Healing Through Connection

Today I was talking with one of my people about messages she has received from her parents, what baggage they have, and where that has come from. As we were identifying what her parents bring into interactions, we started to talk about where her parents derive worth from. This led me to ask her, what a realize, is a really important question…where does our worth come from?

Depending on who you ask, the answer may be different. Here are some of the most common answers/beliefs that I would say I’ve heard.

Our worth comes from:
– What we achieve or how successful we are
– How we treat others or make others feel
– How much we “get it right”
– Whether people like us or not
– How true we are to ourselves
– How hard we work
– The choices we make

However, by these standards, a new born baby does not have worth. They can’t give anything, achieve anything… they can’t make choices… they can’t even understand that others have experiences separate from them. Would you ever look at a baby and believe they have no worth? If you are mostly healthy-ish (bit of an inside joke on that one), the answer is of course not. A baby has value. A baby, without doing anything at all, is worthy of love and care, worthy of safety, worthy of respect, and is enough, as they are. That means though, that our worth does not come from the things above. We are born with our worth and we don’t have to do anything to earn it.

So if it’s not from what we do or do not do, what we achieve, what we give, what we receive (otherwise a baby would have none)…it means that we are enough, no matter what. Our worth is not conditional.

Now that doesn’t mean that we receive those things we are worthy of…which is where we come to doubt our worth in the first place. My person and I talked a lot about generational trauma and how it is passed down. As parents, we generally want our kids to do better and feel better than we did. If I believe that worth comes from what I achieve then I will push my kids towards achievements, so that they can feel the worth, I have strived to find but fell short of, because here’s the thing, it’s never enough. Perfection is unattainable, there will always be failure or a message of do more, that’s not enough. I may then, unfortunately miss the needs they have and will, unintentionally, lead them to feel the same lack of worth that I’ve been fighting. They will then learn that it is never enough, there is always more to achieve, someone who does better, a perceived failure…

I need you to hear this… YOU ARE ENOUGH. YOU HAVE WORTH AND VALUE. YOU DESERVE LOVE, CARE, RESPECT AND SAFETY. What you do, what you don’t do, what you achieve, what you give others, what you receive, how many friends you have, how good you are or are not at something, the choices you have made…none of it can change that.

You have heard that you are not enough and that is not true. That is the result of trauma, of messages passed on, of people’s lack of healing. Your worth is not something to be found or earned. You were born with it. You are enough despite what you’ve heard, despite how you’ve been treated…that is about them and their wounds, not you. Just as you did nothing to gain your worthy when you were born, other than to be you, to be alive, to exist, you can do nothing to lose it.