.png)
Your doubt concerning your self-worth is the main obstacle to your emotional and inter-relational harmony
This doubt is the cause of your greatest fears such as being rejected, laughed at, ignored, unloved, and most of all, being alone.
Loneliness and Doubt
“Loneliness is the disease of our age, and its cause is self-doubt. Fear of being alone is perhaps our most ancient one. It comes from the fact that in the past, he who was not accepted was ostracized from the group. In those days, that did not mean simply feeling lonely, but also being unable to survive.”
Another factor that makes us fear rejection or not being accepted by others is the fear of being punished by them or by God. We have been brought up to believe in a God, whose love is conditional, depending upon whether we are perfect in His/Her/Its eyes or not.
Childhood Programming
We receive messages from our parents and other important persons throughout our childhood years concerning whether and under what conditions we are good or worthy.
As children, we learn from adults that we must measure our self-worth by:
1. What others think of us.
2. The results of our efforts in school, our profession, and life.
3. Our appearance
4. How we compare to others.
5. How much do we know.
6. How much money do we have. 7. And various other conditions
Your self-worth
“If you had more self-acceptance, you would have less need to prove yourself to others.”
The doubt of your self-worth then becomes your greatest obstacle to inner peace, harmonious communication, and loving relationships. These doubts are the foundation of most of your negative emotions and relationship conflicts.
Overlook others negativity
Then you would not feel offended so frequently and you could overlook others negativity and be at peace with them regardless of their behavior.
Let us now look at how you can increase and stabilize your self-acceptance.
The first step is to discover the situations in which you lose your sense of self-worth or self-acceptance.
The reasons you most often lose your feelings of self-worth are examined in the following questionnaire.
OBSTACLES TO LOVING OURSELVES
In which situations do you lose your sense of self-love, self-worth, self-esteem, or self-acceptance?
1. When others ask for your help and you * do not say “yes” *, or do not respond.
2. When you have * made a mistake * or have * failed * at some effort.
3. When * others are more capable * than you are at certain tasks or concerning certain qualities (i.e. intelligence, artistic ability, speech, sports, cooking, professional success, their children’s success, economically, making friends, employing disciplines).
4. When * others attract more attention, * esteem and respect in a group situation.
5. When others * have offered more to you * than you have offered them.
6. When you are * not perfect *.
7. When * others criticize, are angry at or reject you *.
8. When * others do not agree with you or believe that you are wrong *.
9. When others * can manipulate you *.
10. When * you have “created” pain * for others.
11. When you are * not in harmony with your conscience *.
The accompanying more detailed questionnaire will help us determine more clearly when we lose your feelings of self-worth. We suggest that as you read through it, you mark those items that might relate to you.
I Tend to Lose My Feelings of Self-Worth: (Worth what; love, happiness, health, success, satisfaction?)
1. When others criticize me, blame me, or do not approve of me.
2. When others are angry with me.
3. When my children, spouse, or parents are not happy, healthy, successful, or satisfied.
4. When I do not know as much as others around me.
5. When I do not have many friends.
6. When my house is not clean and in order.
7. When my partner shows interest in others.
8. If I am not successful professionally.
9. If I do not have enough money.
10. If I am not attractive to the opposite sex.
11. If I do not make an impression on others.
12. If I do not have many dating successes.
13. If others do not respect me.
14. If my child is ill.
15. If I do not have what others have.
16. If I am not perfect.
17. If I do not achieve many things.
18. If others can cheat or mislead me.
19. If I do not have
20. If I do not do
21. Other reasons
SOCIAL PROGRAMMING OR CONSCIENCE
Once you have established the particular situations or stimuli that obstruct your feelings of self-worth or self-acceptance, you will need to separate your answers into two groups.
1. Those which must do with * social programming * and not with your conscience. In such a case, you need to analyze each reason separately as you attempt to discover and change the beliefs that cause you to lose your self-acceptance in those situations.
When you lose your feelings of self-worth because of social programming you are buying into society's illusions concerning who is worthy and who is not. You are measuring yourself by superficial standards set by society such as money, appearance profession, etc., and not by your conscience, such as honesty, love, sincerity, selflessness, etc.
2. Situations in which you reject yourself because your * actions are not in alignment with your inner conscience *. You behave toward others, as you would not like them to behave toward us. Your answers to 10 and 11 in the first questionnaire might indicate such situations.
In such cases, you are interested in how you could react differently in those situations so that your behavior is in tune with your conscience.
In these second cases which have to do with conscience, you will most often find that you behave in such ways because you are being controlled by the previous categories if social beliefs.
For example, you tell lies (a matter of conscience) because you believe that your self-worth depends on what others think about you and thus want to hide the truth from them.
The final solution for the matter of your self-worth is to realize that everyone deserves love and respect exactly as they are regardless of all their flaws simply because they are unique aspects of divine creation- just as all flowers and all of nature.
In such a case, you must not confuse your ability and/or a morality with the worthiness of love and respect. As aspects of divine creation, we all deserve love and respect regardless of our ability or morality.
The difference is that those who have the ability deserve positions of greater responsibility than those without. While those without morality do deserve our love and respect, they may not deserve trust or freedom to move about in society, until they are healed of their problem.
Further reading you might find interesting: