HOW MUCH DO YOU MATTER?
How much do you matter.? How do you know? What measure do you use to determine how much you are worth?
Because we live in a capitalist society it is a challenge to avoid measuring our worth in terms of fame and fortune, or talent and productivity. We all know people gifted with talent, education, and successful careers.
By outward observation they appear to have it made. Yet, if you were to ask them to host a dinner for a very important person, many would say they do not feel “worthy”. I wonder how they measure their personal value.
When I first realized that my worthiness is not quantifiable in terms of achievement, ability, or even character traits like kindness, generosity, or patience, I changed how I measure my self-worth. Our value can’t be measured or defined in these terms.
What does matter, then? Webster defines worthiness as “the quality of being good enough, of deserving attention and respect.”
We bump into difficulties when we define attention and respect as a result of achievement. “If I do enough, earn enough, give enough, then I will be worthy of respect”. But…
WHAT MAKES YOU UNWORTHY?
What if we are homeless or incarcerated? What if depression and anxiety keep us from functioning like our ‘successful’ neighbors? What if, despite all our good intentions, we fail at everything we try to achieve? Can we then claim to be UNworthy? If not, why not?
On the other hand, what if we manage to get an education, raise a happy family, give to the poor, and we still don’t feel worthy? We keep on doing these things anyway because in our minds our self-worth is tied to achievements.
I believe someone defined the act of doing the same thing over and over while expecting change as insanity!
WORTHINESS IS OUR BIRTHRIGHT
Let’s look at our life before achievement was even on the menu. Consider the day we emerged, bawling into this noisy world—vulnerable and useless, except to make people smile, coo, and rush to hold us. “Precious.” “Darling.” “What a treasure!”
The declarations of onlookers flood our newborn ears as witnesses to our inherent value. Worthiness is our birthright. We didn’t have to ‘DO’ anything. Just ‘BE’ and the world smiled. The next thing we know we are struggling to make ourselves worthy of life, to be good enough to receive praise or a cookie and a glass of milk. What happened in between?
Did you ever hear any of these phrases when you were little?
“You’ll never amount to anything without an education.”
“When will you grow up?!”
“How do you expect to make a living with art?
“You’re just like your good-for-nothing father.”
These are just a few of the mantras that shape and twist our hearts into little knots—knots that keep out the vital sense of being treasured that arrived with our birth. How do we ever get it unknotted so worthiness can return and flow through as smoothly as the blood that keeps us alive?
THE SECRET TO FEELING THAT WE MATTER
I believe the secret of feeling worthy is in remembering our birthright as newborns. The Desert Mothers and Fathers had an expression I use daily, “Always we begin again.” Unfortunately, we can’t go back into the womb or even back a bit farther to a tiny piece of DNA waiting to be fertilized. Not in real life. But we can in our imaginations.
I would like to suggest a daily practice of sitting with a photo of yourself as a tiny baby. If you don’t have such a photo, or you find it triggers unpleasant memories, then cut a baby picture out of a magazine and paste it on a piece of cardboard. It will be an avatar of you when life first began. It might even represent a distant ancestor from whose gene pool you inherited your essential goodness.
As you sit with this image, ask yourself what makes this infant worthy? Why do people smile when they hold her (or him)? What does her skin feel like? What color are her eyes and what are they searching for? What makes her giggle? Cry? And why would you want to pick her up? Is she worth being cradled, fed, and treasured? Why? The answer to “Why?” will bring you closer to understanding why you are worthy. Why you matter.
WHEN DO WE LOSE THE FEELING OF WORTHINESS?
The first time someone is late with a bottle, this very wee child knows only hunger. Her body cells know that she is worth being fed, so this unintentional delay by a caregiver must have meaning. A meaning for which she has no words.
As she grows and experiences impatience from parents, conflict from siblings, perhaps even abuse, she is building an entire repertoire of unworthy feelings.
Then the questions arrive. “Who do you think you are?” “What do you think you are doing?” “Why can’t you be more careful?”
The child forgets how treasured she felt in the womb. How happy she made people who just wanted to hold her. How safe she was wrapped in swaddling clothes, sitting on her grandmother’s knee.
She has forgotten her worthiness. You and I are not worthy because of what we do. We don’t matter because we can heal the sick and feed the poor. We may be the most loving, generous, talented person in the world, but that is not what makes us worthy.
We are worthy because we ARE. We EXIST.
As created beings, we are as worthy as the swallow I saw on this morning’s walk and the tall oak into whose limbs she flew. We matter as much as the fish who want to swim in clean oceans and the flowers that grace our window boxes with their beauty.
WE ARE WORTHY. WE MATTER. ALL OF US.
Let’s not let the pollutants of life’s experiences rob us of our birthright. The secret to feeling as if we matter is in remembering! May you have an experience today of remembering the wee person you were the moment you were born, and regain a sense of being precious—valuable beyond measure. And darn cute, too!
(Photo credits from Unsplash – Scale by Vincent-Ghilione; Man on steps by Ben-Hershey; Newborn baby by Alex-Hockett ; cute baby by Irina-Murza ; finger pointing by Johannes-W.;
woman remembering by Anthony-Tran.)
