Self Worth and Grief Management

How can I process my grief in a non-invasive and safe manner and continue to build the highway towards authentic self worth and self empowerment?

For starters, by recognising that it is an emotion and that an emotion itself is not permanent. My emotions are like everyone else’s and are temporary.

My experience of grief is no different than anyone else’s experience of grief.

The emotions I experience are a normal reaction to my circumstances that were triggering. It is not an a normal reaction of any kind and is not a strange reaction for me to feel grief.

My experience of grief is not abnormal or strange. It is normal and expected.

I am experiencing grief and while it is a difficult emotion to express, it is not impossible to express and needs to be embraced for being a normal reaction to difficult events in life. Grief is a normal reaction to events including personal loss, trauma and stress.

My experience of grief is not impossible to express, despite being difficult to express.

I feel grief in reaction to my lost opportunity to continue building my corporate career. I feel grief as a response to experiencing personal losses of relationships with people I imagined to be trustworthy colleagues. I feel grief in response to trauma around my personal losses in relation to my professional reputation at work and my personal reputation.

My grief is tied to my negative life experiences.

My grief is normal and needs to be expressed in a healthy, non-disruptive manner. I wish to be as non-disruptive as possible in expressing my grief.

In order to build the highway towards authentic self worth and self empowerment, I need to express my grief at the experiences I have had in my personal and professional life.

Feeling Insecure and Inadequate

How can I overcome feelings of inadequacy and low self worth to continue building the highway towards authentic self worth and self empowerment?

Low self worth is an ongoing problem in my life. I feel terribly unworthy at times, and inadequate for others. It makes me feel as if I am not capable of anything and can’t do anything in my life either.

My self worth has been tied to my ability to gain the approval of others.

Growing up, my worth was tied to gaining the approval of my caregivers. I was tied to the need to avoid any form of physical abuse in the form of corporal punishment and forced removals from the room. I also was attached to the approval that would protect mr from emotional abuse.

I first developed the need for approval as a child to avoid physical violence and emotional abuse at the hands of my caregivers.

This was a coping mechanism for me to adapt to the circumstances I was around. It also was a way of adapting to narcisstic abuse; not being sure of what reaction I would get made me seek approval as a result.

I survived this experience through approval, which became a part of my mind. It is now unhelpful and needs to be removed from my life for good.

I need to learn to heal this need for approval and live without it to continue to build the highway towards authentic self worth and self empowerment.

I’ve found that my loss of the need of this approval is directly related to confronting my toxic self beliefs formed from the incidents that led me to develop a need for approval.

I first developed the belief that I was responsible for every form of violence and abusivr treatment that was directed towards me.

I need to address that this belief is incorrect. That it was placed there wrongly and falsely without rhyme or reason. That all that should have been said instead was to change the behavior being presented. Which could have been corrected in a much less abusive way.

I was not responsible for the earliest form of abuse I received. I was three years old when I was told to leave the house after an argument. I sat outside, it was night time and I saw a small spider next to me. This didn’t make any sense to me.

I was also around the same age when after playing with my sibling, my caregiver ripped apart a new baby dress purchased for my sibling that very afternoon. Especially since I was three and my sibling was less than a year old.

I saw that I was shouted at for trying to put putty in my hair to match my sibling when I had the chance to try putting putty in my hair. I was shouted at and told to leave.

The incidents that I faced as a child were designed to break my self confidence and ability to trust myself. If I was to behave or express myself in a way that wasn’t according to my caregiver’s needs, I would be punished.

I wasn’t wrong, I was not what my caregiver wanted me to be. In effect, I was not being punished for being morally or otherwise wrong. I was being punished for being inconvenient to my caregiver. That behavior was made to look like I was wrong.

Behavior that my caregiver thought was inconvenient was punished and this, without any thought to whether it was morally or otherwise wrong.

A three year old cannot engage in a physical argument with an adult. It’s not physically possible for them to do so. Similarly, two toddlers fighting are not fighting on something morally incorrect, they are simply not adjusting to each other well. A toddler putting putty in their hair isn’t carrying out a morally incorrect action. They are simply being a toddler.

I felt rejected for being me, for being who I was without any layer of pretended or cover. I felt utterly ashamed of being rejected for being a harmless, normal toddler who needed love and care.

I was not wrong for having needs as a toddler. I was not wrong for having normal emotional and physical needs. I was not wrong for having normal needs to be cared for and loved as I was. I was not wrong for being exactly who I was. I was not wrong for being a human being with needs.

I was an am not wrong for being a human being with needs.

My needs are just as important as anyone else’s needs. I am just as valuable as anyone else. My life matters just as much as anyone else’s does. My needs deserve to be honoured. I deserve to be valued for who I am. I deserve to be treated well for who I am. No matter what. Nothing can change that.

I am worthy and my needs are valid. I am not unworthy for having needs. I can and deserve to express my needs to other people and expect that they will at least regard me as no less because of my needs. I am deeply worthy because I am alive.

My needs are the most critical expression of my humanity. This indicates that I have a physical, emotional, and intellectual self, all of which are alive and functioning. My needs are a sign that I am alive and about in the world. My needs are a sign of my ability to live, and are my way of being alive.

My needs are the biggest expression of my humanity and my aliveness. I couldn’t be alive if my needs weren’t being met. My needs are a sign of my success as a person. My expression as a person. My worth is indomitable by people who don’t recognise it. Those that disregard my worth and needs are wrong, and don’t deserve to be in my life.

Self Worth and Self-Labelling

How can I get rid of the urge to label myself and continue to build the highway towards authentic self worth and self empowerment?

I first learned how to label from my caregivers. The labels that I first interacted with came from conversations they had on the phone, or with other people. Words that were black and white in description came about, which made me feel as if the only way to describe someone was to label them.

From my earliest interactions, I began to perceive labelling as the only way to describe someone.

In school, labelling was used as a means of classification. Once again, black and white terms made it to the table. Often times, these were used to bully and ostracise others instead of fostering inclusion and building relationships.

I also began to understand how labelling was used to classify and ostracise others instead of support them.

Labelling was present in the media. On television, black and white terms were used to describe people or groups of people. Music videos classified people according to labels. Games would provide tools to ostracise these people.

The media I interacted with reinforced this methodology and use of it ostracise people.

Without having the ability to recognise the destructive nature of labelling, I felt as if it was an appropriate means of internal communication. Like the people around me, I too, used labels to describe myself, classify and even ostracise myself. This was in the absence of proper intervention, and healthy self talk education.

In the absence of healthy self talk education, I used labels to describe, classify and ostracise myself.

The violence of these labels usually came emotionally. Labels would make me feel ashamed, sad, even suicidal. I processed trauma using labels. I processed negative events and situations using labels. I processed toxic situations using labels. It seemed as if labels were the only tool in my Arsenal to process information.

Labelling myself became a coping mechanism for emotional distress.

I labelled myself in the absence of an awareness of self talk and its’ impact. No teacher, tutor, classmate, parent or neighbour around me talked about healthy self talk and what it did to a person. It was never a topic of discussion at gatherings or parties or events.

Healthy self talk education requires an awareness of labelling.

So how can I overcome this habit and continue to build the highway towards authentic self worth and self empowerment?

Labelling is a toxic habit, and a maladaptive coping mechanism.

It is not a healthy mechanism and labels cannot be used to describe human beings. Human beings are too complex and diverse to be labelled.

Labelling deprives a person of a sense of identity.

It is not a way of providing identity. It is a way of removing identity. By labelling yourself, you remove all identity from yourself and deny that a complex nature exists. To be complex and diverse is to be human. To label is to deny your basic humanity.

Labelling denies a person of their basic humanity.

It also serves to further promote violence in the form of emotional and physical violence. Labels that denote race, views, practices, and moral standpoints have always created conflicts. They have even promoted violence and justified it on large scales.

Labelling creates and promotes violence, creates conflict and serves to reinforce the two.

Labelling is a deeply unhealthy practice which needs to be curtailed and spoken out against more often. If I practice it for myself, I promote internal conflict and the opportunity to generate violence.

To maintain a sense of order and peace internally and externally, I have to abandon labeelling.

Self Worth and Respect

How can I reform my need for respect and continue to build the highway towards authentic self worth and self empowerment?

The selective use of respect that has nothing to do with the ability of that person to be respected is a form of judgment. More specifically it is a self serving judgment, because it only serves to serve the person passing the judgment.

I have been exercising this since I was a child, being exposed to my caregiver’s narcissistic tendencies to enforce absolute respect instead of being a model of self respect and universal respect. The way respect was taught to me was not as an exchange between two persons based on their worth as humans, but as something that needs to be applied as a power dynamic.

Respect was never exercised as something to give to all persons, but was a powerful tool that was only offered to people with the power to punish non obedience. And this was evaluated from a social, mental and financial perspective as well as a physical and political one.

Respect to me never resonated as a quality because I only ever saw it and was exposed to it as a powerful tool. This led to the lack of self respect to support and forge my identity, creating a demand for absolute respect as a form of obedience to make up for a lack of self respect.

I expected absolute respect as a rule because I didn’t respect myself and my sense of self needed respect as an emotional need. Respect was something to observe and apply as needed and punish if not offered. This made the understanding difficult to reform and redefine for myself. It also created anger management issues that are deep rooted in unmet emotional needs.

I am not terrible for not understanding respect, but it is high time that I stop enforcing it and start offering it to myself. It is also high time I stop observing and classifying people based on this and preventing my understanding of respect from improving.

Respect is a need and a virtue. It is not a law to enforce, and should not be used to feel powerful. I felt that this use of respect as a law was a source of gratification and power for the people expecting it in absolute quantities from me, and with zero regard for my own needs in the process.

Respect is not something I therefore try to see as a virtue having experienced emotional and personal disrespect and being unable to replicate or make up for it at the time, attempting to punish others for what I endured.

I endured and dealt with it through repression and not self forgiveness and treatment, thereby denying myself access to emotional relief and healing from the experience at the time, making the experience tighter for me to unwind. There are many challenges to overcome in my healing of self disrespect but this was the first one.

I’ve been running towards respect using the train taking me towards disrespect. Disrespect creates emotional emptiness and wounds. Those experiencing emotional wounds and disrespect are then unable to find it easy to reform this for themselves.

Self Worth and My Diagnosis

How can I build the highway towards authentic self worth and self empowerment with my diagnosis of bipolar disorder?

In May 2020, I was diagnosed with type II bipolar disorder, after many years of incorrect diagnoses and misconceptions regarding my mental health. Today, I am proudly taking medication and working to stabilise myself in the daily schedule of things.

Bipolar disorder is a Long term illness. How can I builld the highway towards authentic self worth and self empowerment with it?

It is now known that bipolar disorder is perfectly treatable. The 45 million people on earth with the illness can be treated, individually for the condition. Unlike other conditions, there is always a way to prevent severe degeneration and mortality in bipolar disorder.

I need to start by accepting that I am capable of being treated, and will be prevented from harming myself in any way.

I need to also recognise that I am not responsible for my diagnosis. It is a mental illness, not a criminal act or moral crime. I am not undertaking actions that are actively inviting or expecting a diagnosis to occur. I am absolutely not looking for a potential diagnosis.

Bipolar disorder is my responsibility, not my consequence. I am not a criminal. I am a personal citizen with a mental illness.

Furthermore; I am not a person that is looking for bipolar disorder to be the focus of my life. I am actively looking to develop my personality and build my skills in different areas of life. Instead of being a logically disconnected person, I wish to be a well rounded person.

I’m a person that is not looking to make mental illness my only focus in life.

I am not bipolar disorder the illness. I am myself the person: a person who happens to be a patient of type II bipolar disorder: it is not a label defining my personhood. It is not a definition of my self on any level of existence. I’m a person. Not an illness or the mind.

I am myself, not bipolar disorder.

I did not invent the illness. I didn’t create the genes that cause bipolar. I did not create the trauma that activates these genes. I did not create the neurochemical deficiencies. I did not create the prefrontal cortex sizes. I did not create the amygdala irregularities. I did not create the frontal lobe sizes. I did not do anything to cause bipolar disorder.

I did not do anything to create the illness, the genes, the chemical imbalance, brain sizes or the trauma.

I am not the illness. I am me. I am not the creator of my illness. I am a patient like 45 million others. I am not the definition of bipolar disorder, neither is bipolar disorder a definition of my personhood. Emerging the final conclusion: I am not bipolar disorder itself.

I am not the illness. I am me.

I am not building a road from bipolar to a road towards false expectations. I am building the highway towards authentic self worth and self empowerment. It is not a definition of me.

Self Worth and Painful Assignments

How can I finish this assignment and continue to build the highway towards authentic self worth and self empowerment?

I am personally struggling to complete a difficult professional assignment. While I have been pushing myself constantly to do more and take on more over the past few weeks; this assignment has really tested my patience to the absolute maximum. I feel brutally burned by its’ nature and the requirements and expectations of it for my forthcoming tasks.

I’m feeling brutally challenged by this assignment and its’ requirements.

I’m also feeling deeply like I cannot be a perfectionist about this assignment and the thought is depressing me to the point of social isolation and suicidal thoughts. I felt like not being able to do a great job on this assignment meant that I should end my life altogether and move on.

I am extremely perfectionistic to the point of near suicidal behavior to achieve perfectionism.

I’m not comfortable doing average work for this assignment. I dream of it being absolutely perfect and deeply capable of bringing me the kind of support that I need for my goals. I am extremely focused on perfectionism and can not tolerate anything less, not even for a minute.

I am extremely perfectionistic and intolerant of anything that is imperfect.

I’m not a very tolerant person when it comes to imperfection. This makes me depressed when I am not absolutely perfect at what I do. It makes me feel like I am being laughed at by others and harassed for my work ethic and berated for not being good enough. It makes me feel isolated and alone and never comfortable.

I’m responding to my trauma subconsciously with extreme perfectionism.

I need to abandon the mentality that extreme perfectionism is a cure to my trauma. Trauma therapy is a cure to my trauma. Nothing else. It is unfair to shoulder the entire burden of trauma and expect it to be fully channeled through extreme perfectionism, instead of there being any chances for the trauma therapy to heal my traumas.

I also need to recognise that extreme perfectionism will not heal me. It is just a cover for my severe depression. It does not give me a sense of comfort: it deprives me of it instead and makes me feel less than others and unworthy in my own skin as a person.

I’m not unworthy for having experienced trauma at the workplace and harassment and exploitation. It is important for me to heal using trauma therapy instead of trying to hide behind perfectionism and other toxic coping mechanisms to isolate myself from my traumas and pretend that they had never happened in the first place.

I am building the highway towards authentic self worth and self empowerment. My traumas are not signs of my unworthiness. I am a person who is worthy and deserves to heal and not remain in pain because of personal trauma.

Self Worth and Chronic Loneliness

How can I overcome the feelings of chronic loneliness and continue to build the highway towards authentic self worth and self empowerment?

The feeling of loneliness is one of being alone feeling and thinking. Though I am around family, friends, classmates, acquaintances and associates, I feel loneliness. The emotion is one of the emotions I have felt since I began to experience emotions.

Loneliness has been one of the emotions I have experienced since I began to experience emotions.

Lonely is not a state. It is not a label, a lifestyle or a way of being. It is simply an emotion. For me, I have felt this emotion when faced with the inability to express my authentic thoughts and feelings for whatever reason in front of relatives, peers, and associates. The feeling has been tough for me to embrace.

The trick to loneliness is to express oneself constantly and honestly.

Loneliness can be alleviated. You need to be a keen person who expresses their emotions properly. Someone who is open to being an emotionally and intellectually expressive personality, instead of a repressed personality. This helps people around you build deeper connections with you, and you, with them.

Loneliness has a potential cure in authentic social emotional and intellectual expression.

The critical element of loneliness is the feeling of not having the room or permission to express oneself freely. Without this freedom being given to oneself, the ability to express oneself authentically becomes difficult and the loneliness begins to express itself instead. I am lonely not because of a lack of people around me, but because I don’t share my thoughts and feelings with them.

Lonely persons don’t exist. Only the absence of authentic self expression and intellectual and emotional expression exist.

The loneliness you and I express is an absence of emotional and intellectual expression. We choose to silence ourselves for reasons innumerable. This has got to change. Instead of being silenced, we need to express ourselves, and constantly. This enables us to feel less lonely in a world where connections are now easier and easier to build.

Loneliness is hard to define because people experiencing it don’t usually understand what aspect of it they are truly dealing with. Is it the emotional silence or the intellectual silence that is more frequent? Are they spending more or less time being open about how they feel? What are the topics being discussed and where are they being discussed? These diatribes make the entire procedure a bit difficult to manage.

The depression and anxiety that results from loneliness is an accumulation of the emotions that loneliness creates. Disappointment, disablement, jealousy, envy, curiosity, and a constant need to feel validated on the inside and outside.

The deeper meaning of depression in loneliness is also of being unable to see that loneliness is isolation inside the mind, not outside it. The loneliness falls onto the silence of the tongue, not the social engagement. You often silence your hidden thoughts, not your tongue.

I am committed to the alleviation of loneliness through authentic self expression. In words, conversations, small pointers and every aspect of my life. Intellectually and emotionally. I commit to alleviate the feeling of loneliness in order to build the highway towards authentic self worth and self empowerment.

Self Worth and Rejuvenating After Burnout

How can I rejuvenate after burnout and continue to build the highway towards authentic self worth and self empowerment?

Burn out has been hard for me. I’ve had to let go of my hobbies for coping mechanisms, let go of my coping mechanisms for less productive mechanisms. All in the while, nursing the empty jar inside my mind, the one which desperately needs refilling.

How can I rejuvenate after burnout?

Spending time talking to friends is one option. It will help me open up about why I feel burnt out in the first place. Burnout is real, and it needs more discussion with other people. There needs to be more awareness about burnout prevention and rejuvenation following burnout for persons of all ages, occupations and genders.

Why haven’t I been able to rejuvenate so far?

I’ve been unable to identify what has been the main reason why I feel so burnt out from work in the first place, because I have had so many roles that it has been hard to identify a single one. Besides this, I have found zero options for me in terms of bouncing back within my existing scope of tasks. It has been hard for me to even look through basic emails at this point of time.

Why has it been so hard for me to identify the fact that I was feeling burnt out in the first place?

I was busy working, without any indication of stopping. I didn’t have any breaks scheduled for me inside my responsibilities. I also didn’t have any team members to share my duties with. This made it hard for me to be able to take a backseat and truly disconnect from time to time. I felt as if I had to take on the work of multiple persons at a time.

Why is it that I didn’t feel like I could ask for some help?

I didn’t feel as if I could trust someone with the formation of the business in this stage. I also didn’t feel as if I had the confidence to truly be able to manage someone who would report to me for responsibilities and duties. It made me feel nervous and incompetent, and I felt a great amount of imposter syndrome when considering leading someone else.

How can I work to properly recover from burnout in ways that will prevent it from happening in the future?

Joining a burnout support group is one step. This will give me regular support. Besides this, being able to regularly relax is a critical and essential aspect. I need a proper relaxation technique which I can practice for a few minutes daily. I will benefit from being able to seek time out for myself to relax and allow myself to feel less stressed. Also, I can benefit from being able to regularly exercise and practice a fun hobby of mine.

What is next for me in terms of being able to take proper breaks?

I work on weekdays for my business. This is a rule I will enforce strictly. I also work from 9:00 AM to 5:00 PM, in theory. I can rearrange this as per the guidelines that I have worked on with my therapist. I can also spend one of my weekdays doing a particular aspect of the business that I enjoy, as an area of focus for me. While doing this, I can rearrange my commitments for a team member to be able to tackle some responsibilities. This will help me be able to relax and focus on my wellbeing while finishing my work on time as well.

Why did it become so easy to burnout for me?

It became easy because I wasn’t sure how to manage my time in the first few weeks. I had to manage different aspects of my life at the same time, while being unsure of how the business would grow. This uncertainty and fear of failure made me work almost constantly and commit myself without boundaries for my personal space and time. I feared failure and a lack of revenue for my business in the event of a lack of commitment, so I overcommitted to every aspect of the business, to be – in my understanding – fool proof.

Over commitment is unhealthy as it breeds micromanagement, mistrust, and obsessions with targets and results instead of strategy and transformation.

Over commitment is one of the worst mistakes to make in a business. It doesn’t reflect a commitment towards the business. It reflects a commitment towards oneself, or rather, one’s insecurities and fears only. In this mentality, one’s insecurities and fears rank much higher than the actual business targets themselves. Otherwise, these tasks could well and easily be handed to another person for carrying out. Over commitment also encourages distrust, micromanagement and worst of all, incompetence at lower levels of management. It creates groupthink and reduces the potential for ideation, design thinking and transformation in teams. It reflects a cult of personality of a business owner who acts as an owner and not a leader.

How can I motivate myself to become less overcommitted with each aspect of the business?

I think that taking leadership training of different kinds will be useful for me and my professional development. It will allow me the opportunity to grow from this insecurity and fear based management to efficient leadership and team management of other persons. Being obsessed with my teammates and their work will only be inefficient and fruitless for me in the long run. It’s time for me to become a leader and not just a business owner.

How can I overcome the blocks I have internally to becoming a better leader?

My blocks towards becoming a better leader are: fear of being mocked and ridiculed by staff, fear of being removed from my post (false fear), fear of being seen as incompetent and unworthy of the position (imposter syndrome), and fear of being unable to succeed as a leader (fear of failure). I’m also terrified that I won’t succeed in being able to motivate my staff and rectify their problems towards work, or me.

A fear of failure, imposter syndrome, and a fear of being shamed and mocked are what prevent me from becoming a better leader.

I’m finally unafraid to admit my fears surrounding the business leadership. I don’t want to obsess over this aspect and want to grow as a leader in different ways. But my insecurities run extremely deep, as they are some of my deepest fears at large, not just my fears regarding work. Will I be able to lead if I have these fears in real life too?

In order for me to succeed as a business leader, I need to overcome these fears in the most deep rooted setting, for more self worth and authentic self empowerment.

I feel deeply unworthy of becoming a business leader to my staff. It makes me feel useless and imposter syndrome creeps in on me. I feel as if I cannot do this at all, and that feeling is then suppressed and masked with overwork. One of the biggest roadblocks for me is healing these feelings on a deep level and working through them to become a better leader for my organisation.

How can I truly commit to removing these aspects from my life at large?

By working on them with my therapist, through CBT, mindful journaling, support groups, DBT, and leadership training. This will allow me to seek the best quality training I need to evolve as a person.

I commit to building the highway towards authentic self worth and self empowerment by committing to remove my deepest fears and insecurities about my inability to be a leader from my life, while working to build dynamic leadership skills.

Self Worth and Dismissiveness of Personal Qualities

How can I overcome the dismissiveness of my own personal qualities and continue to build the highway towards authentic self worth and self empowerment?

I have been dismissive of my personal qualities for as long as I have been aware of them. From a dismissive approach towards my strengths to a disregard of any other good personal qualities, I have largely been rejecting of my personal strengths and unique qualities as a person.

What and why makes me reject and dismiss my own personal qualities?

Shame is one of the reasons why. I feel embarrassed listing any good personal qualities about myself to other people. This feeling of sharing my own good qualities to others fills me with a sense of lack, perhaps that I am unable to prove any of the good qualities I have as a person. Beyond this, there is the feeling that perhaps, I am making these qualities up and pretending to have them when I actually lack them in reality.

A sense of imposter syndrome and a need to prove myself constantly to others makes me believe that I either don’t have these qualities or am making them up.

Why do I feel the need to prove myself to others all the time? Why isn’t my present self enough for other people? Growing up, I was faced with a number of comparisons to other people from my caregivers. My relatives, neighbours, classmates, and occasionally persons of famous reputation, were usually points of comparison for me. I was repeatedly told that I would only be loved and respected if I had been able to prove that I could live up to the qualities that were stated or embodied by these people.

Being compared to persons and told that the only way for me to feel loved and respected would be by proving myself and living up to certain qualities embodied or stated by others created this constant comparison in my head with others.

For my child self, it became a matter of concern. Was I unable to be loved because of my grades? What about other children? Are they loved by their parents simply because they are intelligent or sharp, good at school or at household chores, sometimes both? What is this comparison barometer? Why am I always the last one on the barometer?

Subconsciously, I felt confused and unsure of whether I was loved. I wondered whether love itself was something other children only had because they were able to prove certain qualities to their parents first and foremost.

From here, this belief began to build. I began to obsess and compare myself to classmates. Persons who were somehow able to embody these qualities or were recipients of good grades, were intelligent or somehow had a good relationship in their homes with their families, not bound to these expectations filled me with a strong sense of envy. I began to feel inferior and unworthy as compared to other people and this feeling devolved into a sense of unworthiness for me as a person, my good qualities, my strengths and my fundamental self worth.

The comparisons made me envious of classmates, neighbours and persons I had just met, if they were somehow recipients of loving relationships, were intelligent or somehow better than me in some respect. Eventually, these comparisons devolved into a sense of unworthiness.

I began to grow depressed knowing that not only were people around me not facing the same pressure, that I was somehow not being loved and respected at the same time even though I was working for the same quality they received automatically. It became a sense of failure in my head which began to root itself in my approach to relationships with others. I began to fundamentally believe that I needed to prove myself in some shape or form to others around me, in order to feel loved, respected and worthy. While persons around me who automatically received this quality had self worth, or what I thought was self worth at the time.

I grew depressed because of these comparisons, and envied persons who didn’t feel this insecurity in their lives, and who perhaps embodied what I perceived to be authentic self worth.

From this time onwards, the feeling – now already having contributed to my feelings of depression – became a source of personal misery which began to follow me around into new environments and situations. Instead of finding myself excited and inspired to meet new people, I grew angry and resentful of people I met and attempted to avoid people as much as possible. I found myself becoming addicted to a sense of inner and outer loneliness, rejecting the thought that I could build healthy relationships with others, believing that I had something wrong with me as a person, and could never escape this feeling of unworthiness I collected from the false narratives I was told as a child.

How can I heal this belief and remove this myth to continue building the highway towards authentic self worth and self empowerment?

The first truth is that this is an untruth. Self worth is never dependent on any external accomplishments, and a large number of people believing this to be false doesn’t make it so. It is also true that people who share these beliefs with others don’t understand how to inspire and motivate them as individuals to seek authentic joy for learning and intellectual experiences beyond the school. Scare tactics and false perceptions are shared with the recipient to make them fear the negative outcome instead of appreciating the joy of experiencing positive outcomes and working towards them instead. Thirdly, persons who share this belief with others perhaps have been told this mistrust themselves, by someone and have somehow believed this to be a tactic which is applicable to others, regardless of the consequences. Fourthly, persons who hold this mentality often don’t have an understanding of good intellectual development in the emotional sphere. They believe that scare tactics and aggressive communication are fundamental to intellectual learning, instead of believing and understanding that intellectual development is a natural process which occurs with an inspiration, positive discipline training, and educational support.

Beliefs of aggressive scare tactics and aggressive communication being appropriate teaching and caregiving methods are rooted in toxic experiences, a lack of understanding of inspiration and positive intellectual growth, and ultimately, a false belief in the lack of authentic self worth for each person regardless of achievements.

In results from this tactic, the major consequences are depression, anxiety and a lack of self esteem in the recipient. Not academic success or intellectual growth. I did not become academically inclined because of scare tactics or aggressive communication. I became interested in certain subjects at school individually, with additional interests undertaken through my own personal time reading and encountering subjects. My intellectual growth would have continued regardless of aggressive parenting and scare tactics, not because of it, as I was a student in a school where teaching already occurred and it was the natural progress from one class to another which marked my intellectual growth.

As I write this, I recognise that my intellectual growth was never going to be driven by scare tactics and aggressive communication, but by natural progress and personal interaction with subjects and topics of interest.

If anything, I became less inclined to pursue intellectual growth and academic success because of these scare tactics. One of the reasons was that people around me were not recipients of this behavior, and remained academically successful on a comparable if not better level. Another was that the scare tactics induced a sense of fear of the subject itself, creating anxiety where interest should have been cultivated. Third was that people around me who didn’t have these consequences found themselves happier and more sociable, capable of interacting with others, making friends and ultimately, becoming emotionally fulfilled from the school experience which left me exhausted and anxious on a daily basis.

Where I should have been interested in a subject, I became afraid and rejecting, noticing the classmates who succeeded academically without these tactics, and classmates who were happier just by making friends and enjoying an experience which left me tired and anxious at the end of a school day.

In these two environment comparisons, I found myself at the lowest rung of both. Neither was I enjoying the school experience fully, and I wasn’t succeeding academically either. Ultimately, I was left with a sense of unfulfilled desires, hopes and dreams, upon my graduation from school. I felt as if my hard work and the emotional resilience I had built over the years were both resulting in limited successes for me in my personal and intellectual settings.

Finding myself unfulfilled emotionally and not extremely successful academically, I was ultimately left dissatisfied by my educational experiences, feeling as if my hard work and emotional resilience resulted in limited successes for me in personal and intellectual settings.

I found myself tired of the consequences of negative academic success and rejecting of the social unfulfillment which resulted from a lack of time and energy for relationship building in school. I was ultimately left to my own self and a self worth which needed healing after the completion of my school experience, of 13 years in total.

I was left with a self worth that needed healing after the completion of my school experience. How can I continue to heal my self worth and build the highway towards authentic self worth and self empowerment?

The first thing is to distance my negative experiences from my authentic self worth. I had negative experiences in my academic settings, which is extremely normal and expected for all students. But these negative experiences do not and will not define my self worth, and never have.

My self worth is absolute and cannot be negotiated for a series of negative experiences in a setting where such experiences are normal and expected. The next thing to work on is to remember that self worth is never, ever dependent on one’s external accomplishments, on the approval or consideration of others, or the number of social connections one has. Authentic self worth comes from internal fulfilment, an acknowledgement and celebration of one’s strengths and unique qualities, and a belief in one’s authentic, non-negotiable worth as a person.

My self worth is not defined by academic experiences, the approval of others or the number of social connections I may have had or have.

I need to also remember that the perception of self worth being dependent on love and respect from others is also false. Self worth is dependent on love and respect from oneself towards oneself, not towards other persons. My own respect and love for myself is what is most important for my self worth. Never the love and approval of others.

I am defined by the authentic self worth I have, not the worth I believe others need to give me. I am most in need and most deserving of my own love and respect.

In remembering this, I also need to remember that my respect for me defines my ability to put my worth into action. My respect and love for me defines my ability to rejuvenate and build self worth on days where I may feel unworthy. Ultimately, my self worth is the most important aspect of me that I need to grow, and needs the most respect and love from me.

How can I build these feelings of love and respect which help me build the highway towards authentic self worth and self empowerment?

Firstly, distancing myself from all sources of inauthentic self worth. Social relationships built for the sake of personal connections and nothing more. Activities pursued for recognition and respect from others, and their approval and nothing more. Ways I have committed my time, energy and space just to please others instead of focusing on my own needs and values as a person.

I commit to making these changes in my lifestyle for me to build the highway towards authentic self worth and self empowerment.

Self Worth and Toxic Self Rejection

How can I overcome a toxic habit of rejecting myself and continue to build the highway towards authentic self worth and self empowerment?

I have experienced rejection from myself in the past. In the past, I rejected myself for being a person who was largely introverted, shy, and imaginative. I refused to acknowledge these qualities as unique, positive strengths which when applied, allowed me to explore my personality. Instead, I used them to shun myself and shut down my own sense of self worth.

Growing up, I was surrounded by people in large groups. In school, at home, and in social communities. This made me feel as if my quiet, introverted nature was somehow wrong and incorrect. I believed that the only way to be normal was to be extroverted and outgoing. For years, I refused to acknowledge my deeper nature, and kept disrespecting myself under the guise of “self betterment” for the sake of being accepted by others.

I realise today that this self rejection led to depression, anxiety, low self worth and ultimately, to suicidal thoughts and urges. As a person, I am unique and worthy because I exist. My qualities are unique and not good or bad. I am a person, first and foremost. I am worthy simply because of my existence and nothing more, nothing less. Today, I choose to shed this self rejection.

I choose to acknowledge that my introverted, quiet nature was and always remains worthy. That I am not pathetic or simple because I am introverted. That my introverted nature allows me to think deeply, feel and be enchanted with the world in ways that extroversion doesn’t. That my imaginative nature allows me to conjure up scenarios that a pragmatic mind would never be able to come forth with.

I am worthy because I exist. Because my introverted and shy nature are worthy. Because my imaginative nature is worthy. Because I am not unworthy for having been myself. Because I am not unworthy for being myself. I recognise, celebrate and appreciate my qualities as a shy, introverted and imaginative personality.

I commit myself to ending toxic self rejection, and continuing to build the highway towards authentic self worth and self empowerment.