Wednesday 9 December, 2009When Self Worth Finally Comes

There is a tendency in relationships to put the blame upon one’s self when our partner is not accepting of something about ourselves. In my situation, I spent many years upsetting my own sense of self-worth by my partner’s rejection of me physically. When the understanding finally came-from him-that there was nothing wrong with me but that it had all been his own perception, the anger I felt at myself was more than the anger I felt at him.

It had not been clear to me, until that understanding, how much I had allowed his perception of me to affect my own perception of self-worth.

Over the years, ignoring all the nice things that others had said to me and about me, I accepted this perception of my partner’s as a true one, since he knew me intimately and for so long. “Of course he had reason to reject me physically and not be attracted to me,” I thought-I was by far overweight, I cared little for what I wore, I didn’t wear makeup of any kind, I didn’t style my hair….all in all, I showed little respect to myself by caring for myself. It was if I had been waiting for someone to come along and discover the Cinderella underneath the soot and then, perhaps, I’d have a guarantee of love (and not hurt)-and then I’d throw off the soot and dirt and blossom into a lively beautiful woman.

Delusions can be so believable.  Particularly when there have been past hurts that have been quietly feeding and destroying one’s self-worth for what seems like forever.

When my partner finally became clear on what his actions (or lack of them) had done to me, he was deeply sorry for contributing bad feelings towards myself. While I appreciated this breakthrough on his part, in truth I was more glad for the awareness of what this had brought me. How I had allowed one person’s opinion and perception of me to become my barometer of who I was! I experienced a deeper glimpse into how I had kept the bad feelings going and how I had participated in my feeling bad. I discovered that once one becomes aware of something like this, one can’t help but make some positive changes.

All my life I’ve read about how one has to appreciate and recognize one’s own self-worth and have self-respect and self-love for one’s self. All my life I have struggled with these words and feelings and felt doomed in some ways because I couldn’t reach this state of self. “If I have to love and respect myself before someone else can, what happens then if I can’t learn it?” became my inner panic.

But now I have found a sense of self-worth and I can honestly tell you that it is a good feeling to have. It is like having a warm blanket to pull out of the closet and wrap around yourself when you are shivering on a cold winter’s night.