Title alone kind of makes you squirm, huh?

I wanted to write the third post in my series on “Pain and Pleasure and Motivation and all the things”. It’s coming. But it can wait. I want to talk about worthiness. I want to talk about self love, and what it really means, and how it really shows up in our lives when we don’t have it. When we don’t even KNOW we don’t have it.

We’ll start small, okay? Bite sized chunks. Baby steps.

Have you ever felt uncomfortable receiving a gift, a compliment, a kindness, or support from a friend, lover, family member, or even a helpful stranger?

Maybe made excuses as to why it was no big deal, or come up with another way to minimize yourself in the situation?

Or know that you would drop anything to be there for the people you love, but would never ask for help in return….because you don’t want to inconvenience anyone?

Squirm out of a compliment before?

“What a beautiful dress!” 

“Oh…yeah it would look better if I were five pounds lighter” or the perennial favorite: “Oh, it’s just Target”.

a: Target has some cool shit

b: since when do you have to spend a million dollars to look fabulous

I have known people who flat out ignore you and change the subject when you give them a genuine compliment. Hint: it’s not because they’re rude.

A client recently told me he can’t handle other people “doing things for him“.

“It makes me so uncomfortable. I hate it. I feel guilty when people do things for me. I don’t like it at all.”

“Why not,” I asked.

“I don’t know…..I just feel really bad when people do things for me…”

“Do you like doing things for other people?”

*brightens up*

“OH yes, I LOVE it, it makes me feel so good inside. It really brings me so much joy.”

“Why would you deny other people the same pleasure then?”

*silence*

“Oh.”

We cannot receive from others when, at our core, we do not feel worthy. This is one of SO many reasons that it is my mission in life to be a champion of authentic self love. Plain and simple.

Remember those people I mentioned who will ignore or completely dismiss a compliment and change the subject?

Not rude. Not rude at all. Their shame has been triggered, and they want to squirm out of that compliment as fast as they can in case you see it. An often-unconscious feeling of unworthiness lies at the heart of it. And we do not allow in that which is massively out of alignment with our world view. At least not until we do the healing work to be able to receive love, in any form.

Here’s the deal:

To truly receive love, and acts of love, we must feel worthy of love. And I’m not going to throw platitudes or fluffy memes at you (at least not about this), because it’s HARD FUCKING WORK to learn to love yourself. To overcome years of ingrained patterns of unworthiness. Trust me, I’m a doctor. Not really. But trust me, because I’ve lived it. And if there were a doctorate for this, I’d have the plaque on my wall.

It’s time to make this a real conversation. When we can see it, when we become aware of these patterns in ourselves, we can heal them.

If each one of us can take on this journey…and it ain’t an easy one, my friends, but it is the most important one you will ever undertake…we can systematically heal this broken world. No bullshit.

If you see yourself in any of this, start small (if you don’t, then you probably aren’t going to like my blog anyway so why are you reading it when you could be watching a cat fall into an aquarium?). Receive a compliment, and just ACCEPT it. Look the person in the eye and simply say, “Thank you. That feels so good to hear”. And notice what’s going on inside of you when it happens. That’s where the information lies. Sit with it.

Sparkle on, friends.

JW