Month: March 2024

There is a lot that could be written about worthiness and self-worth but there is only so much space and only so much that can be explained with language. None-the-less, we have to talk about it. Whilst there is many angles to look at this topic, the following is how I look at it.

Worthiness is most often sought in places that can never actually truly give us that. We constantly seek it and strive for acceptance by external forces. And it is not really our fault to begin with. From the time when we are little, we are being told that we are either good or bad. We know that if we do something that is pleasant to someone else, we are more likely to be liked and accepted. We know that if we behave well in social settings, and demonstrate good manners, we may receive a reward. We know that if we have achieved something and our parents say that they are proud of us, we are more likely to do the same again, to get the same results. We grow up, striving for approval and acceptance not only from our parents but as we go through the years and different social groups, we also seek the same from friends and other relationships. We don’t want to be excluded now, do we?

We even strive for approval from our parents when we are adults. We hope that by what we are doing we make them proud. Sadly, for some of us, regardless of what we do, our parents will never say out loud that they are proud and we keep doing things we don’t want to whilst feeling unworthy. Likewise, we could be living a life that we absolutely tread because our parents keep saying that they are so proud of what we have achieved. Saying the words “I am proud of you” can be quite complicated and instead of encouraging a person, these words could evoke feelings of stress. A person may absolutely hate the life they are leading but do it so that their parents keep being proud of them. They keep living this life because they think that if they are not doing it, their parents won’t approve of them.

I recently learnt that parents these days often use the language of “you should be proud of yourself” instead of “I am proud of you”, which moves the focus away from validation of the parent and enables the child to validate things for themselves. This way, the child has the ability to assess its success for themselves and understand that it doesn’t matter what the parents think. It encourages a child to seek acceptance and worthiness of themselves by themselves and not be reliant on what the parent has to say about it. This is not an attack on parents, their parenting style, or blaming our parents for our issues with self-worth but understanding that it is complicated and can come from all angles. I also want to stress that generally being proud of someone and communicating that comes from the right place, with the intention of encouraging someone. Unfortunately, it just doesn’t always work that way and can have the opposite effect.

Even if we never had an issue with self-worth or worthiness growing up, we know that if we are agreeable, we can avoid conflict and there is a more pleasant outcome. If we go along with everyone’s idea and not challenge others too much, we are more likely to fit in and have an easier time. But do we? By never speaking up, by always trying to fit in, we effectively never change the status quo and nothing changes. We keep living a life where we depend on external validation to be worthy of something or someone, but then wonder why things don’t work out or we have to keep pushing sh*t uphill. And even worse, we have a midlife crisis every three weeks for years on end and don’t know why.

Seeking worthiness from external variants can be dangerous. Take a workplace for instance. We strive for doing things to please people, to get the gold star performance review, to impress the boss, and we go above and beyond to be seen as the eager, enthusiastic person. Sure, to an extent we get acknowledgement, but at some point, this eagerness turns into expectation. And your manager and colleagues expect you to work late, to go the extra mile every time because you have created this expectation. You have to keep this up when you have already been sprinting on the wheel for weeks. Eagerness/enthusiasm turning into expectation means that you don’t get the pat on the back anymore. And you wonder what else you possibly can do to become that person again and receive the employee of the month award. You start sprinting more when you have nothing else to give just to get that meaningless award. In the process you give yourself away and work yourself into the ground. And what for? For approval that you may never receive. And what happens when you lose your job? A lot of people think they are a failure when they lose their job, but this couldn’t be further from the truth. You may have failed at a job, but you are not a failure. This thinking is a common problem for people who have placed worthiness outside of them and they confuse English grammar where a verb becomes a noun. In essence, what you are really doing is giving away your own power. You enable your employer to hold worthiness hostage over you. Yes, you read correctly: You give your power away by seeking validation from external sources, because you have failed to cultivate it yourself. You may not want to hear this, but the buck does stop with you.

The same goes for intimate relationships and friendships. If you seek validation from your friends, you are more inclined to do things that you don’t want to do. You go along with things that are against your values. You keep saying yes to things that you hate doing. When relationships break down, you feel unworthy of love, of people and ultimately of yourself and your own love. In order to prevent things from breaking down and feel that way, you let people walk all over you, you try to be agreeable, go along with things and be nice. But what does nice even mean? Nice in my world means mediocre, uninteresting, a push-over and someone who just slots in. Nice people don’t upset other people and they are nice to be around, but I don’t ever want to be known or described as nice. Neither should you. If you genuinely agree with someone, then do so, but otherwise stop being so nice. I guess if you need some validation though, you will try to fit in, but sooner or later, the people that you are so scared to lose, will be lost. Either you tire of pretending to be someone you are not, or they see through you. Sooner or later, something has to give. And if it doesn’t, all you do is lead a life where you betray yourself constantly. Let that sink in for a second. If you keep pleasing others by doing things you don’t want to, you betray yourself and your own needs. By avoiding external disagreements, you create internal conflict that eats away at your soul, bit by bit, which eventually leads to you yourself sucking the life out of your soul. You may think it is other people doing that, but really, it is you doing it to yourself.

I say, f*ck the pleasantries (but don’t be an a*se either), let people go, that only like you when you behave a certain way, speak your truth, take your power back, and know that you are worthy of everything you desire. True worthiness means you have to be willing to do the hard work. You have to be willing to resist the temptation to fit in and betray yourself. You have to stop pleasing people, eat junk, read junk, hang out with the people that hold you back, and stop looking outside of you for validation. True worthiness comes from doing the difficult tasks, from teaching yourself that you are worthy of good things in your life. You have to be willing to stand alone and know that even when no one is around and you lose everyone, you still have you. You can rely on you, but you can only get to that point when you do all the hard things and teach yourself that. No amount of parenting can get you there either, you have to learn that for yourself. You have to cultivate that for yourself. You have to do all the things that get you to where you want to go, from doing the work, when you don’t feel like it, to having the hard conversations with your significant other. At the end of the day, only when you are true to who you are, can you live a fulfilling life. And it is never too late to start living and stop existing only.

And I will leave you with this: You are only ever as worthy as you think you are, not what other people think or place on you. If you don’t think you are worthy of a good life, you probably won’t have one and will manifest things into your life that reflect that. But if you think you are worthy of all the good things, then you will do the hard things and do everything possible to make that a reality. So, start seeing your own worthiness because you are so worthy, but it is up to you. Only you can determine that.

No one will come and save you from nothing, especially not yourself. And let me tell you, you, like most people, probably need saving from yourself, from your junk thinking and your junk habits. You need saving from your excuses, from your unhealthy obsession with your past, and the reasons you give yourself and others to justify playing small and why you are not going after your dreams. And in case you think people care, people don’t. No one does. Most people couldn’t care less about your problems, or your progress. Most people have their own stuff to worry about. So instead of worrying about what other people think, do or don’t do and getting upset about it, why don’t you start worrying about your life and start living the life you want?

I get it, life throws us a curveball and things are difficult. And we want to tell our friends, family and possibly the world about it. We want everyone to know how hard-done by we are. The world is against us and life isn’t fair. Well guess what? Life isn’t. It never was and never will be. And the sooner you accept this, the better. Of course, there are things and issues that should be talked about; the real problems in our lives so that we can find meaningful ways to tackle them. But most things we talk about are trivial and no one cares. No one cares that Mary had too much sugar in her drink. No one cares that Jim came in late again. No one cares that Karen got the order wrong and instead of a Latte you got a Cappuccino. Guess what? It is the same thing. Sure, one could argue the ratio on frothing is different but at the end of the day it is the same damn thing – a coffee with milk. So get over it because no one wants to hear about it.  And if you really care about it and have to make a point, maybe it is time you ask yourself some deeper questions. Do you not have bigger fish to fry than worry about some stupid coffee order that got mixed up?

Those that do care about your ‘little’ problems, care for selfish reasons. Those people like to hear about our ‘misfortune’ because it makes them feel better about their lives and easier for them to complain about the same issues. And, as we all know, misery loves company. Talking about our shitty life gives people permission to talk about their shitty life, instead of doing something about it. Somehow, we love seeing other people’s drama, buying into it and even feeding it, instead of building ourselves up and cheering each other on to be better versions of ourselves. This phenomenon can often be witnessed amongst girls. They like to encourage their friend by way of validating their feelings instead of considering that maybe the girlfriends may have fuelled a situation. Maybe they are the culprit at work and not the colleague. Maybe they overreacted and not their partner. This failure to examine can lead to all sorts of problems and poor advice but they rather be seen as a supportive friend and help to validate how they feel. In a less crucial setting, this can also be observed when a group of girls goes shopping. They rather encourage their friend to wear ill-fitting clothes than tell her the truth that she may want to choose a size larger. Sad really.

If all we do is talk about stuff that is trivial, creates more problems than good, and we don’t action anything (even on our bigger problems), then no one wants to hear about it over and over again. And even those that actually want to help us and suggest a different way forward, can’t actually help us. Because the only person that can truly help you is you and you are standing in your way. No work colleague, no boss, no friend, not even the waitress that got the coffee order wrong is in your way. Only you can help yourself. And if you finally get to a point where you know that it is you, you can get out of the way.

Some of the ‘getting out of the way’ is complex and challenging and some initial assistance may be required. When you know you need to make a change and you don’t know where to start, getting help from someone else and outsourcing to an expert is a good thing. Let’s say you are new to fitness and you don’t know the correct technique to lift weights. Absolutely; you should get a professional to show you how it is done, not only to reap the benefits of hitting the right muscle groups, but to prevent injury. Likewise, if you want to be a piano player, taking lessons would make sense. If you had something going on in your life that holds you back and you want to work through that, getting help is great. But what it comes down to is understanding that you still have to do the work. No amount of helpful suggestions will change anything if you don’t follow them. No amount of sitting in therapy for years on end will help you if you don’t do the work. What counts is what do you do when these people that try to help you are not watching? Will you lift the weight when your coach isn’t yelling at you? Will you eat the healthy food when there are also cookies floating about? Will you follow the instructions your piano teacher gave to you and sit at your keyboard outside those hours you pay for?

At some point, you have to realise when that initial help is becoming more of a crutch. No piano teacher, no psychologist, no healer, no fitness trainer, no one will get you to where you need to go if you are not willing to do the work. And even if you are making great progress, at some point you have to stop relying on others and trust in your own ability to do the things. At some point you have acquired the knowledge of how to lift weight. At some point you have learnt what healthy eating is. At some point you know what keys to hit to make a song come together. At some point you know which tools to use to not get so worked up about it all and you can put things into action. Just knowing things is not enough anymore. Just contemplating things in principle will not get you there. You have to put them into action and you have to do so when no one is watching.

At some point you need to stop relying on other people and start relying on you. Just as much as you have to do the thing when no one is watching. Doing the thing when people are watching, is easy, but will not get you anywhere. What counts is what you do when No One is watching, when No One cheers you one, when No One says “good job”. It is the time when you go for a walk when the weather is crap, when you meditate even though you don’t want to. No one can do the work for you, and no one will. No amount of support can get you there if you don’t do what is required. So, get out of your way and start working. Get support to start if required, but understand that you need to do the work. No one can get you to live the life you want but you.

And finally, let me ask you this: Who are you when no one is watching?

Death is not particularly a topic that most people are interested in talking about as it brings up all sorts of feelings. I have spent several years researching and studying death, how different cultures perceive death, prepare for death, mourn and celebrate death. It is most fascinating considering that some cultures undertake certain customs to free the soul or prepare the soul for the ‘afterlife’ and the differences in belief of what happens after one dies. I guess none of us actually know what really happens after life, and this is also not what this post is about, but rather, how bringing death closer to our consciousness can make us lead a better life.

As humans we go through life thinking we are invincible. When we are young, no one wants to talk about death. In teenage years, 20s or early 30s especially, we think nothing can hurt us. Statistically speaking, nothing should because life expectancy is somewhere in the 80-year range, depending on country. The older we get, the more we may ponder about life and death, however, not to the point that our own mortality is at stake. Even if we brush up against death through an accident, illness or disease, we have nothing better to do but to throw the kitchen sink at whatever it is that plagues us. If we actually recover from it all, only a few of us have it in them to change their lifestyle. Most of us don’t consider the abuse and use of our bodies and minds and fill it with junk and want the system to bail us out but what for? To do the same thing all over again?

Aging, which is something that happens in the run-up to death, assuming we are not dying before-hand, is not something that is celebrated in our society. Rather, we try to cheat aging and prolong life as much as we can. When we see the first sign of wrinkles or the first few grey hair, we try beauty products to hide and make our youth last forever. In the pursuit to make ourselves immortals, we don’t consider quality of life but only think quantity. The only explanation I have for all the ducking and weaving and for not talking about death, is that either we don’t want to face the fact that at some point we will lose someone that is close to us, or we fear our own death itself. Yet, we still don’t consider quality over quantity.

Generally, death gets a bad reputation as it is associated with hurt and unpleasant feelings of anger, loneliness, confusion, heartache, and even guilt of the things we didn’t say or do. And I would agree that Death and mourning can be tricky. Death can be cruel. It can rip us into pieces and leave us with insurmountable pain. It is often only when someone so close to our heart departs this world, that we realise not only what we have lost but how deeply we have loved. It is often the pain of deep heartache that lets us know we are even alive. And as much as it hurts, that pain is a reminder that we are still here and have a chance at life; we are still breathing.

The fact is, nothing is permanent, and death is part of life. The more we consider someone else’s mortality, and our own for that matter, the quicker we can lead a better life instead of wasting it with crap that doesn’t matter. There are people on their death bed right now, begging to get another chance to have a crack at life, but yet we are wasting our time because we think tomorrow is guaranteed. Nothing is guaranteed and time does not owe us anything. It is later than we think and sooner or later death will also knock on our door.

Ultimately death is inevitable. Bringing death closer is not about drowning ourselves in the painful memories of having lost someone, but celebrating the time we had with them. It is about how we choose to love and ultimately, how we choose to live. Bringing other’s death closer, helps us treat people better, and bringing our own mortality closer is about truly living and making the most out of the time we have left; those precious breaths we unconsciously take every day without noticing. This does not mean we should quit our jobs tomorrow and sit on a mountain meditating forever in the day, but about finding joy in every day. Whatever you decide that needs changing, this does not mean to make a drastic move, but considering where you are and where you would like to be in the future. If you do not like to be where you are today, then look at the actions of yesterday and the past days, weeks, months and maybe even years. It is the choices of your past that got you to exactly where you are right now. If you don’t like what you see, you have to change something here and now because the same actions will not magically produce different results. If you want to live a different life tomorrow, then you have to do something about it today and not wait for Monday or next year, or when you have the house, or lost the weight, or the car. Guess what? You may not make it there. So whatever it is that you want out of life, start doing something now because it can be over any moment.

Death is about looking at our life and asking ourself that if we died tomorrow, can we honestly say that we have lived a great life? Have we given the best of what and who we are? Have we loved enough? If not, why not? What is holding us back to live our best life? The buck stops with us and we are the only ones who are holding ourselves back. Every day that we are alive, we get given a new day. A day where we can decide how we view the world, how we go about our day and how we live. I am not here to tell you how you should live, because I would never want anyone to tell me how to live mine. All I am saying is that it is later than you think, and you don’t know when your time is up, so make the most of it. Stop worrying about the things that no one actually cares about, and start living the life that you dream of. We do not know when we draw our last breath. Death is the only thing that reminds us to make the most of life and making sure that we live life to its fullest. At some point, our bodies will give in on us, and it is all over.

For me, thinking about death makes me come alive as I know that my time comes sooner or later and I want to make the most with the time I have left. So, consider your own mortality and do the things that get you to living your best life, even if you have to make sacrifices along the way and do the uncomfortable things. Or don’t. For me, I do not want to lie on my deathbed one day thinking about all the things I didn’t say or didn’t do, the chances I didn’t take, the adventures I didn’t embark on. I want to live everything, even the things that are challenging at times. It is called life for a reason because the point is to live it and not to just exist.

Have you ever stopped and thought how amazing your body actually is? All the functions it performs on a daily basis without us noticing. Most people probably haven’t. We take the body and its functions for granted, and don’t pay much attention to the whole cycle of life that happens with every breath we take. It is only when we are plagued with a physical ailment that we start paying attention to our body. Unfortunately, at this point we don’t care about how incredible it is, but instead, are annoyed and frustrated at our body and want the pain to go away. We don’t even want to know why it is hurting, we just want to move on with our day.

For a second though, let’s look at this amazing machine called our body.  Every time we take a breath, we supply our lungs with oxygen, and the oxygenated blood is transported to our heart which gives life to us. Consider taking a deep breath, feeling the lung expand and your chest lifting. Isn’t it incredible? Think about your eyes looking at a screen, reading these words your brain understanding what these words say. Think about the sense of smell that evokes some memory. Every organ serves a function to not only help interpret the world, but to digest, transform, and protect the body. There is this incredible network of nerves and a system which has the ability to send signals to the brain and spinal cord from all over the body to interpret and accordingly action something. Think about you touching a hot stove and before you even string the thoughts together that the stove is hot, your hand has already been moved by your body’s intelligence. Think about when you cut yourself and how quickly platelets rush to the open wound to try and form a clot to stop the bleeding, and you watch over the next few days or weeks how your body rebuilds your skin. You would have to agree that the body is quite incredible. It eliminates the things we don’t need; it keeps and converts the things we do need. It just knows what to do.

When the time comes, where we feel pain or suffer from a disease, we get annoyed, frustrated and even angry at our body and/or ourselves. Sometimes the discomfort is so severe that we question what we have possibly done to deserve this. We get too caught up in how inconvenient our ailment is, instead of considering why this happened in the first place and ignore the possibility that the body might be trying to communicate with us. It also never crosses our minds how we abuse our body daily by not only feeding it junk food and leading mostly sedentary lifestyles, but also feeding it negative thoughts for most of our days. We read the news, we listen to news (which are mostly negative), we listen to people complain, maybe we even complain, we even tell ourselves that nothing good is happening in our lives and we wonder why our bodies are falling apart.

When we are struck with an illness, we think that our body must be against us. We go as far as hating a particular part of our body or all of our body because it is not behaving how we want it to. This way of thinking can be so detrimental, especially when we consider that our body is simply just trying to communicate with us and let us know that something is not in alignment; that we are out of alignment. Even looking at the word disease, or ‘dis-ease’, means something is out of order, not in flow, not in ease. Our body’s system is smart and let’s us know in various ways that things are not going well. The body is simply trying to say “hey, listen here, this way of living, this food, this exercise, this inaction, this running around, this way of thinking, this ….. you name it, is not working for us and we need to find a better way”.

Sometimes the way our body communicates is the result of thinking and it could be argued that we have manifested an ailment. I know this sounds far-fetched. But is it? Think about it. Think back to when you didn’t want to go on this school trip and all of a sudden you got stomach sick because you were anxious about something. The anxiety which is a mental thing, created a physical response. Think about that time you were so nervous about a meeting, that all of a sudden you had unexplained stomach pains. Think about every time an old injury plays up. Is that because you have some stressors going on? People have heart-attacks because of stress, stomach ulcers because of anger, headaches because they constantly overthink. We absolutely have the ability to manifest illnesses or injuries. Is it because we are attached to always having something wrong with us and it has even become our identity and people know us for it? People say “oh there is just always something wrong with you”. Maybe we subconsciously try to live up to that. Maybe we have even learnt that this is the only way how we get attention and so we keep reinventing the same or even different ailments. Sometimes, when the flu strikes, at most often at the most inconvenient time, it could be as simple as the body trying to tell us that we need to rest. Sure, there could be a hundred different reasons for it too but we never contemplate that maybe we just need to listen within.  Sometimes it is just an unfortunate event, but other times it is absolutely us ignoring our bodies’ needs and also playing out some unresolved internal issues on our bodies.  

In truth, the body does not want to hurt. It wants to be healthy. It wants to function and it wants to be in homeostasis. It does not want to go against us, it just tries to communicate with us but somehow, we are still not listening. We still try to push through. And when the body stops us in our tracks, no amount of getting annoyed and no amount of outsmarting the body will help with healing. We have to stop that and we also have to stop feeling sorry for ourselves when something bad happens. By us turning against our body and ourselves, we just create more of the same. Instead, we have to facilitate the healing process. We have to feed the body what it craves and that is very unique for each one of us. So let go of whatever you think the body needs to do and give it what it actually needs; sometimes that is discipline to awake at an odd hour and exercise it, and at other times, it is deep rest to reset. Know the difference and explore the pain. Explore what truly pains you. Is it some emotion, is it the shitty thoughts you think, is it that you keep running around non-stop? Whatever it is, find a way to let go. Some ailments are more complicated than others and may require some assistance, but don’t turn against your body. Understand that it is an intelligent way of letting you know that something is not in alignment and you have the power to change that. It is within your power to heal yourself if you dare to explore what truly pains you. Find the courage to look within and love your body because it loves you.