Author Topic: Inherent self worth  (Read 3451 times)

Iphi

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 557
Inherent self worth
« on: November 06, 2007, 05:33:14 PM »

Ami posted several days ago that she has discovered her inherent self worth is not 'up for grabs.'

That really says it all for me.  I have been trying to understand how co-dependency is happening with me.  Trying to understand my relationship with shame, which I see that I personalize, when really it is something that is not personal. 

And last week changing posted her thoughts in response to the topic about friends - that she observed I had trouble seeing myself clearly.

All of these concepts are boiling around together as I rush through work and child care.  A few days ago I asked my H 'Do I have inherent worth?'  I trust him to be candid - he is a very candid person.  He said 'yes of course!'

Suddenly I saw this roller coaster I am on - have been on for many years.  My worth has been connected to outside factors, kind of like a stock being traded on a public stock exchange.  Rumors of a takeover, or performing not in line with analyst expectations - my 'worth' flies up and down.  Sometimes it has crashed.

It actually happened that the people I loved and trusted most told me I had no inherent worth.   I asked my grandmother when I was a little girl "Do you love me?"  I was essentially looking for a simple "yes."   She said "I love you as much as you are your father's daughter, but I hate you as much as you are your mother's daughter."

As we say here in DC, Okayyyyy??  Who says that??  Anyway.  That was not the answer I was looking for.  And of course her son the N well - nothing has inherent worth to him, does it.  Ns are incapable of appreciating anything as it is.  They can only use things for their own purposes, but they are ironically also incapable of appreciating how well a thing serves their purposes.  They equally lack the ability to appreciate huge efforts on their behalf, anyway.  But we know how that goes.

It seems to me that pegging my self-worth to the opinion and fancy and manipulation of everyone and everything else is about the clearest view I have ever achieved of what is codependency in my life and why it gives me deep, deep distress to fail to win the tolerance of various others, well, pretty much anyone and everyone.  The fact that I cannot see outside clearly is not lost on me either.  I am seeing only if others tolerate me without being able to disinterestedly contemplate who are these people and what are their qualities.  It's maybe not as extreme as this paragraph suggests - I can partially see, but there is a real myopia here too.

Please share your thoughts and experiences about discovering and understanding inherent self worth, coming out of codependency and maintaining an internal clear view of that.

What about times when others could not see you, but you maintained a clear connection with yourself throughout the experience?  Does that make sense?
Character, which has nothing to do with intellect or skill, can evolve only by increasing our capacity to love, and to become lovable. - Joan Grant

Ami

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 7820
Re: Inherent self worth
« Reply #1 on: November 06, 2007, 08:00:53 PM »
Oh Iphi
  You are getting so much clearer in your thinking. What a big insight you must have had to even write this thread.
   I guess that I am fortunate b/c I had a period when I had "myself" and was "centered". It did not last very long----maybe a year.However, when I say that I am "digging " for my core, I mean that I am trying to throw off lie after lie and get back to when I felt "whole"
  I remember that this year was the best in my life--not for outside things b/c the outside things were just "regular " things. I remember feeling whole. I remember not feeling lonely b/c I was my best friends. I had good relationships with others. I had many fun times and fun activities. However,I didn't need people or activities to define me.
 It was a peace that can't be bought(unfortunatly). Other people can't  give it to us. We can get "counterfeit" good feelings with addictions . The addictions can be to anything( shopping, relationships, food, drugs etc). It really doesn't matter what the addiction is as far as what we "want" from it. We want to "matter'. We want to feel "whole". We don't want to be in pain. We want to feel like we are really O.K.
  The lie about the addictions is that they "seem" like they work. We do feel better,but it doesn't last. Also, even when we feel better,it is not a real peace---but a "harried" feeling.
  Iphi, I am hurting today b/c I see that I HAVE to be honest. At the end of the street,I can't lie anymore. I have to face myself the way that I did when I was at peace.
  My M  told me that I was "bad". I have to face whatever is inside me and just "see"it  and accept it.
  I have to live by my "smarts' like I did at the time that I was centered. I faced the truth b/c I had to. I faced that my M was sick. My F was a wimp. I had good and bad,but we all,probably did. I better be my own friend or I will be eaten. I better stick up for myself or s/one else will take my power and I will be in trouble.
  I was happy b/c THIS was the truth and I faced it.
  I think that facing the truth will lead us out of codependency. The truth is the cross to Dracula.
  Iphi---it is so interesting,but many threads now are dealing with the same thing. IMO, this is the most healing time that I have ever seen on the board.            Love to You ,Iphi                   Love   Ami
No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.        Eleanor Roosevelt

Most of our problems come from losing contact with our instincts,with the age old wisdom stored within us.
   Carl Jung

Iphi

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 557
Re: Inherent self worth
« Reply #2 on: November 06, 2007, 08:11:44 PM »
I believe you have shown your quality and been real here on the board ami and therefore I absolutely believe you will overcome and also that you can fearlessly look into yourself and see - good things!  I think you have shown you've got what it takes.

But can we let ourselves shine like that?

I think I am afraid that if I say "I'm great!" then... I will be an N and/or behave like an N.

?

Character, which has nothing to do with intellect or skill, can evolve only by increasing our capacity to love, and to become lovable. - Joan Grant

Iphi

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 557
Re: Inherent self worth
« Reply #3 on: November 07, 2007, 10:10:27 AM »

Hi all - additionally another thing Ami posted really resonated with me - about how co-dependency is (I'm going to mess up the paraphrase) handing yourself over to other people to tell you that you are okay and hand you back to yourself.  Ami it was you sharing that conception that made me see the entire series of many many interactions over years and places and times that I have done just that thing.  It has really not worked.  I understand how I was taught to do this - I was fooled out of myself, brainwashed.  I doubt the people who did it (my family) are even capable of seeing things as they are, and can only see things as they may use them and whether things can be used by them.

Agree that it feels as if it is a wave of focus/understanding going through the board as many people look at the same issue.  It is a wave that is lifting me and carrying me, further than ever I was able to get before.  I never saw how I handed myself over. 

But I still don't see how not to do so.  I am inspired by being 'my own universe' but I am not seeing how to get from where I am to where I need to be, except walking each step of the way and figuring it out.  And in fact, I would rather just read others do it, but that doesn't work.  I can't get there solely by watching others walk.  I have to walk each step for myself.  Darnit!   :lol:

Shunned - I think a lot about sabotage and self-sabotage.  My Ndad is very sabotaging but also very self-sabotaging. He's like a an active disaster area - like a volcano that is actively erupting - you go into his zone and it's always dangerous to himself and others.  it's so sad and awful - that is what hooks me in time and again.  It seems to me that if I look into self-sabotage then I will have to also look at where I learned sabotage from.  ?

But I am not sure how sabotage and self-sabotage hooks in to the inherent self-worth aspect.

Thank you for the encouragement Shunned.  You are an inspiration!

I want to put something else in stark text.  I have had many opportunities to excel, but passed them by for a safer, smaller role.  I feel unsettled, anxious, afraid of those opportunities.  If I did take the opportunity to excel, I believe my fear of disastrous failure and humiliation, of ineptitude and incompetence, of self-doubt and inward tension (waiting for the shoe to drop) would get me.  I can't just enjoy it.  This scenario has played out for me a number of times in younger years, before I quit trying hard and just scaled back my life.  This is a self-sabotage thing. 

Partly maybe it is about what my brainwashing is telling me that failure means - back to co-dependency.  Hand yourself over to others, they tell you that you suck and are abhorrent, disgusting and laughable and hand you back with a curled lip.  That's what ALL the fear is about. 

Ugh!
Character, which has nothing to do with intellect or skill, can evolve only by increasing our capacity to love, and to become lovable. - Joan Grant

Ami

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 7820
Re: Inherent self worth
« Reply #4 on: November 07, 2007, 12:15:34 PM »
 Dear Iphi,
  I was so excited to see your last post. I was at the gym. My head seems to clear when I exercise and I could "see" a big piece of the codependency puzzle. I thought that I couldn't wait to get back to tell you ,on the board, about it.
  I was riding the exercise bike and I "saw" how "stupid" and unworkable an idea it is to give my sense of my own self to s/one else. Then,I wait for them to give it back to me.I do all sorts  of"contortions "so they will like me . Then, I wait for them to give my "sense of self" back to me the WAY that I want( i.e.. approval). If they do, I am happy( relieved). So, this is the codependency cycle.I do it over and over . The "lie" of it is that you do feel better for the moment. That lie keeps the whole thing going.
  It makes no sense--- at all. It is a stupid lie. So many people have bought the lie in our society. It is so big to see this.
  I will write more later. My Dog needs a bath. She is 91 in people years and they do have accidents--bleh           
                  Love   Ami
No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.        Eleanor Roosevelt

Most of our problems come from losing contact with our instincts,with the age old wisdom stored within us.
   Carl Jung

towrite

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Posts: 413
Re: Inherent self worth
« Reply #5 on: November 07, 2007, 12:57:14 PM »
Iphi -
I want to say something about your post- inherent self-worth - and it is mucking around in my gut, not coming out straight and clear. Hops can always find a clear way to say stuff - wish I could be like that.

When I was in college, I had a new boyfriend. I was crazy about him. I made the mistake of telling my mother about him (I never had done that before and never did it again). She looked me right in the face and asked, "What makes you think you're so good that you deserve him?" (That's a word-for-word quote. It's burned in my brain.)

Years later I asked her why she had said that. Her reply was that she "had followed Dr. Spock's teachings" (I call him Dr. Spook) and his message was to "never let a child get a swelled head". I wanted to, but didn't, ask her, "And you allowed that to be a substitute for your common sense?"  What I think today is she allowed that as a justification for her cruelty - or that was only her interpretation of Dr. Spock and it was a handy rationale for her N'ism.

Regardless, it was a primary outside source for my self-worth - she began this process when I was very young and all I can remember is being blindsided time and again, not knowing how or why. It was like everything became a blur and I didn't realize at that young age it was the death of my survival instinct, cuz the outsome was I absorbed her venom as an absolute truth about myself.

Many years later, having forged some tentative sense of self-worth for myself, I am fortunate that the words of caring therapists and friends come back to me more often than hers.

I have learned:

I am unique. There is no other like me.

I have gifts, valuable to some but always valuable to me.

I like my own company and to hell with those who don't - or who want to change me or who are uncomfortable with me to the point of criticism.

I am wounded. My personality has partly been shaped by those wounds. Walk a mile in my shoes and then criticize... if you can.

I am a fortress. I will care for all within my walls even when we are besieged from without. I will open my doors carefully after doing my best to determine if those who seek to enter are friend or foe. I may make a mistake, but I know my self-worth built these walls and I have refuge.

I am allowed to spend time - most of my time - with those who lift me up, inspire me, value me, trust me, and recognize my gifts. I let go (almost) of the inbred demand that I am "obligated" to spend time with those who seek to tear me down or brutalize me.

I am allowed to feel good about myself, like myself, and even crow a little about my innate goodness.

I am also allowed to point out to unconscious others when I do something good, beneficial, altruistic, or clever, without pride but just as a matter of fact. I am allowed to build my own reputation, if I care about such things.

These are lands I have wandered into with wonder, curiosity, and a lot of trepidation. I have allowed myself to get "hooked" on feeling good about myself instead of hooked on the negativity mixed with mother's milk.

I have learned that the best way to solidify my self worth is to be open - and a little humorous - about my weaknesses, something I kept hidden and silent about fearing it would give "them" ammunition against me. I have listened a long time to others reveal their mistakes, their OOPS's, their disappointments in themselves, and watched as the skies didn't fall, no weapons were unsheathed, no claws were bared. So, little by little I have done the same and find, in the doing, a stronger sense of being a worthy member of the human race, rather than a freak.

Peace, Iphi.

Kate
"An unexamined life is a wasted life."
                                  Socrates
Time wounds all heels.

Hopalong

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 13621
Re: Inherent self worth
« Reply #6 on: November 07, 2007, 01:22:13 PM »
Yegods, Kate...
Iphi asks a very beautiful question and you wrote a magnificent answer.

All I know is a principle I try to live by (#1):

http://uua.org/visitors/6798.shtml

love
Hops


"That'll do, pig, that'll do."

Ami

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 7820
Re: Inherent self worth
« Reply #7 on: November 07, 2007, 01:28:26 PM »
Dear Kate,
It was a' relief" to hear how your M talked to you. Also, that she liked Dr Spock.I am not happy that you suffered so badly.It was just a relief to hear that s/one had a M just like mine.
  I had my precious core so eroded by some version(many) of "WHOOO do you think YOUUUUU are?' It hurt so,badly that I just shriveled inside.
  I still "feel" it inside me, today.It is so ,so,so painful.
  I am sorry that you suffered so much, Kate.
  We are soul sisters, for sure.                 Love   Ami

(((((((((((((((((Kate))))))))))))))))))))))
No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.        Eleanor Roosevelt

Most of our problems come from losing contact with our instincts,with the age old wisdom stored within us.
   Carl Jung

Ami

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 7820
Re: Inherent self worth
« Reply #8 on: November 07, 2007, 01:34:26 PM »
Dear Towrite,
  I had a question. What type of mother did your M have? My M seemed to have a "good " mother,but I was not there,of course.
  My Aunt and I can't really figure out How my M got so bad. I was just wondering about yours,if you care to share about it.   .   Ami
No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.        Eleanor Roosevelt

Most of our problems come from losing contact with our instincts,with the age old wisdom stored within us.
   Carl Jung

Ami

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 7820
Re: Inherent self worth
« Reply #9 on: November 07, 2007, 02:04:29 PM »
Dear Iphi,
   You asked the question,"How do you get there(inherent self worth)?For me, since I believe the Bible, I have an external reference for my own value.
  For me, what does not line up with the Bible is not 'right". Of course, all that my M taught me about myself and life does NOT line up with the Bible. I have been brainwashed. What she taught me "feels" real and true.That is the problem. The lies feel real and the truth feels false--bleh.
  I think for me, the key would be to get how much God loves me. The Bible says that "Love never fails". I have had moments when I could feel God's love for me and feel it shine out to others. It was a feeling of being in the "right flow" as Tai Chi would say. It was a feeling of being exactly how you were supposed to be.
  I think that so many of my dysfunctional behaviors are based on "fear". For example, codependency is based on fear that we are not good enough and people will find out.It is based of fear of "who" we really are.It is based of fear that we must be liked in order to be "worthwhile. So, at it''s core codependency is fear based.
  If I could "get" the "Scripture,"Perfect Love casts out Fear "in to my head  then I would be free of codependency. It is very hard to undo brainwashing. I think that that is our core problem--undoing brainwashing. That is how I see it.                Love  Ami
No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.        Eleanor Roosevelt

Most of our problems come from losing contact with our instincts,with the age old wisdom stored within us.
   Carl Jung

Ami

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 7820
Re: Inherent self worth
« Reply #10 on: November 08, 2007, 08:10:03 AM »
I saw s/ thing really big last night which relates to self worth. I saw s/one callling their dog and the dog was ignoring them. This thought went through my mind as I saw the person calling the dog."I bet that she has a well trained dog and I( the failure) have a wild one.".Well, her dog completely ignored her and she just went inside the house like it was no big deal. Then, I realized how I had internalized my M;s standards of perfection. WHAT a revelation. My M has to have everything perfect--outward things and every thought and feeling that she has. Every thought and feeling have to be '"perfect" or she is a failure.I internalized this. What a curse. I saw it with the "dog". However,it is worse in my emotions. I think that I am a worthless failure if I don't have perfect emotions, reactions and feelings. NO WONDER I WAS A NUT.
 This is exactly what I am trying to heal from.
 With the dog--so what if my dog doesn't listen. HOW DOES THIS EFFECT MY VALUE? Tell me, if the dog doen't listen----how  does THAT make me a failure?-.
  No wonder I was holding on to my sanity by a thread. This was how I thought,but I did not realize it. I just felt horrible all the time. I did not "know' that I was thinking like this. I was not aware of it.
  I think that our 'thoughts" are telling us that we have no value. That is my next  step in the process---examining thoughts     Love   Ami
No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.        Eleanor Roosevelt

Most of our problems come from losing contact with our instincts,with the age old wisdom stored within us.
   Carl Jung

towrite

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Posts: 413
Re: Inherent self worth
« Reply #11 on: November 08, 2007, 09:00:39 AM »
Ami - my mother's mother was a dear, sweet, smart, talented woman whom everyone loved. She was burdened by 5 children too close together. But my M's father was another story. I adored him and him me, in fact, I credit him with my sanity. But my M still harbors enormous anger at him for the way he treated her growing up.

So, I dunno if there is a connection. I know what you're wondering and I have no answer.

What I want to hear now is where is Iphi with her original question?

Kate
"An unexamined life is a wasted life."
                                  Socrates
Time wounds all heels.

Hopalong

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 13621
Re: Inherent self worth
« Reply #12 on: November 08, 2007, 10:20:29 AM »
Quote
No wonder I was holding on to my sanity by a thread. This was how I thought,but I did not realize it. I just felt horrible all the time. I did not "know' that I was thinking like this. I was not aware of it.
  I think that our 'thoughts" are telling us that we have no value. That is my next  step in the process---examining thoughts
   

Ami,

WOW.

Hops
"That'll do, pig, that'll do."

Ami

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 7820
Re: Inherent self worth
« Reply #13 on: November 08, 2007, 11:23:27 AM »
Thank you Hops for that "Atta Boy"(i.e.Wow). It means a lot to me.
                                                                                                          Love   Ami
No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.        Eleanor Roosevelt

Most of our problems come from losing contact with our instincts,with the age old wisdom stored within us.
   Carl Jung

Iphi

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 557
Re: Inherent self worth
« Reply #14 on: November 08, 2007, 12:36:18 PM »
towrite asked
Quote
[What I want to hear now is where is Iphi with her original question?

Got lots to digest, lots to contemplate, lots to feel and understand.  It's so weird how we live with our own internal weather and yet - never name it and notice it.  Like tayana wrote about how she looked into her depression and found lots of things that were not 'depression' piling on to add up to depression and especially anxiety.  I am in a place where I am finally recognizing the enormous fear that has been my internal weather.  For many years I could not 'see' it.  I couldn't name my fears.  But I was mute and frozen and also loyal to my dad's facade (turned against myself in a frozen position against myself).

So.  I see how it must be.  And if I was talking with you I would encourage you to champion your internal self worth which is inherent.  What is more - I can see it!  I can see the worth in people.  It is right there.  Even when they are scumming themselves up, it is just plain as could be to me.  But I am unacquainted with my own and what's more - there is a wall of pure terror on it.  It's about survival and sheer powerlessness, enslavement, abandonment, desperation, dread.  Yeah, I am in a safe place now and finally it looks like the really elemental stuff is going to come out and be known.  It's like wearing a very cold, wet, scratchy blanket on a winter day. Cold, comfortless, dangerous, scratchy, leaves the feet exposed, makes the whole situation worse.

So actually this is probably progress even if it doesn't look like it.  But meanwhile I want to read the thoughts shared here again and again.



Character, which has nothing to do with intellect or skill, can evolve only by increasing our capacity to love, and to become lovable. - Joan Grant