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The Source of Our Worth


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PEople often quantify themselves based on what has happened to them in the past. But like there is no necessary connection between the past and the present

when people tie their feelings of worfth to something of the past, they are forever doomed to 'things that happened to them'. But are 'things that happened to you', YOU?

also consider that 'it didnt have to happen that way' or ' I could have had a completely different past'

If they tie their feelings of worth to the past, and if the past 'could' have potentially been different, then their present worth could also be different.

This makes it seem almost trivial to link your past to your present state of self worth. Just becuase so and so just so happened to happen to me, I have to be this way all my life?

YOU are not 'the things that happened to you' You are separate from that.

That thought itself helps me dissociate from my past. and indeed, being dissassociated from it, untied from its false knots, helps to create my own present state of self worth in my own image.

And indeed, your exterior worth, that is, how others view you in terms of your worth (like your social worth), is almost completely dependant on your own feelings of self worth, and almost nothing to do with your past.

the source of our worth comes from nowhere but from ourselves. IF you tie your self worth to your past, then you will have very little worth (even if you had a great past) beacuase your past is not you, and cannot be used to quantify yourself. You would simply be quantifying your past. The past no longer exists. Things that do not exist have little worth.

You on the other hand, do exist, so give yourself some worth.

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I guess I just don't see it. What is the difference between a child who is loved, cared for, encouraged, and has positive things spoken into him and one who has none of that and is abused also? To me there is a big difference. One will usually grow into a responsible, self-respecting, good citizen. The other will usually grow into a disfunctional mess. I think at least some of our worth or lack of it comes from what people do or do not put into us.

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But the difference between the two children in your example isn't the "worth" that someone pours into them. It's in how well they were taught to find the worth in themselves!

For one thing, I believe that's why sometimes the happy children end up with problems and the unhappy children overcome. Because the worth is inside the whole time, waiting to be discovered.

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Imagine yourself as a seed. You have the potential to grow into a beautiful flower. You do need sunlight, water and fertilizer in order to blossom. Without enough of those things you may wither and have trouble growing... but that wouldn't stop your ability to turn into a pretty flower. A seed always has "flower worthiness" and potential. A lack of rainfall doesn't mean that seed should never be rained on. I think I may be confusing myself here. :confused: Anyway, yes, you could have a negative self-image due to an abusive childhood. You could suffer and struggle as a result, but the actions (or inactions) of others aren't you. They don't define your value. They don't define your worthiness. They don't define who you are. I think it's about finding your way to your heart. I hope some of this makes sense.

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Ok, so I was on this site which gave an overview of Rogerian Theory. It says "We achieve this positive self-regard by experiencing the positive regard others show us over our years of growing up. Without this regard, we feel small and helpless and again we fail to become all that we can be".

Here is the link: http://webspace.ship.edu/cgboer/rogers.html

Someone understands me! :)

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Another thing -- perhaps peculiarly human -- that we value is positive self-regard, that is, self-esteem, self-worth, a positive self-image. We achieve this positive self-regard by experiencing the positive regard others show us over our years of growing up. Without this self-regard, we feel small and helpless, and again we fail to become all that we can be!

thats definitely not peculiarlty human. If you have no self esteem, you slouch and mummble. my dog can pick on that.

I n fact dog training is a good lesson for people with little self esteem. You have to become assertive and confident with a dog to gain respect from it.

[

This gap between the real self and the ideal self, the “I am” and the “I should” is called incongruity. The greater the gap, the more incongruity. The more incongruity, the more suffering. In fact, incongruity is essentially what Rogers means by neurosis: Being out of synch with your own self. If this all sounds familiar to you, it is precisely the same point made by Karen Horney!

The "I shoulds" come from and idea that you should be a certain way based on what has happened to you, and whether or not what happened to you measures up with society's standards. ANd dwelling on the past is going to make you come up with a lot of "i shoulds". This creates ambivalent feelings between your actual self in your present state and your ideal self, and that ambivalence only works to make you more distressed.

Openness to experience. This is the opposite of defensiveness. It is the accurate perception of one's experiences in the world, including one's feelings. It also means being able to accept reality, again including one's feelings. Feelings are such an important part of openness because they convey organismic valuing. If you cannot be open to your feelings, you cannot be open to acualization. The hard part, of course, is distinguishing real feelings from the anxieties brought on by conditions of worth.

Existential living. This is living in the here-and-now. Rogers, as a part of getting in touch with reality, insists that we not live in the past or the future -- the one is gone, and the other isn't anything at all, yet! The present is the only reality we have. Mind you, that doesn't mean we shouldn't remember and learn from our past. Neither does it mean we shouldn't plan or even day-dream about the future. Just recognize these things for what they are: memories and dreams, which we are experiencing here in the present.

Once again, he is saying that the key to having lots of self worth is to be in the present, and not dwell on the past. dwelling on the past is going to build up those ambivalent feeling between the real self and the ideal self. So instead you should accept the things that happened to you (so that you stop dwelling on them), and thereby allow yourself to see the reality, that you are not this ideal person ( the one who keeps saying "i should"), but you are here now to be your real self.

I duno, I read this and I see him saying that, yes people's self worth is affected by things that happened to them in the past, and how it measure s up to some standard; but at the same time he is saying that people with real self worth are people who do not dwell on their past.

The idea is not to dwell on the stories about yourself. the stories of your failures or depressions, but just accept them, and move your focus to the present.

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I never meant to deny what you've been expressing, ToBe... I've just had the impression that you believe one's actual self-worth to be low because of the way they've been treated.(Thought pattern: I've been treated badly, so I am unworthy) I agree that feelings of self-worth can be low, but feelings don't imply actual worth. (Thought pattern: I am worthy despite having been treated badly)There can be false perceptions and distortions about the self. I think Carl Rogers makes a lot of sense! I do very much believe in the humanistic theory too. Unconditional positive regard...that's what a therapist is supposed to give to his/her clients. My therapist did that for me and it helped me immensely. I agree that it's something we all need. I just want you to remember that although you never received this positive regard in the past, you deserved to. You are worthy of love and acceptance. I hope that your therapist can help. I'm sorry if you felt you weren't being heard in your expressions here. I know how frustrating that can feel! I've noticed with myself that is what is often most important to me...having others understand what I'm trying to express.

How are you feeling today?

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  • 3 weeks later...

Sorry it's taken me so long to get back here. It's all good, Irmajean. I wasn't upset with anyone or anything. I guess I just don't understand how I am supposed to value myself when there has been no one that has valued me. Ya know I have never been a very pretty woman and have always been overweight. It seems to me that in this country we are valued by how we look on the outside. A lot of people say that's not true, but from where I stand, I think it is. I emailed my therapist and asked him to schedule me in this week or next. I guess I just need to sit down and discuss this with him. Thanks everyone!

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Other people may "value" you for whatever reasons they like.

That doesn't touch a person's intrinsic value, which in my opinion is always there and doesn't go up and down with opinion.

Is that possibly the problem, that you're thinking it's a judgment that you have to make of yourself, the same way others judge?

Have you tried, instead, to just listen to yourself breathe, to feel the blood reaching your fingertips, to imagine that unique part of the Universe that you and no one else defines? Your reason for existing isn't so much something you do, as something you always are. {Some people render this as "God doesn't make mistakes, and he made you." It's the same basic thought from a different religious perspective.}

It's definitely more difficult to jumpstart the process of valuing yourself. But it is possible, again, because the value is there the whole time, you just have to find it.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Well, here's how I see the process:

First, there's how much of ourselves we show or hide. Those of us who start out doubting ourselves probably don't let other people see us very clearly.

Then there's other people's reactions. Not everyone will praise you when you show your qualities, and if you happen by chance to fall in with a group (or two parents) who are mostly like that, it can be difficult to get fair feedback.

And finally, there's our perception of other people's reactions. Again, if we start out doubting ourselves, we often pay more attention to disapproval than to approval, sometimes to the point where none of the approval gets through.

This is why, to me, approval begins at home, within ourselves first. But the value has been there the whole time.

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I'm going to attempt to explain why I feel the way I do. When my parents divorced at age 6, my mother married another man. A terrible m an who degraded me every day until I went to live with my dad at age 13. He screamed at me constantly, cussed me out all of the time for nothing, pushed me up against a wall and would poke me with his finger in my chest until I was bruised there while he was screaming at me and calling me a no good, ugly, fat, stupid whore. My mother, from the time I was about 6 or 7 took me to doctor after doctor, claiming that I had some kind of vaginal problem. Every time a doctor told her there was nothing wrong with me, she took me to another. Sometimes the docs would give her stuff to insert into me just in case of irritation. She would make me lay on the kitchen table while she put the medicine in me while my stepfather was walking around the room. She continuously had to "check me" when I was in the bathtub or while I was getting dressed. This went on till I was 12. Then I went to live with my dad and my sister and her husband, who raped me one night. Then I spent most of my time on the streets of Chicago because I was afraid to go home. By the time I was 14 or 15, I was into prostitution. I did that until I was 27 yrs old. When I was 20 I married a Pakistani man for payment so he could get his green card. We divorced 3 yrs later. Then when I was about 25, I met a wonderful pakistani man who I loved and who loved me, but we were only together for 4 yrs because he was betrothed to someone in Pakistan, and he chose to marry her instead of me. Then I met my son's father and married him, and a year later I found out that he had been molesting my 3 yr old daughter. So, I left him. I have been alone raising my kids ever since. Do you understand why I feel like nobody has ever valued me? :(

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Dear Amy,

Your story is really sad... I'm so sorry you've been through all this... I understand why you feel that way. Yes, they've been very bad to you. They didn't see/realize your worth. But it was only because they were bad and 'blind', not because of you. I hope you understand this...

L.

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It is too late for family therapy. My mom and dad are both deceased. My sister is happy in her marriage and I don't see any reason to upset that now. What happened was 34 yrs ago, and they have been happily married ever since. As far as the question " What do you value about you"?...that's the problem, I don't value anything about myself. How am I supposed to do that when no one else ever has? It just doesn't make sense to me.

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My son is in therapy for mananging his adhd. My daughter is actually very well adjusted and happy, so I hate to take her if she really doesn't need it. Actually, as a family we do very well, I think. I have brought them up with only good words and lots of praise and affection. We are all pretty close I think. As for what I enjoy doing, I do enjoy going to college. I enjoy cooking sometimes. I love to drive and love a road trip! And I love being outdoors on nice days.

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My daughter is actually very well adjusted and happy, so I hate to take her if she really doesn't need it. Actually, as a family we do very well, I think. I have brought them up with only good words and lots of praise and affection.

This is all has a big, big value!!! I'm pretty sure it's not the only "thing" that's very valuable about you, but even IF it was, it would be "a BIG thing", big enought for you to be proud of yourself! Consider that you have been able to give your children what nobody had given to you!!! That's wonderful.

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Yes, Lala, I do agree that bringing up my kids so that they will have value is a valuable thing, but it doesn't give me the value that no one put into me. Am I the only one who feels the way I do? That if no one values you, it leaves a big sinkhole that cannot be filled with anything else? :confused:

By the way, Lala, I am so glad to be talking to you again! :(

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I think it's like telling someone with a broken leg that they can run if they just believe they can. Loving or valuing yourself just isn't the same as having someone love or value you. In fact, I'm not sure it is possible to love and value yourself until someone shows you how by loving and valuing you.

Hope I'm making sense. It makes complete sense to me.

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You already know how to love and value, though...I was able to learn self-love by recognizing how I love others. I really like my good qualities. I guess I view this in the opposite manner...I see the love coming from within. It's always there...it' s just a question of how to find your way to it.

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I guess what I'm saying is that one's self worth needs to come from within. If you rely on others exclusively for this, that leaves you very vulnerable...

I'm not sure I'm explaining myself too well, but it's cool that we're on two different pages...that happens sometimes. :cool:

At any rate, what steps can you take to help you to feel better around this? Has your therapist made any suggestions? You mentioned liking the outdoors. Do you write about nature or take photos? Some form of self-expression with activities you enjoy might help you to connect with yourself. Take gentle care tonight, ToBe.

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