BETTER / Life
What do you put a price tag on? What value have you put on yourself?
Your value matters
by Doug collins
I
am writing this at a time of economic uncertainty. Our world has begun to question some things it once held as valuable. Sports and Entertainment are on hold; toilet paper is heavily in demand. It all seems a little strange. Yet these examples point to something very crucial to living a well-adjusted life. Understanding our actual, intrinsic value is key to our relationships, interactions with others, and ultimately our happiness.
Photo by Monster Ztudio/Shutterstock.com
A solid understanding of our value leads to peace and grace and the ability to weather many storms. Are others determining your value? Many people I talk with have a value that fluctuates. That is to say that they receive their value from outside themselves (external locus). This could be the opinions of others (“you’re beautiful,” “I don’t like you,” “you’ve got great taste…” for example), or it could be tied to achievements or failures (winning a game, losing a job, etc.). There is a big problem with this: it is way too subjective. Allowing others to determine my value will leave me constantly scrambling to please others
of themselves in the world around them. “Kara” used to be a victim of this very trap. She was told by school teachers that she was dumb because she displayed signs of ADHD and she was harder to work with than other students. She began to believe it so strongly that no one else could convince her that she was smart. This led to a general apathy in school that eventually developed into a full-on academic malaise. She got bad grades, and those grades reinforced the idea that she was dumb. (This is known as a self-actuating prophesy). Receive the lie, and it becomes truth. (or fight them) in order to feel good about myself. In the end, I will have trouble being me. Are you living as if a lie is the truth? Beyond the daily struggles of receiving and weighing so much input, there is a greater problem. Often people become a product of what others have told them. This is especially true of children and people who have been raised in abusive situations (this includes verbal and psychological abuse). There is an old saying that goes something like, “if you repeat a lie long enough, it becomes truth.” I won’t debate the general veracity of that idea here, but I will say that it applies strongly to the subject of self-worth. Here is the problem: If you are told, for example, that you are dumb long enough, you may begin to believe it. Once you have started to believe it, it is easy to find people and events to support that claim. We tend not to try to refute the negative, and the false narrative becomes an accepted reality. The person who has been told they are dumb begins to believe it. That belief then begins to change their interactions and expectations
I call this Inappropriate Shame (yes, there is an appropriate kind). Inappropriate shame is destructive. In what ways do you feel “less than?” Inappropriate shame and the hurt that accompanies it will create anxiety, distrust, and an inability to be at peace. Inappropriate shame is shame conferred on me by the actions or opinions of someone else as a result of anger, thoughtlessness, or their own experiences of hurt. IT WAS NEVER ABOUT ME. But it produces a place of pain in me that must be guarded. The damage from previous experiences is so great that I cannot let anyone into that protected place in my heart. There are other ways besides feeling dumb where people experience this over-active self-devaluation. The list is long, and I discover more examples all the time, but generally it includes any way that we perceive ourselves as inadequate. This includes perceptions of: ugliness, too short, too tall, too fat, too skinny, fear that our personal hygiene is inadequate, concern that any of a host of personal features is too prominent or embarrassingly different, fear that I talk too much, fear that I
www.beingbettermagazine.com / Vol 10 . No 2 . 2020
31
