Most of us carry a deep sense of unworthiness and suffer from a lack of believing in ourselves. It shows up in our posture, our life choices, our health and relationships, and in a myriad of ways in which we don’t trust ourselves and firmly believe that we are not enough. We shame ourselves for who we think we are. And we take all this as if it was the real, written-in-stone truth of who we are. It is not, and we are not this!
Whether our parents and caregivers so tragically misinformed us about who we are when we were young, or whoever spread the lies…, we are adults now, and we are the ones reinforcing these debilitating beliefs about ourselves. We are the ones judging ourselves so mercilessly. And we are the only ones who can stop it. We do not need the world’s approval of who we are, nor their permission to claim our birthright of freedom and happiness, and our power. We are the only ones denying this to ourselves.
Give yourself permission to let go of all the labels and limiting ideas about your self. Let me assure you, beautiful Child of God, that if you feel unworthy and undeserving, you have forgotten who you are. This is a serious issue, and not something that incense, yoga pants or organic food can fix. Any continued outward focus just gets us more lost, and despite appearances of peace, further away from ourselves. This deep wound of misplaced identity cannot be filled with pizza, a new dress or moving cross country. It calls for real healing and an experience of our true Divine Self.
We have work to do and there is no point in putting it off any longer or pretending that it isn’t excruciatingly painful not to know who we are. If we want to feel whole instead of feeling that in our imagined unworthiness, we deserve punishment and owe everyone our lives, then we need to be honest and get our priorities straight. What could be more important than our own healing and awakening? No “yeah, but…” or “but what about my responsibilities…” holds when you look straight at your habitual self-destruction. No one is going to do this for you, but you are not alone. And the moment you say, “let’s do this…”, the universe rushes to support you.
So how do we overcome these yucky, limiting believes about ourselves? There is no other expert on your life than you, and I am certain that you will, with determination and persistence, find what works best for you. I know from deep personal experience that ingrained patterns and beliefs need to be healed at the root cause. If you were told as a child over and over, verbally or non-verbally, that you don’t matter and will never amount to anything, then you have emotions that need to be felt and allowed expression. The same goes for past-life experiences that may be the cause of guilt, shame and feeling unworthiness. Whether this expresses itself as inferiority or superiority – it is the same affliction. And we need to do the emotional healing no matter how long it takes or how messy it feels. Forgiveness is necessary, especially of ourselves.
It is important, however, to balance going back and finding and healing the roots of our destructive patterns and beliefs with present-day experiences of who we really are. We need to allow ourselves to be shown our true nature that lies beyond right and wrong doing, and judgments about ourselves. It is essential that we learn to trust ourselves. And to do this, we need a new experience of ourselves. We need to replace the lies and mistaken beliefs with the truth. The light and love that we have been chasing externally is within us, and we will see and experience it as such when we allow ourselves to do so. It is our God-given right to express our true Being. But we usually don’t know we have something until we give it away. In other words, shine your light so that you can know and remember who you are. And you will learn to trust the new evidence that witnesses to your true nature and replaces feeling lost and unworthy with the knowledge that you are a priceless Child of God.
Neha