Self Worth

Many people come to my practice for help with self worth. They don’t like themselves and are sure they are not liked very much by anyone else. With little or no self respect they believe themselves to be a failure. But by what and by whose standards are they judging themselves?

This dismal belief system was usually installed as a program into the young and influential mind of the child. It is often unintended but sometimes deliberate and malicious in intent.
Phrases such as ‘you are no good’, ‘you will never be as successful as your brother, father etc‘, or ’you are just as bad as your mother, father etc’, ‘Cant you get anything right’? ’trust you to get it wrong’ and a real killer, ‘you should be ashamed of yourself’. These together with an unending supply of other such depreciating remarks program the personality for a life of slavery to the expectations of others.

There is no love in remarks such as these and so the child becomes the adult with a feeling of worthlessness, a failure, of no value to themselves or anyone else. They spend their lives looking for approval which rarely comes. Should someone accept them for who they are rather than who they think they should be they find it difficult to accept, they have become so sure they are of no value.

These people have often been used as status symbols, expected to achieve the expectations of some ego minded adult who expect the child in their care to be as they are or worse, would like to be. Parents who pressure a child to do well in all the many different subjects at school, the teacher who sees it as a personal insult if a child has a different intellect to his own is creating a child who will live a life of worthlessness if unable to reach socially acceptable standards. When will adults realise that children were not intended to be slaves to the expectations of others. Humans were put upon this world to live their own happiness in their own unique way. They were not intended to imitate the adult in the way a parrot is taught. Every child is unique and their potential lies hidden until some open mined individual can bring it to the surface with love in an expression of happiness.

Of course, the parents reply, in this competitive world the child has to succeed at school. It is necessary to pressure them to work hard, to demand standards, achieve levels of success in exams set by governments and school inspectors who have no thought for the child’s natural abilities, personality or happiness. Rarely do we see love and understanding in teaching, guiding, rarely do we see a child being made to feel good about their own level of success. It is usual to see them compared to expected standards. We are making slaves of our children to the expected intellectual standards of others without due regard to that child’s happiness or natural ability. Is it any wonder that so many youngsters today give up trying to achieve. Accepting they can never be as others would have them be they opt out of the system and with nothing to take its place they either turn to anti social behavior as if to say in their own way, ’I don’t like you or your system, you wont accept me so I wont accept you’ or they suffer a life of worthlessness, a feeling of failure for themselves and others.

These people live the life of a slave, always trying for approval which never comes because they think themselves unworthy of it.

To retain your self worth remember the basic rule. You were not put onto this planet to be slave to the expectations of others, you were born to live your own happiness in your own unique way.

Malcolm S. Southwood