4 Ways to Overcome the Struggle with Self-Worth

As I sit back and ponder society and all its complexities, I am comforted knowing just how simple humanity is as a collective. Despite our differences in race, gender, ethnicity, social class, genetics, physiology, and education as a species we are all the same. For one, we were all created by a Master, and created as a Masterpiece. We were all intricately, uniquely, and specially designed. No two individuals are the same. No two individuals will ever have the same fingerprint, or DNA. There is only one you, and there will never be anyone quite like you. Ever.

“God created mankind in His own image, in the image of God He created them, male and female, he created them.”

Gen 1:27

“You created my inmost being, you knit me together in my mother’s womb…”

Psalm 139:13

What sets us apart from each other at our core are 4 specific areas that influence our personality, character, and development of our true authentic self. They are:

1. Environment

2. Values

3. Beliefs

4. Nervous System

These are also the 4 strategic ways to overcome the struggle with self-worth that affects our behaviors, our physiology, and our well-being.

ENVIRONMENT

First, it is important to note Bruce Lipton’s research and how environment + energy have a profound effect on your cells.1 Your cells make up your physiology. Your environment determines how healthy those cells are allowed to grow, replicate, and renew. Who you are at the cellular level represents the foundation of who you are at your very core.

“Just like a single cell, the character of our lives is determined not by our genes but by our responses to the environmental signals that propel life.”

Bruce Lipton, “Biology of Belief: Unleashing the Power of Consciousness, Matter, and Miracles”

If you want to understand why you, as an individual think, act, and feel the way you do, you must look at the environment in which you live. And to do this correctly, it is imperative to view with honest eyes the environment in which you were born into first and foremost. Was it one of understanding, affection, patience, guidance, and nurturing? Or were you surrounded by an environment that was negative, dysfunctional, or toxic? If your environment was unhealthy it could have one or many of the following effects on your system:

Negative - depleting effects on your developing body, mind, and emotions

Dysfunctional – stagnates growth and progression of sense of self

Toxic – poisons and damages pathways in the brain and spinal chord connected to your sense of safety

Some examples of a negative, dysfunctional, and toxic childhood environment are:

Fear based: Parent at home, teacher at school, bully in the neighborhood forced you to comply with their rules and regulations, making you feel full of shame. This can include every level of abuse: physical, emotional, or sexual. Legalistic religious demands, dominating authority, or controlling people can create an environment that will affect you at your core.

Narcissistic in nature: People in your sphere made you walk on eggshells, where you constantly had to comply with a swinging pendulum of ups and downs, depending on the narcissist’s mental state. The sudden change of states left you feeling perpetual angst, affecting you deeply at your cellular level.

Wild and crazy: Exposure to inappropriate and unfortunate environments consisting of drugs, alcohol, or substance abuse, sex, violence, parents in jail, multiple live-in parental roles, or financial lack where food and shelter was not consistent. You were put in place where you were not treated the way a child deserved.

Neglected: Some homes were structured that children “were not to be seen, and even better to not be heard” and due to circumstances you were emotionally or physically neglected and/or emotionally, sexually, or physically abused. The opinions of those who meant the most to you, often gave you little to no assurance that you were anything but a nuisance, an expense, or even a mistake. This reality you existed in created doubts in who you really are.

This upbringing you were brought up in, created the wounded inner child that finds it hard to trust you as an adult today. All of that wounding was not your fault, and was completely out of your control. It is important to understand the wounding your inner child received, can be nurtured and healed by your loving adult self. The damaging effects of your childhood environment do not have to determine your future as an adult. What you were told, made to feel, how you were neglected or abused as a child, does not determine the way you need to feel about yourself, how you allow people to treat you, or how you treat others.

“Sometimes you have to leave behind what you are born into. . . to become who God meant you to be.”

Francine Rivers, “Redeeming Love”

Notice today if you recognize similar atmospheres in your home, work, or social life that you had as a child. It is common to be drawn to “what you know” and consider “normal living” from your early years. Is there a toxic atmosphere you are in today that you have become numb to? Create the boundaries, make the changes, and commit your loving adult self to allow a space where your true authentic self can grow without the negativity, dysfunction, or toxicity that causes you to struggle with your self- worth. That may mean moving, leaving behind, starting, changing, finishing, closing, or creating something new. You are worth it.

VALUES

What you value about your life is attached to your internal representation. Your internal representation includes your thoughts, feelings, mental pictures, sounds, smells, and tastes that are influenced by how you interpret and perceive events and situations you have experienced in your past. Your internal representation determines how you interpret and perceive everything you experience today in the present and tomorrow in the future. This interpretation and perception of events can be clear and focused giving you a healthy internal representation of yourself and those events, or it can be distorted, generalized, or even have some deleted areas giving you an unhealthy internal representation of yourself and those events. Unhealthy internal representations can cause you to create a narrative that embodies how those events made you feel. Those narratives cause you to use labels that put you in a space of restriction, constriction, and self-sabotage stagnating both your personal growth, healing, and physical heath. Difficult childhoods are called ACE’s (adverse childhood experiences) and need to be processed truthfully while integrating your internal representation to those memories in a new way. Narratives and labels embody who you are, by affecting your thoughts, your words, and your physiology at the cellular level. Your values shape your narrative and are influenced by external factors that make an imprint on you from early on.

“Your label embodies your narrative. Your label is impressed onto your mood, your narrative is expressed onto your neurobiology.”

Kai Aird

These influential factors include:

Relational: Family/friends/mentors

Institutional: Church/school

Geographical: Where you grew up

Media:  How information was presented to you

Often, this powerful narrative that was created in the reality you lived in as a child, allowed you to survive. Yes, you survived your childhood because of how brilliant and resilient you were! Now as an adult, you are free to change that narrative which is a powerful determinant of your neurobiology today. Do you tend to blame someone for the way you are today? Do you put someone on a pedestal to paint a “better picture” of what happened? Both are detrimental mindsets blocking your healing journey. What descriptive words do you hear yourself say, or allow others in your presence to say about you, your worth, or your character?  Words have a huge effect on your physiology. Words can be heavy, depressing, or even a downright lie! This is what constitutes heavy baggage you walk around with in your heart, your mind, and your body that drains the very life out of you. Think about it. Do you recite “I have fibromyalgia”, or do you recite “I am fibromyalgia”? Do you repeat “I experience the symptoms of a migraine”, or do you repeat “My migraine” like it is a precious possession, that you are forced to carry around like a ton of bricks?  Do you report “My stomach is upset right now”, or do you report “I am IBS (irritable bowel syndrome). IBS and I are one and the same. IBS is my ride or die in life.” An internal representation of both wellness and illness can’t live in the same space. You must choose. Decide which one you want to represent. It begins with what energy you want to engage with all day. Energy that represents life, or energy that represents death. What you say about who you are has a direct correlation to the energy and vitality your cells are able to heal, replicate, and regenerate. Healing is regeneration of your cells, no matter what your condition. Begin to “LIFESPEAK” with the words you say. Catch yourself before you utter damaging words like “I’m not good enough”, “I’m not smart enough”, “I’m not talented enough”, or “I’m not lucky enough”. Give yourself a break and realize the words you are saying are direct representations of the people or groups of people that instilled those values you now possess. Now, it’s time to align with only the values that best represent who you want to be. Again, the values you change can transform inside your cells when you stop “picking up what they put down”. Is it lack? Is it failure? Is it mediocrity? Is it dread and doom? Put it down once and for all. Stop carrying around that heavy load with you day in and day out. Write down what no longer serves your highest good, light a match to that page. Gone are those values. Burned to ashes. Now, start a fresh page and write down what values you were meant to possess. What does it look like? Don’t go by what it feels like. Close your eyes, and use our imagination. How do you see yourself without that heavy load? That is what you write down. The phoenix in you is going to rise up out of those ashes! These burdens are very light. They include commitment and dedication. Is it abundance? Is it success? Is it excellence? Is it faith and hope? If you call it, you install it. That is the formula you need to use to stop the struggle with self-worth. Stop picking up the values and internal representation they put down onto you. Call out and say, ”that is NOT who I am”, and say out loud, “This is who I am” to install the values you want to possess moving forward. Be intentional.  

BELIEFS

Your beliefs are born from your values. What is important to note, is that your subconscious mind makes up 95% of all your thoughts and beliefs. Your conscious mind makes up only 5%. So, that little voice inside you is what determines what you believe to be true about yourself. Internal beliefs include your:

Appearance

Abilities

Potential

Identity

What do you believe to be true about these 4 areas of your life? Do you hear a critical judgmental voice inside your head that sounds just like the abusive voices you heard from childhood? That is the root of all false beliefs. False beliefs are so damaging because as a child, you were alone, impressionable, and without defense of any kind. False beliefs that began as words spoken by a parent or authority figure, are now projected onto you by yourself. False beliefs were usually spoken to you in a critical, judgmental, and harsh tone of voice, and now your subconscious mind uses that same tone of voice to speak to yourself in your own head. Isn’t that just twisted and diabolical?! It could be 30 years later, and you could be 3,000 miles away from them, but the effects are lasting in your subconscious mind. Maybe your beliefs affect you in a way that causes you to project your hurt and wounding onto those that mean the most to you. Do you often say or do hurtful things that you don’t mean and later regret? The same way and manner in which you were spoken to, can be the same way and manner you speak to those around you. Critical, judgmental, harsh, and demeaning. Realize the intergenerational curse can stop with you. Today. Awareness is the first step in any transformation from a wounded inner child to a loving adult self. Your loving adult self can guide and nurture the inner voice spoken from your subconscious mind. The wounded inner child that felt all the pain and hurt can be nurtured by your loving adult self. The physical condition, chronic pain, or chronic illness you may be experiencing today, can be rooted in false beliefs. That wounded inner child in you desiring a safe space to exist, wanting your deep rooted feelings and needs to be heard and acknowledged, can be presenting as a physical chronic condition. Often pain and illness with this origin does not respond to medication, surgery, or talk therapy alone. Is it migraines, IBS/IBD, low back pain, neck pain, asthma, fatigue, brain fog, skin outbreaks, unexplainable inflammatory conditions of some sort? This kind of meaningful inner work can impact and propel you towards a lasting healing effect that will greatly surpass the temporary effects a massage, a vacation, or a pill can give.

With time, patience, and self-compassion you will overcome the struggle with self-worth and blossom as your true authentic self. You will be, act, and feel the way God created you to be, act, and feel. Remember He created you for a purpose, and He has a plan for your future.

“For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.”

Jeremiah 29:11

NERVOUS SYSTEM

Everything we have spoken about so far involving your environment, your values, and your beliefs have an effect on your mind, body, and emotions. Your mind, body, and emotions are all connected by your nervous system. Your nervous system represents the state of connection to your true authentic self. When your nervous system is dysregulated you are feeling disconnected from your true self, which is what an unhealthy environment creates. I will say again, that the disconnection you learned as a child, is what allowed you to survive your childhood. You are a survivor! Now as an adult, I am here to help you learn to rewire your mind, body, and emotions into connection. Your nervous system can be retrained to no longer self-abandon as a familiar response to old environments, old values, and “false” beliefs. Be encouraged, research now proves the nervous system involving your brain, body, and billions of neuroreceptors can respond positively to neuroplasticity.2 What was energetically “plugged out” within you for decades (disconnection and self-abandonment), can now be “plugged in” with a fresh supply of good energy coming directly from you (self-connection, self-compassion). The struggle with self-worth is over. You are a victorious overcomer! It isn’t trying to create something new out of thin air. It is connecting to what was already there since childhood. It was just suppressed, stuffed inside, shut up, and shut down within you. Your true self has always been inside you and now is the perfect time to meet and get acquainted.

Dr. Clare W. Graves has a marvelous way of explaining how simple it is to understand. He shows there are 3 parts to a value system.

Environment

Values

Nervous System

Psychologist Clare W. Graves “Value System”

The container is your nervous system. The fluid in the container represents your values. The table your nervous system sits on represents the environmental conditions in which you live.

Any person can shift their nervous system based on a shift in their environment. Your environment and your nervous system determine your values. Your values and your beliefs represent your self-worth. Your self-worth can be aligned with your true authentic self when your values and beliefs are given a healthy environment in which your nervous system can thrive and heal. The miraculous regenerative nature of neuroplasticity is yours if you commit, practice, and are intentional about creating that safe space around you. Your reality is what you create with your “LIFESPEAK”, your boundaries, and your internal representation. Your true authentic self will align your self-worth with the creativity, talents, dreams, purpose, and highest good that you were meant to possess. You are a survivor who can thrive and move beyond the ACEs (adverse childhood experiences) you have endured. A rewired nervous system, beliefs that are true, and values that represent your authentic self allow for you to embrace a healthy environment where wellness can prosper. I look forward to walking alongside you as you step into who you really are, with your self-worth in full bloom.

I invite you to continue to follow my blog, newsletter, and upcoming online program as I continue to guide you on your journey towards functional wholeness.

1. Lipton, B. (2008). Biology of Belief: Unleashing the Power of consciousness, Matter, and Miracles. Hay House.

2. Mateos-Aparicio P and Rodríguez-Moreno A (2019) The Impact of Studying Brain Plasticity. Front. Cell. Neurosci. 13:66. doi: 10.3389/fncel.2019.00066