Being Valued
By others, and by yourself. But most importantly, by yourself.
In my most recent Sunday letter, I wrote that one of the realizations I’ve had in the past few weeks was around my wound of feeling unvalued, and that I would write a post about it.
So, in this piece, I’ll be going into what this wound is for me exactly, where it came from and how it came to be, and what I’ve realized about it — as well as how I’ll be moving forward with it.
“…one of the things I realized — and did some shadow work + shadow integration on — was the exact nature of my wound around feeling unvalued. I’ve known for a while now that I felt unworthy all my life, but I didn’t realize until now that that wound [feeling unvalued] was its own thing entirely (though still connected to my feeling unworthy).”
I’ve written about this a lot on my IG and in posts here (such as this one), but I felt worthless — as a human being — throughout my childhood and teenage years and up into my late 20s. Even now, there are times I have to remind myself that I am worthy, and that I am enough. Though I’m in a much better place compared to even just a few years ago — I now know for certain that I am and have always been inherently enough — the question of Am I really enough? comes up from time to time.
It came up for me again recently.
I forgot exactly what happened (there have been a lot of things happening for me, both internally and externally, lately), but I do remember it being a series of events that brought up feelings of my not being as valuable as other people. And that itself brought up the question of where that feeling came from, and when it first began.
Going back to my feelings of worthlessness that I had growing up, a lot of that had to do with my being co-dependent on my parents and siblings and looking to them to “save” and “rescue” me (as I wrote about in this post), but much of that was also due to my being compared to others — my siblings, my cousins, my friends, my peers, or my parents’ friend’s children — by my parents, and hearing them, as well as my relatives, compare other kids/teenagers to me, my siblings, and others. It essentially felt like a competition, and I was usually the one who “lost” while the other person was praised or, as it felt to me, given more favor, approval, and love than me. Whether it was a student who was in my grade level who had a higher GPA than me and/or did a lot of extracurricular activities on top of getting good grades, or my friends who spent less money at the mall than I did, I often felt like I wasn’t valued, and like I was just never enough. Like I always fell short of others’ expectations of me.
As I got older, this bled into my [romantic] relationships, as I always found myself attracted to and in connections with guys who used me as a rebound, as someone to fill an emotional void that they had within them, or as a “placeholder” between girlfriends — all of this leading up to them ghosting me. (I also had next to zero self-worth and saw things through rose-colored glasses, but those are stories for another post.) Essentially, it always felt like the guys I was in romantic connections with ended up choosing — and valuing — another girl over me.
And so the cycle of feeling like I wasn’t valuable continued.
I wish I remember exactly what events happened recently that made me reflect on this wound of mine. I do remember I felt like I was being pitted against or compared to someone else (in each situation), and that each event brought up a lot of fear and anxiety in me. Like, a lot. At first I felt really helpless to the emotions, to these feelings that seemed to come up again and again. But — I decided to get curious about them. (In the past I would have either tried to shove them down, or put up a sense of false bravado so I didn’t have to feel so vulnerable.) Getting curious about my fear and anxiety was the key to me realizing that it was about me not feeling valued or valuable — particularly not as valuable as another person. It brought up the feeling that I would never be as valuable as anyone else, and thus would lead to me receiving less love — or none at all — and then being abandoned. This led to me digging deeper within myself, and remembering how I was often compared to others as a child and teenager, or heard others being compared to someone who was “better” or more favorable to the person doing the comparing.
But that’s just it, isn’t it? The person doing the comparing has his/her own ideas of what is “good” and “bad”/”favorable” and “unfavorable,” which are based on his/her own perception and views of the world, which in turn is influenced by his/her upbringing, societal norms, life experiences, and his/her internalizations of those experiences. So it really isn’t about me — or the person being compared — at all. It isn’t about our inherent worth as human beings.
I don’t blame my family, or anyone, for this internal wound that I now have. Yes, the wound came into being as a result of people in my family comparing me to others and others to different people, and it does hurt, but I remind myself that a) it has nothing to do with who I am as a person, and b) they didn’t — and don’t — mean it in a you’re-not-worthy-or-inherently-enough-as-a-person way. And, honestly, if anyone — not just my family — does mean it in that way, that’s their opinion, not fact.
Going back to my above examples of my being compared to a student in my grade and to my friends after being at the mall — when I was in high school (this happened in middle school and elementary school too, but most often in high school), my parents gave more praise to my peers and friends who got higher grades than me; to them, higher grades meant greater chances of getting into a prestigious college, which they equated to getting a stable career with greater income. Having come here to the US from Vietnam as teenagers, needing to both learn a new language, adjust to a different environment, and “start from scratch” in a sense, my parents really wanted me and my siblings to have a good life. A secure one. And this ties into the example I gave above about my friends being praised for spending less money at the mall than I did. Often times, before I went out with my friends, my mom would give me some spending money. After a few hours, she came back to pick us up, and I nearly always had bought more things than my friends. She would tease me for doing this, with my friends listening in the back seat, and me feeling embarrassed, ashamed, angry, and upset. (My mom playfully laughed while doing this, but I understood the underlying meaning. Generally speaking, Asian culture encourages “beating around the bush” over making direct statements [something encouraged in Western culture]. Having been born and raised in the US, I’m familiar with both styles of communication.) Looking back now, I both acknowledge that I was very hurt by what my mom did, and I see it as her way — and ultimately, the indirect Asian way — of communicating to me that she disapproved of my spending habits. She was worried that I would grow up not knowing how to spend money wisely, and therefore struggle financially.
So, what do I do with all this information? What now?
First, I recognize — and will recognize, when this undoubtedly comes up in the future (‘tis life) — that, when put in a position where I feel that I’m being judged against someone else, that that brings up in me my wound of not feeling valued or valuable and my fears of abandonment and that I really am worthless. (Woo, that last part still cuts deep.) Second, I feel all my feelings, feel all of the emotions that come up within me, and just let them flow. No trying to distract myself from them (though I do still do this from time to time, but am aware of it), intellectualizing them without allowing myself to feel them, or berating myself for having them.
Just, being with them, and with that part of me that is hurting. Taking deep, conscious breaths, and grounding myself. Becoming centered.
Then, when I am ready, I remind myself, and that part of me, that I am worthy. That I am enough. That that person’s judgement of me, his/her choosing someone else over me or placing more value on that other person, does not speak to my intrinsic value or worth as a human being. They (the person doing the choosing) have their reasons for making their choice, and those reasons do not diminish my value, nor do they speak to my being worthy of being loved or not.
I just had a thought. For so long, almost three decades, I operated — both consciously and unconsciously — from a place of Am I lovable? Am I worthy? Am I enough? Please, I can be those things for you. Please don’t leave me. I can do better. I’ll try harder. Please stay. (Wow. I teared up just typing that.) rather than from the place of I am lovable. I am worthy. I am enough. and simply radiating that out.
And whatever, or whoever, comes to me from there… well, I’ll show up fully, as I Am.
Wow. That’s a lot. Now that I type it all out, I realize just how many internal energies I’ve been moving through these past few weeks. (And, these past three years, though these past few weeks have been deeper layers to it all. And who knows; maybe three years from now I’ll have uncovered an even deeper layer to this.)
As I sit here at my desk, looking outside my window, with my cat plush that I just got today on my lap (my inner child is so happy with her [I named her Zuzu]), I can’t help but think how we’re all trying our best, doing what we can to figure ourselves and Life out, using the knowledge, experience, and tools (mental, emotional, and physical) that we have (yes, even the people who’ve hurt us — though this doesn’t excuse what they’ve done or may continue to do). Some of us have had experiences that gave us, or from which we took, a strong emotional foundation — like emotionally-attuned parents in our childhood — while others had experiences that left them with a yearning to prove themselves and the belief that they had to work for love. These are, of course, only examples; we are all shaped in so many ways, and every area of our lives — from our self-belief to our comfortability with emotions to how we feel about money — is inextricably affected by and woven into our internal roots.
The good news — if we feel trapped or powerless to how we’ve been shaped, it is possible to change the patterns we may carry from this. It’s not an easy road to travel by any means, but it is one that will set us free.