Self Worth and Vulnerability
“Sometimes the hardest part of the journey is believing you’re worthy of the trip.”
Glenn Beck
Vulnerability impacts on our sense of self and many things can increase our vulnerability, which then decreases our self-worth or sense of self.
We are all wired negatively – we only need to hear something negative three times for us to believe it (even if it is ourselves saying it) and need many thousands of positives to change our mind. That is so unfortunate and therefore our own negative self-talk gets us into trouble quite quickly.
This happens so much faster when we add in external factors, such as financial troubles, relationships, pain and family issues to name a few. We tend to bunch everything together and before you realise – you are continually berating yourself. If we were saying the same things to a family member – it would be classed as verbal abuse!
The cycle continues – every time something goes wrong or didn’t work as expected, you continue to belt yourself up. The negative self-talk continues and gets louder
“I ALWAYS GET ……WRONG”
“I ALWAYS STUFF IT UP”
“I NEVER GET IT RIGHT”
“I AM HOPELESS”…..and so on.
Our lens is always looking at the negatives, not the times when we get things right. We don’t look for the evidence, we don’t do a reality check, we don’t question our view – we keep going on the same loop.
I wonder what would happen, if we were to look for the evidence? Would that quieten our inner negative voice? Would it allow us the space to try again?
Sitting in my chair in the counselling space, I often ask the other person “what would they say to their sibling/partner/child/best friend – if they were in the same situation?” The answer is astounding – they would tell them that this isn’t true – they are so much better than that and so on. It’s really interesting that we would not treat others like this. Easy to say, but so much harder to work on. We need to work on this and practice multiple times a day. We need to work on our “things” even when there not happening to us, when life is good. This makes it easier to pull out when things go south.
Things to practice include positive self-talk, reality check’s (how true is that), mindfulness and exercise. We really need to build up our muscles – both in the mind and body.