Worthy in this body, right now
Self-worth is knowing we're already good enough - no hustle required
Hello! This week we’re talking about self-worth.
I spent most of my life believing I had to hustle for worthiness. My eating disorder was the most powerful method I had to control the messy, unruly parts of myself that I believed would be shunned by the people around me if I allowed myself to stop hustling.
Since I was told (and believed) my body was a problem, I oriented a lot of my self-criticism around my weight. But it didn’t stop there. I also believed I was too loud, too excitable, and generally too much.
I longed to fit in, to be accepted and loved. To do this, I fought to control and dominate the big parts of myself, including my body, voice, needs, and spirited nature.
I restricted my weight. I also restricted pleasure and ease. I restricted fury, desire, appetite, longing, despair, and loneliness. I kept myself small because I didn’t believe I was worthy without shrinking myself.
I thought I had to restrict and hide my natural, unbound self in order to belong. And make no mistake: belonging is essential to humans. We are hyper-social beings, and feeling as if we fit in and are part of a group is vital to our survival.
From early childhood, I didn’t believe that I was worthy of acceptance and belonging without desperately fighting the parts I thought were too big.
In recovery, I started asking myself: What if I’m already worthy? What if I’m enough? What if I can stop trying so damn hard and trust that maybe, just maybe, I’m lovable as-is, no hustling required?
I started building the belief that I was born “good enough” and never needed to hustle for worthiness in the first place. I questioned the voices that told me my body needed to be controlled and the harsh inner critic that told me I needed to change to be loved.
I realized that while people had been unkind to me, especially when I was young, the least-kind person in my life had become my own inner voice. She was a total jerk! Every day, she told me I wasn’t good enough and had to work my butt off (literally!).
In recovery, I changed my critical inner voice and taught her that she didn’t have to fight my body in order to be worthy of love and acceptance.
Self-worth is the belief that you’re a good person who deserves to be treated with respect, not a flawed person who needs to work hard to earn respect. Self-worth is key to well-being and recovery. Yet most of us believe we need to hustle for worthiness.
Because of the tyranny of diet culture, sexism, and other unfortunate aspects of our society, many of us think we need to lose weight, exercise more, eat “clean,” and control our appetites and instincts to deserve respect.
It’s audacious to believe that we’re worthy without trying to control our weight, eating, and exercise. Let’s be audacious!
To get free of my eating disorder, I learned to respond to my inner critic with a voice that says I’m already good enough. I freed myself from the idea that working harder was the only way to get the love and acceptance I desperately craved.
I changed the way I talk to myself. Before, I had endless chatter in my mind like: “You ate too much.” “You’ve gained too much weight.” “You’re eating like crap.” “You’re not exercising enough.”
Trying to stop my inner critic from saying those things just made things worse, more intense, and cruel. I was criticizing myself for being self-critical. Ugh. Unhelpful.
Instead of trying to control my inner critic, I started responding to her with a kind, loving voice that speaks the language of self-worth. She says things like: “You’re doing just fine.” “You’re worthy of love.” “I accept you exactly as you are.” “You don’t have to lose weight to be loved by me.”
It felt a bit silly at first, but with practice it’s become second nature. Sure, I still have a critical “first” voice who shows up in times of stress, but my kind “second” voice is always there, ready to remind me that everyone feels bad sometimes, but if nothing else, I’ve got my own back.
With time and patience, this practice of self-talk has helped me build self-worth that feels solid and secure.
🤔 What about you?
Have you been suffering under the cruel regime of an inner critic? What’s it like to consider that you’re already worthy as you are and don’t need to hustle to belong? What’s it like to imagine you can accept the messy, unruly parts of yourself?
If you’re a paid subscriber, I’ve got a printable worksheet for you that will help.
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