I’ve come to the point where I’ve accepted that I have no sense of my own self-worth. I would even go so far as to say I’ve embraced it as fact in an effort to move forward and beyond it.
But I haven’t always.
Having no sense of self-worth is something which, for many years, I alternated between trying to quick-fix-it-away or ignore it. In both ways, I pretended having no self-worth did not have the effect on my life that it really did.
For most of my early adult years when I did genuinely look at my lack of self-worth issue, I took the magic wand approach. I thought increasing my self-worth should be as simple as grabbing a wrench and adjusting a few bolts.
Wave my magic wand, say “make it so!”, and self-worth appears, by magic.
The problem was that I wanted it to be fixed instantly.
I thought that if I took the right order of steps and actions (“Five steps to heal your self-esteem forever!!”) I would have lasting self-worth. I was only looking for that one time fix. My eyes, perhaps because of my youth, could not see that some things take time and patience and consistency.
I had the correct goal in sight, albeit far off and blurry in my vision, but I was not persistent over time in my actions to be able reach it. I didn’t want to wait, and I certainly didn’t want to take the time to really work at it.
The other way I would approach my lack of self-worth was by pretending it wasn’t the case at all. I would lie to myself by telling myself I didn’t have a problem. I would lie to myself by deciding I had nothing to improve in the area of my self-worth. Sheer denial.
Denying a problem almost always has damaging results.
When I was in my early twenties living on the west coast of Canada, rolling blading was a huge new fad. It was THE thing. Downtown at the waterfront were concrete boardwalks and walkways which lined the coast beside the Pacific Ocean. Most of the time they were filled with people walking, jogging and roller-blading.
The roller-bladers looked so cool. SO much better than the walkers and the joggers.
So much more athletic, with their elbow pads and their wrist guards. The “on your left” they said as the came up behind you, and the whooshing noise they made as they sped past. They were all long limbs and wide strides. They were gracefulness in a helmet.
My eyes were green with envy. I wanted that.
Out of my next paycheck I bought myself a pair of roller-blades. Nothing top of the line, but not bottom of the barrel either. I splurged a little. This was going to be my thing, so why would I skimp out on quality?
Strapped into my new rollerblades when I got home, I felt like an athlete. I had full confidence in my abilities – I had roller skated my entire childhood, how different could it be?
What I had seen in other people was about to BE in me. In my head, I imagined gazelle-like movements.
It turns out inline skates and roller skates are very different creatures. That afternoon I practiced and fell, and practiced again. Balance was an issue. Stopping was a bigger issue. I could not get the hang of it.
I was frustrated because I had expected to throw the skates on my feet and have the skills just there. I got to the point where I could shakily skate across flat ground and sort-of come to a stop. That was it. Frustration made me quit for the day.
The next day my boyfriend at the time suggested we go down to the waterfront with our roller blades. He had owned his for a while, and rollerbladed regularly. “This is it!” I thought. My fantasy was about to become a reality.
Twinges inside, of caution, began to ping at me.
“You’re not ready for this…” they said. “You don’t have the skill to do this yet….”
“Oh shut up!” I thought back. I threw my blades in the trunk of the car and left.
Down at the waterfront, we parked and started putting on our rollerblades. The parking lot we were in was beside a decorative downtown park. Cedar trees grew in groves, lining some small open grassy areas.
People milled about, some of them lounging on the grass relaxing in the sun. Further down, closer to the water, a bagpiper had set up for the day and was playing for a crowd of people.
It was a beautiful sunny day. I breathed in and smelled flower scent from the gardens beds in the park. I breathed out contentedly.
The parking lot was on a slight decline, which steepened at the far end into a path leading down to the boardwalks along the waterfront. My boyfriend started out. Pushing off with one leg, he gained speed quickly on the hill. Skillfully he controlled his speed with his front brake, skated down to the path at the end of the parking lot, and onto the walkway.
My turn.
I stood, shaky in my balance. Sure, I hadn’t practiced that much and sure, I had not given myself enough time to develop any skill. But I believed I could do this, and I really, really wanted to, so that meant I would be able to….right?
I focused on the path. I said to myself in a whisper “I can do this.”. The twinges of caution kicked into high gear. “It’s a hill. You don’t know how to stop….don’t do it don’t do it don’t do it” the voice in my head said. “Shut up shut up shut up” I said back.
Pushing off with one leg, I also gained speed quickly because of the hill. “Skillfulness” was nowhere to be found for me, however. Nor was gracefulness.
I hurtled down the hill at an incredible speed, mostly just trying to stay upright. In my rocket-like state I remembered with clarity the two things I had the hardest time with in my, ummm, 30 minutes of previous practice: steering and braking.
My eyes were pointed at the path down to the water. My body, well, it was pointed at the man who was standing on the grass at the edge of the parking lot, playing bagpipes.
When I say “man playing bagpipes”, what I mean by that is: man, fully dressed in traditional Scottish garb, playing bagpipes for a crowd of people who were all dressed in dark clothing. When I say “dark clothing”, what I mean by that is: attending-a-eulogy type dark clothing.
The bagpiper’s back was to me, but eulogy crowd saw me coming. Their faces changed from looks of mild interest at first, to alarm once they saw the panicked look on mine. I’m sure my flailing arms also gave some cause for concern.
Out of control, amidst gasps and people scattering, I careened onto the grass.
The grass slowed me down instantly. Red faced but upright, the only thing hurt was my pride. People reassembled. I walked carefully on the grass, the rest of the way down to boardwalk. The nice, flat boardwalk.
I am proud to say however – I did miss the bagpiper.
This happened long enough ago that any embarrassment is gone. I chuckle now not only at the end result, but also at my inflated sense of my own abilities. I knew deep inside I was not ready for that hill, but I lied to myself because I wanted it so badly. The results were disastrous.
Even though the story makes me laugh now, there is a larger lesson in it. I do this very thing when it comes to accepting my low feelings of self-worth. I ignore that it is a problem big enough to affect me.
Or, I take it a step even further, I ignore that it’s a problem at all. By doing either of these things, I both stunt myself from growing and I cause myself to crash.
My pendulum used to swing back and forth between inconsistent and impatient attempts to change my low self-worth and denial. Sometimes it still does.
Those moments of true reflection about my lack of self-worth, used to lead to frantic quick-fix attempts. When those failed, I felt that failure so keenly within myself that I shut down. And then I would deny that I felt so badly about myself. “I’m fine, it doesn’t affect me”.
I told myself that lie enough times I believed it.
It is no different than pushing off, shaky, down that hill without enough practice. A pair of roller blades strapped to my feet and no time taken to build skills to be able to actually use the blades properly.
I knew what I wanted, I had my eyes on the goal, but I careened out of control because I had ignored reality.
There are no “five steps to boost your self esteem forever!”. The human spirit is far too complex and too varied for that quick-fix to ever work.
But there is one very important first step on the path towards any real and true growth of spirit. Embracing even the “bad” things about myself.
Especially the bad things.
Image Credit: Lau_Lau Chan
Leila Elizabeth
A bend in the road led me to embrace my introversion, and to discover my identity as a highly sensitive person. As I have moved along the path in learning more about who I am, how to take care of myself as an introvert, and how to handle the challenges of life as an HSP - my love of writing has been rekindled and embraced once again. It intertwines with the journey I am on, and is reflected in what I write.
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