Today, I felt like I needed to really think and write about self-worth.
Self-worth has a lot of interesting ironies involved. By definition, self-worth is "the sense of one's own value or worth as a person; self-esteem; self-respect," meaning that it comes from within. On the other hand, our perception of ourselves is influenced by how other people treat us, just like how mirrors allow us to conceptualize our own appearance. But I've also heard the idiom that people can't love a person that doesn't even love himself. So how do we gain self-worth?
Some people lack self-esteem because they don't feel loved, whether by God or by other people. They think that because no one else seems to value them, they must not be valuable.
For me, my self-worth struggles come from a different place. I know that my Father loves me, and I know that through Jesus Christ, I can become whole. However, I also know that not everyone makes it back to God in the end. Heavenly Father loved Satan, but that wasn't enough to stop Lucifer from becoming devil. No, I don't lack faith in Jesus Christ, I lack hope in myself. That lack of hope stops me from accepting the Atonement of my Savior, the true means to self-confidence.
But I'm learning, and I want to share that learning with you. God loves you, and his son Jesus Christ suffered so that He could help you; these things are absolutely true. However, I'm going to focus on concrete things you can do to have hope in yourself so that you can access the Savior better. As someone who has felt despair, I can tell you that it is a slow process. It isn't as easy as a one-time decision. But here are things some definitive actions that help:
1. Take care of yourself. If you don't treat yourself like a human being that deserves your time of day, your subconscious will feel worthless. Eat, sleep, and exercise enough to feel healthy. I'm trying to run 5x a week, get enough sleep, and eat healthy, and it makes a huge difference in my happiness (even though I don't remember that I like running until after I've been doing it for a half hour).
2. Do things that you love. This is actually a part of taking care of yourself; it's a basic need. Spend time on what matters to you. If you're constantly unfulfilled, you're not feeding your soul the meaningfulness that it needs to fully function. Eventually, you'll find an aversion to menial tasks (like homework, minimum-wage work, etc) if you don't feed your soul enough, and that can have bad consequences that reinforce worthlessness. Everyday, spend at least 30 minutes doing something that you love. For example, I write everyday because I love it (if that wasn't obvious).
3. Avoid situations that feed negative thoughts. If there are people that treat you badly, stand up for yourself or don't interact with them at all. Whether or not you believe it, you deserve to be treated well. In standing up for yourself, you feel empowerment that increases your confidence. Remember, it's ok to label a situation as unhealthy; this doesn't mean you think the people involved are bad, just that circumstances needs to change to achieve the optimum result. Sometime soon, evaluate situations in your life objectively and plan actions accordingly.
4. Be grateful. Honestly, even the parts of your life that are "bad" are beautiful. I don't like the anxiety/depression combination that comes with PTSD, but I'm actually grateful for the things that I'm learning. Choose to be grateful for everything. Everyday, write down something that you're grateful for, focusing especially on specific experiences in that day. Focus on what you're learning and becoming rather than on what you feel you're missing or failing at.
5. Keep a journal. I know that I already kind of addressed this in the previous point, but it helps, trust me. In writing my experiences and feelings down, not only can I revisit my words for strength later, but I'm admitting that my feelings and experiences are worthwhile. Expressing negative feelings and experiences allows me to acknowledge them without letting them control me, and expressing positive feelings and experiences gives me a chance to show myself that bad times always end. When I feel hopeless, it's because I feel like life will never get better. But if I read my journal, I know that it does.
6. Set reasonable goals and keep track of progress. You encourage positive thoughts when you build positive landmarks unto your life. For example, I have an entire website that I've created solely for this purpose (password protected and for personal use, of course). It helps me focus on what I really want in life and what I need to do to get there. Seeing progress towards my dreams, focusing on what I can control, brings me hope and confidence.
7. Be forgiving. You're only human, and that's absolutely wonderful; you can always try again tomorrow. If your timeline for yourself has to change, that's OK. For instance, last semester, I trained for a half marathon, but I got sick before the race and was unable to finish my training. I'm also going to graduate later than I would like. In both cases, I had to delay my plans, and it's OK. I will still succeed eventually. And even if you and I don't achieve the goals we set, who is to say that we've failed? If God has a plan for us, who is to say that we didn't achieve His goal for us?
8. Love other people. In caring about and for other people, you create an atmosphere of love that has nothing to do with your circumstances, and that love fills you with positive energy. There are people I love that I can't be around, but that love is real to me. When I'm loving other people, I don't have nearly as many thoughts or chemicals in my body that can be devoted to feeling worthless. I learn to love people by serving them and seeing them clearly for their strengths as well as their weaknesses.
Essentially, fill your life with love. I'll say the eight points in summary differently: 1)Treat yourself with love, 2) do things you love, 3) surround yourself with loving people and situations, 4) love factors in your life that you can't control, 5) love your thoughts and experiences enough to write them down, 6) love the person you could be enough to pursue him/her, 7) love yourself enough to forgive yourself, and 8) love others. If you don't love yourself quite yet, access love in any way that you can, and it'll start to rub off on you.
Why is love so powerful? Because love is what gives anything meaning. If you don't care about something, then it is meaningless to you, and worth is a measure of importance. So then self-worth is how much meaning you see in yourself and your life. I promise, if you do these 8 things, you'll find more self-worth then you had before. You'll find the hope in yourself that you need to really accept the Savior's love and His Atonement.
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