5 Reasons That Make It Clear Why You Should Not Let Society Dictate How You Feel

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CollectiveEvolution

Our sense of worthiness lies at the root of almost everything that happens in our lives. It affects the way we relate to others and ourselves, the way we hide from life or throw ourselves into it, and the way we pretend to be weak or exert disproportionate power onto others. In the name of feeling worthy we will often betray our values and ourselves. Losing our sense of belonging simply feels too risky compared to listening to what we know to be true.

When the outside becomes the compass of my sense of value

Outside compliments and attention serve as a compensation for our inner sense of value. Most moments of feeling valuable are derived externally, from other people’s praise rather than an innate understanding of our own significance. However, when we look outside ourselves for value we betray ourselves and pay the high price of mediocrity. We’re continuously challenged to choose between the outer and inner forces to establish our own self-worth. Self-respect, self-love, and a belief in our basic goodness have to fight against giving in to feelings of social anxiety and shame, the fear of isolation, and the expression of suppressed anger. Our need to belong is the core trigger and nourishing force behind our tendency to give in to these pressures.

Life presents us with many mountain tops of success and valleys of failure. In these valleys, we face embarrassment, exclusion, shame, and guilt. So how can we retain a sense of worthiness, especially during times of distress? Particularly when we feel guilt and shame, it seems almost impossible to reclaim our innocence and give ourselves the chance to start over.

Shame and guilt create strong dynamics of self-punishment and often reinforce an endless cycle of choosing the wrong route to happiness and healthy self-esteem. An extreme example is the struggle of convicted criminals. Once a person has broken a significant rule, our opinion of him changes. He moves to the other side of the line, the dark side, even if it was a momentary lapse in judgment. He is now marked by that bad choice for life. From there the opportunities to return to normalcy are limited.

But the same dynamics apply to all of us. When we fail, or see others fail, a shadow is cast and it is even harder to move on. We fight to forgive ourselves and we fight to remember the goodness that is now buried beneath the failure. But regardless of our failures, our natural right is to be here even when we’re excluded by certain parts of society for breaking their norms, rules, or values.

Tell me who I should be, in order to be worthy

Our sense of worthiness is lost in childhood through experiences that may have felt like the rejection of who we were. This was especially painful when we were being compared to others and didn’t seem to measure up. The resulting inner struggle is an expression of the unworthiness we felt and continues to reflect in our personality.

On the path to claiming a true sense of worthiness, there cannot be any principles or ideologies. These will only further limit our understanding of this complex theme. What we really need is a deep understanding of our humanity and how it got distorted for us along the way, but achieving this is indeed a huge undertaking.