Here’s What Unshakeable Self-Worth Sounds Like

Embody unshakable self-worth — moving beyond appearances, external validation, or the expectations of others. This short talk explores how to embrace your inherent value, practice self-compassion, and live with confidence, respect, and authenticity. A reminder that you are worthy, simply because you exist.

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 want to 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 want to 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 want to create the situation that's best for your well-being,

Your flourishing,

Your fundamental wellness.

And it's also acknowledging that my heart is where it needs to be in this moment.

And even as I grow,

Even as I change,

Even as I set intentions,

And I really believe in growth at any age,

I've seen tremendous growth in people in their 20s and their 30s and their 40s and their 50s and their 60s and their 70s and their 80s and their 90s.

I've seen people change tremendously and become happier.

I can still have that unshakable sense of self-worth at my core,

Even as I grow and change.

So self-worth is not,

Oh,

I'm perfect and I don't need to change at all because now I have self-worth.

I finally have my self-worth.

So now I believe I'm perfect.

It's not that.

We never are.

There's always space for growth.

It's I give myself unconditional support as I am.

I accept myself as I am and then I can change.

Not,

Oh,

I hate everything about me.

And then maybe if one day I stop hating everything about me and get into medical school and become a doctor and become a surgeon,

Then I'll have a high sense of self-worth.

No.

It's I'm unconditionally on my own side now and there's nothing in me that I need to criticize.

I can improve from a place of self-compassion.

There's nothing in me that I need to blame.

I'm kind to myself in this moment and I set the intention to be kind to myself always.

And that gives me the confidence to continue and to stare adversity in the face and to continue with a challenging life and to look at my past with warmth because everything that has happened to me is a necessary and important part of the journey of my soul.

And I'm grateful it happened.

And I know that as long as I have compassion,

I have nothing to be afraid of.

I will listen to myself and I will follow what I love in this life.

I will listen to myself and I will observe what makes me comfortable and what makes me uncomfortable,

What I like and what I don't like,

What resonates and what totally doesn't resonate,

What is mine in this life and what is not mine.

Now as an adult,

I get to decide what is part of my life.

Now as an adult,

I get to decide who is part of my life,

The people who treat me with respect.

And now as an adult,

I have full autonomy to pick my path.

I can do more of the things that make my heart sing and less of the things that come from ego or that other people are telling me I should do because they have some version of me in their minds that is filtered by their ego.

As an adult now,

As a person with self-worth,

I give this heart,

This heart that's beating under my hand,

I give this heart permission to feel fully and to fully honor my worth.

So this is what self-worth sounds like.

This is what self-worth feels like.

I hope you meet life with a high sense of your own value and a high sense of self-worth because your value and your self-worth are endless.

One of my favorite phrases from the Talmud,

Which is a sacred rabbinic text,

Is that the day you were born is the day God or the universe decided that the world cannot exist without you as you are.

Reviews

This talk was hitting home for me in so many ways. You need to hear 2 to 3 times, I would suggest to save it too.

“My feelings are valid.” Wow!
Somehow I never got that memo.

Even the newborn baby has worth even without doing anything. Really beautiful! 😢

Thanks for putting into words such important thoughts.
I will listen again!
🙏🏻 ❤️ ☮️