3 Hidden Secrets to Elevating Your Self-Worth

If I am being honest, I am not writing this article because I am 100% confident in recognizing my own self-worth. While I am close, I humbly sit behind my computer and intend to allow my emotions to fall at my fingertips.

I talk a lot about letting go, having a positive mindset, and harnessing self-love in my writings because those are the things, I have struggled with most in my life. To this day, I continue to practice and master the three secrets I am about to share with you. I have been on an almost ten-year journey to discovering myself and what it is I am truly worth.

Today, I want to share the three hidden secrets I have discovered over the years to elevate my self-worth. Before you read on, please note that this is not a shortcut to loving yourself. To truly embrace who you are you must put in the work required to properly heal, and that can take a very long time.

Accountability

The first secret I discovered on my self-love journey was I had to start taking accountability for my life. I spent years placing blame on everyone else for why I was acting the way I was. I depended on alcohol for a long time. Not because I was addicted to the substance, but because I was addicted to the “carefree” attitude it provided me with once I was five shots and three beers deep.

I looked forward to blacking out because then I wouldn’t have to face how I felt looking at myself in the mirror. During my blackouts, I made many poor choices. Choices that left me feeling even worse about who I was and what I saw in my reflection. Choices that should have put me in a body bag more times than I can count.

And you know what? I truly think part of me hoped it would. I constantly had thoughts of suicide without actually wanting to follow through with the act. I would sit in a drunken haze, carving into my arm with a bobby pin, crying and feeling sorry for myself, thinking, “if I did die, would anyone care?” That thought plagued me often.

It wasn’t until I had my closest call with death, that I realized, I have been playing victim my entire life. I have been throwing a pity party for every bad thing that has happened to me. I have allowed every bad choice to further slump me into a cyclone of despair that was never going to end unless I decided to hold myself accountable!

I may not have had a choice in the hardships that I experienced as a child, but I had the choice in how I reacted to them. I had a choice in whether or not to drown my sorrows every weekend due to my lack of self-esteem and confidence. I didn’t realize that feeling pain was inevitable in life, but how you handle the pain is 110% your responsibility.

Once you can start taking full accountability for your life without blaming family members, situations, and feelings for why you are where you are mentally and physically, then you open the door to true healing. This discovery is the very beginning of unearthing who you are and what you are worth.

Forgiveness

Forgiveness goes far deeper than just saying, “I forgive me,” or “I forgive so and so.” Forgiveness is a deeply rooted process. In my own experience, it is more of an energy shift than it is a verbal gesture.

Many of us may feel a heaviness in our lives. Maybe you lay awake at night, and you are immediately haunted by something from your past. Whether it goes back to your childhood, young adulthood, or even stems back to just two weeks ago, most of us tend to hold on to the pain of the past.

Sometimes it’s something that was done to us by someone else, and sometimes it’s because of the poor choices we have made for ourselves.

The reason we hold on to these past traumas is because we love to ask ourselves, “what if” or “why did ____ happen?” Our minds will take us on a sleepless nights’ journey to replay events that have already happened.

With that comes the revival of the pain that is tied to that particular past trauma. Before we know it, we are a mess of negative emotions, till the torture becomes almost unbearable. When we have not explored the paths of forgiveness, we develop toxic coping mechanisms to deal with these reoccurring pains. (Much like I did with utilizing alcohol, so I didn’t have to feel the pain of those traumas temporarily.)

Forgiveness is the most freeing act you can carry out. Once you learn how to forgive yourself and others for wrongdoings you allow yourself the freedom to move to the next step in our secret sequence of discovering your self-worth.

(You might be wondering how you know when you have accomplished forgiveness. You will know you have found it in your heart to forgive when you no longer think back to the past traumas that once kept you up at night. You will no longer feel sadness, anger, or pain when you think of your past, and you will feel energetically “lighter”.)

Let Go

This is by far, the hardest secret to get ahold of. (At least for me, it is.) Years of suppressing pain/guilt, practicing toxic coping mechanisms, and acquiring so many different negative feelings about yourself over that time is a very hard things to let go of. It’s even harder to let go of people’s opinions of you due to those years of brutality and how you have handled your life thus far.

The thing I noticed about myself after mastering secrets one and two, was I was now left with needing the validation of those who “love” me. Whether that be a lover, a friend, or a family member I found myself trying to PROVE myself to every one of them that I am not who I use to be. I began to discover who I was and now felt like I needed to PROVE that version of myself to those I share my life with.

What this ends up doing is it creates a toxic dependency. It puts your worth into someone else’s hands until they decide that you’re not as valuable as you think you are. What does this do? It minimizes your true potential. It slumps you back into feeling guilty for not living up to someone else’s standards. Without even realizing it, you have now transported yourself back to the beginning. You’re not holding yourself accountable for your life which then cycles back into harboring hatred for yourself or others.

The fact of the matter is, YOU hold the power, my friend! You have chosen to place your worth in another’s hands! The only way another person can determine your worth is if you allow them to. So, what is the answer? The answer is simple, let go!

You must let go of the idea that you are not good enough. You must let go of the person who treats you less than you deserve. You must let go of trying to please others. And damnit! You MUST start putting yourself first! Stop thinking so little of yourself that you ALLOW someone else to label your price tag.

You need to realize that no one is born worthless. No one lacks the ability to be loved, respected, and valued, no matter what past you have behind you.

Healing is a rough road because a lot of us can’t see beyond the pain. We feel lost, hopeless, and stuck in our situations as well as in our thought processes. I assure you the human mind is resilient and can always be reconstructed, no matter how much “damage” has been done.

(Tip: Letting go has been incredibly hard for me. Honestly, I am still working on it as we speak. Something that has helped me immensely is meditation. YouTube “Guided Meditation in Letting Go” and go through the process. Try and do one a day or whenever you have downtime to help reprogram your mind in letting go of the things that do not serve you.)

If you or someone you know has thought about harming themselves, please direct them to the number below. There is no harm in asking for help and I assure you, your life is much more valuable than you might feel when consumed with pain. Call or text the number 988