Why Loving & Accepting Myself Is the ULTIMATE Valentines Day Gift Stop Allowing Others to Influence Your Self-Worth
Why Loving & Accepting Myself Is the ULTIMATE Valentines Day Gift
Stop Allowing Others to Influence Your Self-Worth
My first memories of Valentines Day are filled with anticipation, excitement (maybe this would be the year that my unrequited crush would actually declare his undying love for me) and then the, what felt like, inevitable disappointment, feelings of unworthiness and embarrassment. Why was I so awkward, why did no-one love me, was I going to be the star of a real-life “never been kissed” film. Thankfully being a teenager in the late 90’s meant I didn’t have a mobile phone, access to the internet and a reasonable degree of privacy once I’d left the school gates and made my way home to mourn yet another year of being classed as unlovable (at least that’s what I told myself, thankfully no one else said that to me).
I, like many people, was my own harshest critic, I felt awkward, uncomfortable, I stood out, I was embarrassed about my foreign name (that everyone pronounced wrongly), my clothes, my weird sense of humour, the fact I started my periods at 10 so I’d developed before the other girls.. I wanted to hide from attention, don’t see me, don’t pick on me, gotta blend in. I desperately wanted to be accepted, to fit in, to be one of the cool girls, for my crush to actually like me back. I believed that only my peers could define me as being worthy. If only I knew then what I know now..
Merriam Webster defines Self-worth as:
“a sense of one's own value as a human being”
The Cambridge Dictionary defines Self-worth as:
“the value you give to your life and achievements”
Why, when the dictionary definition is about our own value and how we perceive it, do we actually base our self-worth on how others perceive us? When we give this power away to others (external validation), we are reliant on them to tell us that we are a good person, that we are doing a good job, that we have value. We may then find ourselves bending over backwards to keep these people happy in order to continually demonstrate our value. This could take the form of requiring frequent reassurance, feedback and neglecting our own needs/ desires/ goals for the sake of doing things for others (commonly known as people pleasing). It can be really difficult to stop requiring external validation, it can feel really hard to say no and start setting reasonable expectations of what you will and won’t do from others, when you are reliant on them for your feelings of self-worth.
Some good questions to ask yourself next time someone asks you to do something you really don’t want to do but you grudgingly go along with it…
What is stopping me from saying that I don’t want to do this?
What might happen if I say no (consider all options, positive and negative)?
Will this really change their opinion of me as a person?
If so, do I value their opinion if it is so easily changed?
There is a reason that we seek external validation, often because we did not grow up feeling safe, that our love from our parents was conditional – on us being good, helpful, quiet, getting good grades, and that leads us to need constant reassurance that we are doing the right thing, or seeking a saviour because we do not feel we have control of our lives, things happen to us, we cannot effect change.
When we know that we are loved unconditionally by our caregivers, when we are encouraged to try new things, that anything is possible if we work at it, we value our own self and achievements more, and therefore internally validate ourselves rather than needing that external validation.
Fast forward a decade from the late 90’s teenage me to mid-twenties me, I defined myself by my work as an intensive care nurse. I absolutely loved my job, but still felt like a failure on the relationship front, wondering if I was destined to be a spinster (I was only 25 but I felt super old!). It felt like I’d meet someone online, get excited and then the date would either turn out comically (the time a bird-pooed on me mid-date as we were eating ice-creams on the banks of the Thames) or just depressing as they weren’t how they had portrayed themselves online.
One day, everything changed, and a boy from my teenage years popped into my Facebook messages saying hello. It was a slow start, a long-distance relationship and a couple of on again off again moments, but finally I felt settled in a long relationship, that felt quite adult. There were some red flags, but I dismissed them, happy to be secure in the relationship status and that I wasn’t left on the shelf as I’d feared… years passed, I moved up north to live with him, I became isolated, it’s really hard making friends when you move areas as an adult. Years and years with no ring, no talk of marriage/ babies like I’d been promised when I chose to move up north. If you just lose weight, do this, do that, /we can get married, maybe I don’t want to be married he said… we bought a house, renovated it and one day he proposed… I was flooded with relief that someone picked me. That I was marriage material FINALLY! I didn’t take a pause to ask, “was he marriage material” or “did I want to be married to him?”
I rushed to plan the wedding – 8 months from engagement to wedding day, because I was worried he would change his mind. I started having panic attacks, the red flags continued, but I was reassured by being engaged and how people treated me differently now. I couldn’t sleep the night before the wedding, I was genuinely concerned he would jilt me at the alter! We soon got pregnant and according to all the stories I’d told myself my whole life this was it, I would be married and have a baby and a nice home and a job, what more could I possibly want?!
Love, it turns out. Unconditional love. I spent my pregnancy afraid, afraid to gain weight, afraid to tell anyone I was pregnant (I wasn’t allowed to), afraid to need to take it easy, afraid to say I felt sick, afraid to take the anti-sickness tablets, afraid to find out my baby’s gender, afraid to save money for the baby, afraid to buy the baby things, afraid to answer my therapist’s question “do you think this relationship is healthy?”. I spent my WHOLE life looking forward to being pregnant, and I was miserable. I couldn’t even imagine a future with me in it. This was the dream wasn’t it?
Looking back, I was broken, I felt trapped, the fear of what other people would say and how they would treat me as a divorced single mum, I had to make it work… the cracks got wider and wider, coming to a head during a particularly challenging post-natal period. I tried to leave, and third time lucky, managed it as Harry turned 3 months old. Somewhere in the transition from pregnancy to birth, through the trauma, I emerged from the ashes of my old identity, powered by a desire for a better life for my son, and sought freedom like a phoenix. I knew that I did not want my son to grow up seeing me controlled and abused, I wanted him to be filled with confidence, to know his worth, to believe that anything is possible and that staying in a marriage “for the sake of the children” does a lot more harm than good.
The process of healing is anything but linear, I learnt to value my self, my strength, my opinions and beliefs above those of others. Yes.. I’m sure people judged me, but that is on them, not on me. I know that I made the right choices for me and my son. I now demand more, I am not happy to sit back and accept scraps of affection, I deserve to be wholly loved, exactly as I am. But it is hard to accept this love if you don’t FIRST love and accept who you are. To appreciate your positive qualities and learn from the moments when you didn’t get things quite right. It is not arrogance, but understanding of who we are and what makes us tick.
In the words of the greatest showman song… “this is me, this is who I am meant to be, this is me”.
So how do we do it, how do we take the importance away from other people’s opinions of us and develop our own self-worth based on our opinion?
I’ll let you know a little trick, we can use our biology to help us… first we have to take action, get a pen and paper, or open up a blank document on your laptop, or notes app on your phone.
Now, list everything you can think of that meets these categories:
Things you’ve done that you are proud of e.g. learning to ride a bike, passing an exam, saying no to something you don’t want to do
Qualities that you admire in others that you also possess e.g. being able to speak in public, advocating for others
Things you’ve learnt about yourself when things haven’t gone to plan e.g. that you are resourceful and can improvise.
Anything else positive about yourself, could be at work, as a partner, as a parent, as a sibling etc.
Next, I encourage you to read this list everyday for the next week, and add to it as you think of more things.
Now the magic happens, our reticular activating system (RAS) naturally focuses our attention on finding more things to add to the list, soon we are noticing more behaviours that we are displaying, more achievements, more compliments we are receiving. And gradually it doesn’t seem like such a stretch, we begin to believe in ourselves more, and actually not every piece of feedback is a negative attack, we may even feel more comfortable in setting boundaries…
What is this magic?
Every day we are subjected to millions of stimuli (bits of information) that would be overwhelming if our conscious brain perceived them all. Our RAS takes on the role of sorting which information can be ignored and which bits our conscious brain needs to pay attention to. Cleverly, our RAS actually focuses on the things that are important to us/ our goals and that back up our beliefs. An example is a game my son and his auntie play, who can spot the most yellow cars. Before they started playing this game I would have told you that I didn’t think there were many yellow cars, but this is because my brain was not looking for them. Now we see them daily! Might help that my son shouts yellow car whenever he sees one too!
There is another helpful thing called Confirmation bias, in that we will automatically seek out information that validates our beliefs. For example, if you identify that you are good at connecting with new people, you are more likely to notice those moments where you are naturally connecting with people rather than dismissing it/ immediately forgetting it.
When we make the conscious effort to focus on the things that we are good at, our achievements, our personality traits, our brains start doing the leg work and highlighting more examples of these things. Soon you will find that you have more and more evidence stacking up to help you believe in your own worth and your own opinions rather than constantly seeking other’s opinions of your worth.
I really hope that you take some time to make the list, read it daily and add to it as your brain helps highlight more examples of just how incredible you really are.
In order to help you build self-love and boost your confidence I have a free download of an audio recording with 111 positive affirmations for you to listen to regularly. If you would like to receive this please follow this link.
If you would like to explore your self-worth in further detail and want to know how coaching or my online course, the Leading Lady Self-love Academy could help you, please book a Free discovery call using this link.
Happy Valentines Day and remember self-love is for life not just for the 14th February 💖
