01 Nov Are You Worth It?
I want to follow up on my last blog that referenced the video by Brene Brown. I like a lot of what she had to say and as I have thought even more about it, there is one comment of hers that has stuck with me the most. She was comparing the sole difference between people who have a strong sense of love and belonging versus those who do not and said, “The people who have a strong sense of love and belonging believe they are worthy of love and belonging. That’s it.” I remember when I first heard that comment and my eyes filling with tears.
I saw a TV show several years ago called If You Really Knew Me in which a group of high-school students talked about the fear they had with the whole idea of really being known. The fact is, many, if not all of us carry a deep shame and for lots of us, this deep shame causes us to question our worthiness for love and belonging. We just can’t imagine anyone would really love us if they knew we did this or that, had this or that thought or fantasy, or had this or that horrible thing happen to us.
My friends, it’s not about whether you have this shame, but about whether you allow this shame to define you more than it should. The human capacity for love includes a range of love that we qualify as unconditional. A few, sadly, have never really been offered unconditional love, at least not in a form that resonates with them. Many more have been offered unconditional love but just cannot imagine being worthy of accepting it. And these are some of the ones most likely to offer it to others. I can only ask those of you who are burdened with deep shame to consider a life in which you accept your worthiness for love and belonging; not because you are not flawed but because we are all flawed. You ARE worth it.
