Saturday, October 18, 2008

Worth

I have a quick moment from the conference and had I wanted to post this quote from the book I'm reading called Comeback: a mother and daughter's journey through hell and back by Claire and Mia Fontaine. It is a journey about overcoming incest and rebuilding a mother-daughter relationship. I don't have time to go into all the details, but it is a very interesting story, especially because after exhausting traditional therapies, Claire turned to an unconventional center halfway around the globe in the Czech Republic to help her daughter. Anyway, here's the quote directed at Mia:

"My experience of you is that you underestimate the effect you have on other people because you don't know your own worth."


I think many of us can relate to the idea of not knowing our worth or feeling unworthy of certain things: gifts, love, treatment, happiness, etc. I think it is something to think about. What is your worth? How do you go about finding it? How does it make you feel when someone says you are worthy of life, living, happiness, love?

3 comments:

Kristina said...

Tiptoe,

This is SUCH a hard topic for me. It's not that I don't think that I'm worth love or happiness, but I do have the belief that I have to work to earn whatever is given to me. Something given so freely to me - no, that is not right or not fair or I don't deserve it.
I am moving beyond this belief in SOME ways, as I gain confidence in myself at work (I don't know if it's sad or positive that work is making me feel more confident in general, but that's been a new experience) and also because of my relationship with my partner who is amazing.
Interesting question, however, and it comes up in therapy on a regular basis.

Wrapped up in Life said...

Were you listening in at my t's appt last week? Because this is what we discussed...when I had to oblige that I wasn't even fighting when she asked what I was fighting for; am I worth it?

The question of the day. Why can we place so much value on others and completely deny our own?

p.s. I told her I needed more than a week to sort this one out!

Tiptoe said...

Kristina, I think it is great that you are reviewing your idea of worth and working on confidence. I don't find it negative at all that work is helping you to gain confidence. Sometimes it doesn't matter where it comes from, but that you get to that point.

GBML, yes, worth, a difficult question. I agree it is much easier for us to look at others as worthy and not ourselves. It feels like an uphill battle sometimes, but hopefully ever inch we make further up the mountain, we will understand our worth more.