Self-Worth: Five Ways To Protect It...

Hola Fierce Feminina,

Self-Worth. It’s the value you place on yourself as a human being. It’s so important, I had to write about it for two weeks in a row!

The subject of Self-Worth cannot be understated. So much of who we are, and how we show up in the world, is attributed to it. I am so passionate about the subject of self-worth because of my own issues of not feeling worthy or good enough.

There have been times in my life when I felt less than capable and willing to take whatever anyone was willing to give me. I know many of us can do that with things like love, friendship, or objects.

For example, have you ever been given a used broken object that you didn’t need? Then said thank you. However, internally thinking I’ll take it, feeling that it must be what you deserve.

Or have you ever had a friendship with someone who only reaches out to you when they need something? Internally thinking, I am supposed to be okay with this because I love you, right? Both of these are how we compromise our self-worth.

On my journey to building my self-worth and growing my personal power muscle (check out last week’s issue for more info). There was a time in my life when I had nothing. I mean nothing.

I owned a Pontiac Montana van that often left me stranded on the side of the road. The trauma of those experiences of being on the side of the freeway with two small children and no cell phone still haunts me to this day.

So, what does that have to do with self-worth? Having those adverse experiences can affect your self-worth in negative ways.

While writing about the “Five Ways We Compromise Our Self-Worth” by Sharon Martin, LCSW. I wondered if I let the five things; Perfectionism, Overworking, Busyness, Comparison, and People-Pleasing, sabotage my self-worth. How can begin to build or protect my self-worth?

In mental health therapy, we often talk about protective factors against various kinds of risk and abuse. When I thought a little deeper, I wondered what I was doing daily to protect my self-worth. This is what I came up with from a social worker’s perspective.

Five Ways To Protect Your Self-Worth by Marcie Landreth, MSW

(soon to be LCSW)

1. Self-Acceptance -seeing yourself for who you are, with all your flaws, and loving yourself anyway.

2. Release Expectations - releasing the unrealistic expectations we place on ourselves and on others.

3. Contentment - finding a place of calmness and peace within yourself, with what you have, and with where you are in your life.

4. Gratefulness - being thankful for the breath we breathe, the life we live, the people we are connected to, and the world around us.

5. Personal Boundaries - creating fences, and not walls, to keep what we want inside and to keep what we don’t want outside. For example, setting a boundary for our friend that only calls us when they need something. Maybe we try, setting the boundary of telling them we love it when they call but aren’t able to help them financially at this time.

Don’t those feel good! That’s what it looks like to protect your self-worth. It also builds upon last week’s issue of flexing your personal power.

Only you can protect your self-worth. No one can give you it, and they can’t take it away from you. This is the inward work of learning to Be, instead of just doing. There is a sense of peace and personal acceptance when we practice the five protective factors of Self-Worth.

Try that this week to boost your self-worth. ❤️

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