Millions of women are affected world-wide by a lack of self-worth – it is our modern-day plague. This lack of self-worth is one of the underlying reasons why many women make so many choices every day which are not only dishonouring of themselves, but can be deeply abusive; further cementing the false beliefs and negative self-talk that we are not worthy of love for ourselves or of being loved by others too. So, we could say that this is a critical topic to bring our attention and discussion to.
When we are born we simply don’t hold any of the ideals or belief systems about life that we are eventually introduced to, instead we know love through a feeling or a sense of warmth, and self-worth is nothing to attain – it just is because we are worthy of love and being taken care of. Understanding that self-worth is something natural to us means that later in life when we find ourselves compromising our true value, we can begin the process of rebuilding our worth from this understanding that we are already fully knowing of it.
Every choice we make towards a truthful reconnection lays another stone in the foundation of our self-worth and our self-love, which then supports us to make more loving choices.
As we come to further understand this, we appreciate that rebuilding our self-worth comes from simple tools and techniques being consistently applied in our daily lives, such as:
- Beginning to nurture who we are as women and living this practically. For example, as we apply our make-up, choose our meals or prepare our clothes for the day ahead, we can do so in honour, support or celebration of how we are feeling and how we would like to express this at the time.
- Setting up our spaces throughout our homes and at work to support ourselves and our daily needs, helping to eliminate the pressures of time, and allowing more space to enjoy ourselves in all that we do.
- Appreciating our qualities, not just the physical things we are good at or those we believe make us successful in life, BUT the natural quality that we emanate when we allow ourselves to just be natural, without any pressures or expectations of life – feeling the very essence of who we are, before we do a thing.
When we start to add a few supportive tools such as these into our daily rhythms and rituals, we begin to see that before this we were living far less caring of ourselves than we absolutely deserve, and the root of this settling for less comes from having a lack of self-worth to begin with.
These techniques also expose the fact that we not only dishonour ourselves greatly as women, we are actually ALL completely capable of a way of living that knows exactly what is honouring of us in any moment. This comes from a very deep connection within us that always knows, from moment-to-moment, what is right and true for us and what is not, when we listen with honesty and do not compromise who we are for anything or anyone else ahead of being true to ourselves first.
To allow self-worth to develop and deepen within the relationship we all carry with ourselves takes commitment, dedication and a simple willingness to learn. It comes from a very deep sense of knowing that we are indeed all worth loving and cherishing, just as we were as newborns, and that this way of living is innate to us.
So what happens when we dishonour who we are?
What I have noticed is that when we make a choice – no matter how small, to dishonour ourselves in any daily moment, we are choosing to not accept ourselves and the love that we are first, and thus the love that we deserve unreservedly. This only serves to hurt us, leading to self-loathing with behaviours and negative thoughts that lead only in a downward spiral direction!
In every single moment of the day we have another opportunity to honour what we feel and yet, if we choose to dishonour ourselves we are then living less than the natural strength and quality we are otherwise naturally attuned to, and far less than our true worthiness.
One small choice to hold back from our truth leads to further choices and movements that compound our dishonouring easily.
Before we know it a choice to hold back from communicating what we need to our boss for example, leads to a choice to overeat or perhaps settle for less than a comfortable chair that supports our posture. We may find ourselves staying up just that little bit too long or sleeping with less covers to keep us warm and snug at night, or we can hold ourselves less than another, or an entire group, and follow this by dishonouring ourselves further by turning away from the nurturing bath we felt to have.
In fact, when we dishonour the absolute loveliness and inner wisdom that we hold, we clearly begin to start accepting less in our relationships with others too – staying longer or entering into a partnership that we don’t feel is true, or creating friendships and family relationships based on an emotional arrangement of being less than who we are, dishonouring ourselves and each other and denying honesty and respect as our founding basis.
Honouring who we are and upholding our self-worth is everything to a woman.
Without honour as a basic founding relationship with ourselves, we are dishonouring all that we are here to bring and reflect in life to all others. Instead, we are left at the mercy of the unattainable ideals and beliefs of what a woman should be, act and look like in today’s world, leaving us all in the grip of the same lack of self-worth plague.
When speaking our truth with others or just to ourselves is done from a place of deep respect and worthiness of the women we are, it will be guaranteed to come from a place of love that houses the knowing that all others are equal and with a sense of responsibility to be the love that we are. We are not only worth every drop of love immeasurably, we are here to live this love outwardly too, bringing the fullness of who we are to others and every moment that we can.
Self-worth is guaranteed when we begin to live with honesty and honour in our relationship with ourselves as women.
By Cherise Holt, 33, Loving Woman, Caring Nurse and Nurturing Mother, Brisbane, Australia
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