them.

Self-worth is this attitude that no matter what happens,

I am going to grow from it.

And self-worth is knowing that it's important that you be treated with respect.

Self-worth is being connected to your value as a human being always in any situation that's inherent.

It's not like,

Oh,

This is a special situation.

I can put aside my value as a human being.

I'll just put it to the side,

Because it's not as important,

Because this is such a special,

Important situation.

There is no situation that trumps your inherent sense of self-worth.

One of my favorite Russian novelists,

Fyodor Dostoevsky,

Has this excerpt that,

If you were to build a perfect paradise in which everyone was perfectly happy,

But you build this paradise on the tears of one child,

Using the tears of one child,

It's not worth it.

And this was quite prophetic,

Because it was before communism.

It was before this idea of let's build this perfect society,

But everyone will suffer and die as we build it,

Because it's worth it,

Because it's such a good society.

Your self-worth,

The self-worth as a human being,

Is not worth building something on.

You can't build something on a low sense of self-worth.

And this applies to you,

And this applies to everyone.

Like,

If there was a child that was three days old,

Or three hours old in my arms right now,

So there's a child,

Child,

Three hours old in my arms.

Does this child have inherent self-worth?

It's not doing anything.

It's maybe making some noise,

But it's not doing anything.

Does this child have inherent self-worth?

Yes.

This child doesn't need to create something or succeed at something.

Because this child exists,

It has total self-worth.

And I know it's not a real child,

But I wanted to make a point that this child has self-worth,

And so do you.

It doesn't matter what you've done or what you haven't done.

The child,

It hasn't done anything yet.

Your self-worth is connected to your value as a human being.

And your self-worth is not needing to feel like you constantly have to prove yourself to be a part of this world,

Or to be welcomed in this world.

The self-worth is an inherent sense of being worthy of belonging.

You don't have to be a certain weight,

A certain height,

Belong to a certain family,

Go to a certain school,

Have a certain job.

You have a sense of belonging because you exist,

And you are worthy of love because you're a human being,

Including your own,

Including your own love.

And I would say,

Especially your own love,

Because everything else stems from that.

How other people treat you is how you believe you need to treat yourself.

When I work with people one-on-one who are in abusive relationships,

And they wanna get out of that abusive relationship,

And they ask me how,

What I tell them is first,

Stop being in an abusive relationship with yourself.

If you are in an abusive relationship with yourself,

If you punish yourself,

Criticize yourself,

Don't take care of yourself,

I guarantee you that you will also be in an abusive relationship with others.

I can absolutely guarantee it.

This is why we work on self-compassion,

Self-worth,

Self-value first,

And your fulfilling relationships after.

So self-worth is this mindset that I will only be in situations where I am respected.

I will only be in places where I'm respected.

If I am not respected,

I will leave the situation,

I will leave the place.

It doesn't matter how convenient it is.

It doesn't matter how lucrative it is.

It doesn't matter how much money is involved.

My own sense of self-worth doesn't let me stay.

If I am being disrespected or treated dishonestly,

Or definitely if I'm being abused in any way,

I'm not gonna stay.

My self-worth in my mind is higher than that advantage.

That advantage can be material,

Non-material,

But my self-worth goes above that.

So self-worth is staying true to that value of self-compassion,

And also staying true to your own higher values,

To your own higher purpose.

Only you know what that is,

And it has to do with your soul,

Your spirit.

What is most important to you is very important.

No one can tell you what that is,

But you stay true to it as part of your self-worth.

And self-worth is taking care of your heart,

Taking care of your heart first,

And your body,

And your emotions.

It's being kind to yourself,

No matter the circumstance,

And accepting your story just as it is,

Owning your story.

Anything you accept becomes your source of strength.

So self-worth is expecting honesty from others,

And the other side of that is,

You're also being honest with yourself as to everything you feel.

So everything that's happened to me,

It can exist.

I will acknowledge it as it is.

It is part of me,

And it is welcome.

Every experience I've ever had,

It's all a part of my life.

It is there for me to open my heart to.

It's not there so I can blame myself,

And blame others,

And think life is unfair.

It's just there for me to open my heart to,

And to get strength from.

And I can welcome it with an open heart.

Everything that's happened to me is welcome.

And I set the intention to be kind to myself now,

And to be kind to every past version of myself.

And I'll make decisions now that are kind to every future version of myself also.

So when making a decision from a high sense of self-worth,

Ask,

Will my future self thank me for this?

Is this good for future me?

Will this help me flourish?

Will this help me thrive in the long term?

Compassion is wanting someone to be happy in the long term.

Self-compassion is wanting yourself to be happy in the long term.

And to do that,

You're kind to yourself in the present.

And being kind to truly every version,

Every flavor of yourself.

It's being kind to the version of yourself whose wishes come true,

And to the version of yourself that is struggling.

And then everything in between.

And self-worth is acknowledging that you have felt every human emotion.

You,

As you are,

Have felt every human emotion.

And you are worthy while you felt every human emotion.

It's not that when you do good,

You feel good,

You're well,

You're worthy.

And then otherwise,

You're not.

One of my favorite thinkers,

Nobel Prize winning poet Joseph Brodsky,

Read his poetry about Venice if you haven't.

Joseph Brodsky wrote,

Believe your pain.

Just three words,

But there's so much meaning there.

Believe your pain.

Self-worth is when you believe your pain,

Emotional or physical.

You don't block it out.

You don't think something is wrong with you if you're experiencing it.

You don't ignore it.

This is how children think.

If a child is hurt,

The child,

The small child,

Thinks,

Oh,

Something is wrong with me.

Nothing can be wrong with the world or my caretaker.

There's something inherently wrong with me if I'm in pain.

But as an adult,

You believe your pain and you realize,

If I'm in pain,

Let me change something,

Something is off.

It's not like something is wrong with me inherently.

Let me see what I can do about this situation.

That's the place where self-worth takes you.

It's acknowledging your full value as you feel the full range of emotions,

Drawing proper conclusions based on what you feel,

But knowing that if you feel joy or fear or happiness or inner pain,

You still have value.

You just wanna create the situation that's best for your wellbeing,

Your flourishing,

Your fundamental wellness.

So I hope this makes a positive difference for you and I look forward to supporting you through this process.

I'm gonna send you some wishes.

Just close your eyes and say,

I accept,

As you hear them.

May you be a loving presence to yourself.

May you offer that loving presence to all others.

May you know that you are worthy of deep respect.

May you always have compassion for yourself.

May you be on your own side through the ups and downs.

And may you always see your full humanity and the full humanity of your loved ones.

Reviews

I could listen to this one hundred times and still learn. Thank you for sharing!

Thank you for your reminder about not just being a compassionate person; acknowledging the compassion within myself that requires reciprocation

I really needed this today. I love the difference you pointed out between children and adults. I have successfully blamed myself. Now it's time to learn to love myself.

I love the simple “believe your pain,” and the there isn’t something wrong with me because I’m in pain reminder. It’s weird how hearing someone else say intrusive thoughts makes you more aware that the thought isn’t kind than just thinking it to yourself.

Thank you for creating these courses and meditations 🙏🏻💝. Glad I found them. Lots to consider.