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Posts tagged with “self-worth”

How I Claimed My Right to Belong While Dealing with Imposter Syndrome

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TRIGGER WARNING: This post briefly references sexual abuse.

“Never hold yourself back from trying something new just because you’re afraid you won’t be good enough. You’ll never get the opportunity to do your best work if you’re not willing to first do your worst and then let yourself learn and grow.” ~Lori Deschene

The year 2022 was the hardest of my life. And I survived a brain tumor before that.

My thirtieth year started off innocently enough. I was living with my then-boyfriend in Long Beach and had a nice ring on my finger. The relationship had developed quickly, but …

Thinner is Not Better – Healthy, Connected, and Happy Is

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“Standards of beauty are arbitrary. Body shame exists only to the extent that our physiques don’t match our own beliefs about how we should look.” ~Martha Beck

I have so many women around me right now—friends, mothers, clients that are on a diet—constantly talking about their weight and how their bodies look, struggling with body image.

I am profoundly sad about the frequency and theme of those discussions.

At the same time, I deeply get it; it is hard to detach from our conditioning.

I too struggled with body image at one point in my life, and for a very …

Abandonment Wounds: How to Heal Them and Feel More at Ease in Relationships

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“I always wondered why it was so easy for people to leave. What I should have questioned was why I wanted so badly for them to stay.” ~Samantha King

Do you feel afraid to speak your truth or ask for what you want?

Do you tend to neglect your needs and people-please?

Do you have a hard time being alone?

Have you ever felt panic and/or anxiety when someone significant to you left your life or you felt like they were going to?

If so, please don’t blame yourself for being this way. Most likely it’s coming from an …

Dealing with Unrequited Love: How I Started to Let Go and Love Myself

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“If you don’t love yourself, you’ll always be looking for someone else to fill the void inside you, but no one will ever be able to do it.” ~Lori Deschene

I was a simple girl who met a complicated boy and fell in love. It was unrequited. I loved him with all my heart for six months, and acted like a teenager with her first crush. It was humiliating. I did things that I should never have done—the incessant texting, calling, arranging meetups, and what not.

Embarrassment doesn’t even cover the emotions I feel now. There is also a …

How to Love Mindfully When You’re a Socially Anxious People-Pleaser

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“It’s okay to care about what people think. Just know there’s a difference between valuing someone’s opinion and needing their approval.” ~Lori Deschene

My date—an attractive student in her twenties—talked away excitedly, but all I could think of was this:

“How can I make her like me?”
“How can I impress her?”
“How can I make her laugh?”

I agonized over every word that I said, every response from her, every moment of our interaction, and I poured every single detail that I could find—or imagine—under the microscope of my mind… and all of a sudden, the date was over!…

How I’m Overcoming Codependency and the Need to Prove My Worth

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“Everywhere you go, there you are.” ~Unknown

I have heard this quote many times throughout life, but that was it. I heard it, thought hmm, and moved on. Well, here I am at the age of thirty-nine, and I am really starting to see and understand it.

I first started noticing this idea showing up over and over again recently, at a time of a change in my career. I went from an ER nurse to an RN in the transfer center. So bedside nursing to office work.

I noticed one day, as I was sitting in …

Everything I’m So, So Sorry About (and Why I Think Apologies Are Hard)

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“There’s the way that light shows in darkness, and it is extremely beautiful. And I think it essentializes the experience of being human, to see light in darkness.” ~Emil Ferris

I was leading a yoga training in a small village in Greece near the Aegean Sea. One of the trainees was practicing a mindfulness workshop she designed. She led us through a guided meditation based on a beautiful Hawaiian practice for reconciliation and forgiveness called Ho’oponopono. As we sat in the yoga space, she repeated over and over:

I love you.
Please forgive me.
I’m sorry.
Thank you.

There was …

Unbecoming the Old Me: How I’m Finally Discovering That Life Can Be Fun

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“The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again expecting different results.” ~Albert Einstein

I woke up one morning and realized that I had no idea who I was. I realized that over the past thirty-something years I had been everyone but myself.

I was like a chameleon molding into the people that surrounded me. Not wanting to make noise or cause disturbance to others or trigger my own inner wounds.

My goal was being whoever I thought the person around me wanted me to be. To be accepted, loved, and liked by others. I realize …

All the Wrong Reasons I Slept with Men Before and Why I’m Changing Now

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“We think we want sex, but it’s not always about sex. It’s intimacy we want. To be touched. Looked at. Admired. Smiled at. Laugh with someone. Feel safe. Feel like someone’s really got you. That’s what we crave.” ~Anonymous

I have not had sex in years. I was meditating one day, and my mind was silent (an extremely rare event), then I heard “Do not have sex until you are married.” Something I heard often growing up as a southern Baptist.

I started breathing fast, and my thoughts immediately started racing. I am pretty sure I cried, if not in …

I Worry I’ll Never Change – Here’s Why I Still Accept Myself

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“Our journey is not about changing into the person we want to become. It’s about letting go of all we are not.” ~Nikki van Schyndel, Becoming Wild

I recently went on personal retreat to once again try to heal my wounds, see my patterns, and find my purpose. I loaded my car with journals from the last two decades and a book of poetry dating back to 1980. I packed my cooler full of nourishing food, but then added a six pack of beer and an expensive bottle of wine—completely unaware that I was about to sabotage my personal growth …

10 Highly Sensitive People Share What Helps Them Take the Sting Out of Criticism

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Criticism can be especially hard for highly sensitive people because we try so hard and we care so much. It’s really fascinating how much it can affect HSPs in particular.

I want to share that because it normalizes our experience, to know we’re not alone in how we experience things. I certainly have developed some tools to help with criticism but can still be impacted at times.

On an anonymous survey I posted, someone wrote that they find my voice so shrill that they could not stand listening to me. I felt the sting.

But it’s important to realize criticisms …

4 Things I Needed to Accept to Let Go and Heal After Trauma

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TRIGGER WARNING: This post references sexual abuse and may be triggered to some people.

“The truth is, unless you let go, unless you forgive yourself, unless you forgive the situation, unless you realize that the situation is over, you cannot move forward.” ~Steve Maraboli

My family immigrated to the U.S. from India when I was sixteen. Being Indian, my traditional family expected me to have an arranged marriage.

At twenty-two, as a graduate music student, I fell in love with an American man. When my family found out about our secret relationship, they took me back to India and …

I Cheated on Him with My Higher Self (and We’re Still Going Strong)

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“It’s okay to let go of those who couldn’t love you. Those who didn’t know how to. Those who failed to even try. It’s okay to outgrow them, because that means you filled the empty space in you with self-love instead. You’re outgrowing them because you’re growing into you. And that’s more than okay, that’s something to celebrate.” ~Angelica Moone

“How could you do this to me? It’s obvious you’re with someone else.”

That was the third and final message I received from my partner of nearly three years, several weeks after we had finally decided to break up. I …

How I Learned to Love My Body Instead of Hating Her

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“Your body does not need to be fixed, because your body is not a problem. Your body is a person.” ~Jamie Lee Finch

I was thirty years old when I realized that I was completely dissociated from my body.

I grew up in the height of the purity culture movement in American Evangelicalism. Purity culture was based on one primary concept: abstain from sex until marriage. But the messaging went further than this.

I sat next to my peers in youth group while the male pastor stood on stage and told us young women to always cover our bodies. For …

Why Codependents Don’t Trust Themselves to Make Decisions and How to Start

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“Slow, soulful living is all about coming back to your truth, the only guidance you’ll ever need. When you rush, you have the tendency to follow others. When you bring in mindfulness, you have the power to align with yourself.” ~Kris Franken

Codependency previously created a lot of pain and agony in my life. One of the ways it manifested was in my inability to trust myself. I would overthink decisions to death, fearful that I would choose the “wrong one” or upset someone if they didn’t agree or were disappointed by my choice.

I was terrified of “making a …

A Simple Guide for Introverts: How to Embrace Your Personality

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“To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment.” ~Ralph Waldo Emerson

The world has a preference for the extroverted among us. In school we learn public speaking, and we are expected to raise our hand and participate in discussions. We act as if what we hear and see from a person can tell us everything there is to know about them. But what about the unspoken, that magical light that lives within us?

Here’s what I’ve learned about being an introvert that has helped me embrace, value, and honor …

How to Protect Our Kids from a Lifetime of Food, Weight, and Body Image Issues

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I went on my first diet when I was around fourteen or so because, as they often do in growing teens, my jeans started getting tight.

And because I grew up in the same anti-fat culture we all have, I hated myself for it.

Around the same time, an adult in my life who was always obsessed with “eating healthy” gave me a copy of the new book she was reading outlining the healthiest way to eat.

It was a book on the Atkins/low-carb diet.

The author spent the bulk of the book demonizing carbs, explaining in convincing-sounding …

How Not Setting Boundaries Serves Our Primal Need for Acceptance

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“When we fail to set boundaries and hold people accountable, we feel used and mistreated.” ~Brené Brown

I used to believe that others didn’t have healthy boundaries. They didn’t know where to draw the line, and I was the victim of overbearing people. People that would always cross the invisible line.

When people crossed that line, it left me feeling uncomfortable, exhausted, and resentful. It felt wrong in my gut, but I never knew how to communicate it or change it until later in life. Lack of boundaries seeped into every part of my life, personal, professional, and everything …

My Deepest, Darkest Secret: Why I Never Felt Good Enough

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“Loving ourselves through the process of owning our story is the bravest thing we’ll ever do.” ~Brené Brown

Lunge, turn, reverse, jump, land and rebound, push, pull, cut, run, double turn, fling, pause…

Not good enough! Smooth the transitions, make it cleaner, find more ease!

Heart pounds, ragged breath, muscles burn…

You need more weight on the lunge and point your damn feet when you jump. Do it again.

Repeat. Lunge, turn, reverse, jump, land and rebound, push, pull, cut, run, double turn, fling, pause…

What is your problem? Why is it so sloppy? Clean it up! Do it again.…

How to Live Your Dharma (True Purpose): The Path to Soul-Level Fulfillment

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“Dharma actually means the life you should be living—in other words, an ideal life awaits you if you are aligned with your Dharma. What is the ideal life? It consists of living as your true self.” ~Deepak Chopra

From the moment I finished high school until my late twenties, I had “purpose anxiety.”

I wasn’t just confused and missing a sense of direction in life; my lack of purpose also made me feel inadequate, uninteresting, and lesser than other people.

I secretly envied those who had cool hobbies, worked jobs they loved, and talked passionately about topics I often didn’t …