There is a powerful moment in the movie Memoirs of a Geisha where the older geisha is questioning the younger one to find out if their plans had been ruined. The younger geisha looks at her, and through tears exclaims “I am NOT WORTHLESS!” And repeats it quietly, to herself, “I am not worthless.”
Every time I get to this scene I am moved. Sure I feel bad for this young woman who is fighting for her life, success, and some peace. But I feel more for me. How many times have I looked in the mirror and whispered “I am not worthless,” to rebuke the voices echoing through my mind of all the ways I don’t measure up, or the lies others believe about me and repeat to my face - hoping to make them true? Have you noticed that there are people in your life who believe lies about you and tell them to your face hoping you begin to believe them too? That is a difficult discovery. People I thought loved me and cared for me, but they have proven that it is more important that everyone see me as they see me, and not for who I really am. And they make sure that I know they believe I am worthless.
What do you do when you realize that someone close to you is so set on you knowing how worthless you are? First you need to acknowledge that this is about them and not you. Now that you’ve identified this behavior you have a choice: do you speak to them about this and reconcile? Or do you walk away? This is not an easy choice because there are so many factors that only you know. So I give you this challenge: Do I care enough about this person to call them out on this behavior? If you don’t then you may choose to ghost them. But the reality of ghosting is that it is in the silence we are left to believe the lies we already believe, so this person may still walk around telling everyone the lies they already believe about you, and by ghosting them you have only made their story more believable.
Should you value this person and relationship enough to speak to them about the lies they speak about you, to your face and otherwise, you need to be prepared to explain how they treat you hurts you, grace to listen to their why, and being willing to let them walk away. As much as you may want to reconcile, they may not. If you present the offense and all they do is make excuses and blame you for their poor treatment of you, then they have shown they don’t want to be held accountable for their choices, and you can walk away. You may still care about them and want the best for them, but they do not reciprocate, and it is okay to walk away, even if this person is a parent, sibling, or a childhood bff! You do not have to keep yourself surrounded by people who would rather lie about you, and to your face, and are always telling you how worthless you are.
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If you were to put a dollar amount on your character, gifts, abilities, and accomplishments, how much are you worth? You are valuable, do you see it? Our society highly values money and those who to know what to do with it. I have been reminded a lot lately of my value. Not how much I have in the bank, or a highly envied instagram lifestyle, but the value in who I am, my gifts, abilities, and accomplishments.
I was raised to have false humility, the playing down of everything good, trying to convince everyone I am lesser than, and over time I began to believe I wasn’t worth much. I wasn’t worth taking care of. I wasn’t worth investing in. I wasn’t worth celebrating. I wasn’t worth having big dreams that could never come true, because I’m not worthy of such lofty things. What a heap of lies, and they got to me, they get to all of us.
My challenge to you today is to sit for 10 minutes with your journal, notes on your phone, or another way to write out how much you are worth based on who you are, your gifts, abilities, and accomplishments. Read it out loud a couple times. Do you notice the lies get quieter? Are you overwhelmed by how amazing you are? Do you want to scratch something off the list because you question if you are worthy? Don’t let the lies win! Review this list as often as you need to remember you are worth so much, and are growing into even more.
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Hello Friends! It has been an exhausting couple weeks and I have been greatly reminded that there is only so much self care one can do to maintain the self before it becomes self care to survive. The past couple months have been quite demanding and the wall I was expecting to hit came, and as prepared as I was for it, it still slammed hard and I still switched into survival mode.
Self care to survive is different from self caring to thrive. It goes back to Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, there is no energy or capacity for self actualization, instead the focus is on the basics: shelter, sleep, food, and getting through. Nourish, restore, repeat. Basics. The steps that don’t feel like self care, but are the most important, primal, parts of self care.
I am worthy to be cared for, so I am worthy of nourishing food
I am worthy of enough sleep.
I deserve to give my body the movement it needs.
I deserve to bathe and and present my self in a way I am proud of.
I am worth maintaining my spiritual practice.
You are worth more than the basics, but when time doesn’t allow, when you don’t have enough energy to care for you more, lean into the basics and don’t worry about the more. Celebrate the small wins, doing laundry; making a healthy meal; keeping to your budget when you are too exhausted to care how much you spend; saying no to something that would put you beyond exhaustion and into burn out.
For today schedule an hour to show you how much you care and pick an activity to show that care. Maybe its a bath where you unplug and detox. Maybe its journaling. Maybe its reading your bible and praying. Maybe its a run or a hike. Maybe its gardening. Whatever your activity is, pick something that speaks to your soul that you are worth the nourishment and restoration that comes through taking this time for yourself.
You may be wondering how a life coach can help, quite simply I will hold you accountable to making the choices that care for you so that you can continue to heal and live life to the fullest. If you want to see for yourself how this works click here to schedule your free 30 minute sample session.
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I am frequently asked about how to make friends as an adult, as kids it was easy you just play with whomever is around. But as adults we know what we like, what we don’t like, what our boundaries are, and we have watched many of the friends we used to have disappear down other paths, or worse, have had a huge falling out and a giant wound remains in our hearts where their friendship used to live. At some point we lose enough people that we don’t want to open up anymore, we weigh the risk and then decide if the investment is worth it. As children we could freely enjoy friends, as adults we understand what kind of time, energy, and emotions it takes to be able to enjoy people the way we did when we were kids.
Then there is the challenge of keeping friends while adulting. There doesn’t seem to be enough time, energy, or reason to spend with and for our friends, much less make new ones. For those with kids it is even more difficult as kids will interrupt an adult conversation a dozen times in 20 minutes and there you are wondering what this friend thinks about you since you can’t get away from your kids or into an adult headspace. This challenge is also a great filter, since we don't have time to waste, people won't choose to hang out with you if they don't want to!
The first step in any problem is to identify it, and get really specific about what you are looking for. Sure we all want the Anne of Green Gables experience of instantly connecting to a “bosom friend” but is that realistic? As an adult I have had this experience a couple of times, but more often the lasting friendships that I have formed as an adult have come from spending time with someone and watching us grow with each other. I think it was CS Lewis who said “friends are two people who look at each other and say ‘you like this too!’” And I love this imagery. We need friends who share our weird interests, and care about us too! We also need friends who highly value what we do, it doesn't have to be exactly the same, but you cannot be friends with a liar if you highly value integrity!
Once you identify what you need in a friend, and interests that you can share with friends, the next step is to do the things! For example, I love to hike! I’ll do it alone, but it is a lot more fun with friends. (and yes! The photo here is of me hiking alone!) A few years ago an acquaintance of mine found out that I love to hike and asked to join me, I’ve lost count of how many miles we have since trekked together, but it has formed a great bond between us, and now we live hundreds of miles apart, but we keep up on the important stuff and are figuring out our next hiking trip! It sounds so simple that you will want to complicate it, don’t. Enjoy the simplicity of it!
Pro Tip: Really listen to folks when they share about things, a friend of mine heard me mention playing board games with my family and asked if I’d like to come to a game night at her place. It was fun and I met some of her friends, broadening my network. How can you know if someone likes something that you do if you don’t listen?
Most importantly, be brave! I know it is not as easy, and the more rejection you’ve had the scarier it is. But you can do this! You can invite a couple people over for dinner and board games to see how much you connect on. You can accept the invitation to a party, or small get together and see what happens. You can choose to arrive with your hands open to whatever opportunity comes, doesn’t mean you have to take those opportunities, but it will teach you how to better discern people and what you are looking for in a friend. A journey is made up of a thousand steps, but it starts with one, so take your step towards friends today!
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Today, a random Thursday in January, I reopened the calorie counter on my phone for the first time in months. I knew it would be messy. I knew that my numbers would be wrong. And I knew that there was no point in waiting until Monday. I wondered why we play this game of “I’ll start then, and until then I’ll do whatever I want!” What is with this belief of one last hurrah? We tell ourselves that we deserve it, or that we want to enjoy it, or whatever because we are about to do something major in our lives... I call this a big lie. A lie we all enjoy believing at some point. A lie I use often to make me feel better about the state of my life, the disorganization of my eating, the sheer chaos of my weeks... but I survived and therefore I earned a nap... this ice cream... a day in bed to recover.
So right now I’m calling out this lie in myself, I hope you will join me in embracing the truth that what I do is what I always do until I make the conscious choice to change. Or to quote Newton: an object in motion says in motion until it is forced by a bigger object to either stop, or change course. I’m no physicist, but I find Newton’s work quite applicable to the human psyche, we stay our course until interrupted. And if that course is harmful to us the interruption can be brutal.
We know that doing something consistently is what defines us. And maybe this is what makes change so difficult, because it’s not just the making of the change, but it is also the redefining of who we are, while grieving the loss of who we were.
So here we are in mid-January. I can do a quick check of my goals for the month to see how successful I’m being. And I will, but for this moment I’m sitting with who I am. This woman who has gone through so much in her life, who has made so many changes, and who remains frustrated by goals she cannot seem to achieve and I sit with her because she’s in pain and needs presence.
That may read and feel super existential and weird, that’s ok. I hope you are beginning to grasp what self care looks like in this moment: being present with myself. Accepting where I am in this moment and experiencing the feelings I feel.
I receive this gift of care tonight: 5 minutes of breathing deeply while acknowledging my journey, my frustrations, and my pain.
I release these lies and cover these wounds with the balm of truth.
I celebrate the choices I made to care for me today by __________.
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