Give Yourself Credit

"Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others."

I had always done the same pattern over and over in my life. I did not believe in myself enough. I did not feel truly worthy of good things in life. So, life for me was not filled with the happiest of experiences. I have spent most of my life doing positive affirmations and even meditating, but this was not enough to heal wounds that keep self worth low and self recognition at bay.

I was 36 years when I did something different. It was a few painful experiences that had me feeling angry for once. Usually when people would treat me bad I would feel down on myself, but not angry and I would continue to tolerate others bad treatment of me until 2006 after a divorce that was very difficult for me and a relative who I felt was verbally abusive, unsupportive and bringing too much drama into my life. I started holding anger towards these people. I did not like feeling so angry all the time and after 6 months of feeling that way I meditated and prayed about it asking God to help me to forgive these people as I did not want to feel so angry. It was the first time that instead of feeling I was their victim I took responsibility for my reaction to them and for how I felt. This action changed my life ever since. I had no idea that taking responsibility would be the catalyst to help me feel better about myself, but it was. Until that time I always felt like I was a victim. My first husband had been abusive for 9 years of marriage and I was always feeling I was a victim. After realizing I was responsible for feeling how I felt no matter what others did I no longer felt like a victim and I stopped tolerating being treated bad. I have slowly had to weed out those who refuse to treat me better and that has been a sad process for me, but I have slowly felt more self worth which most importantly has helped me to not tolerate being treated bad, but it also has helped me to realize I am worthy of recognition and I too deserve good things in life.

I now try to remember not to blame others, but rather to take responsibility for my reaction to others and also to not tolerate bad treatment, and to practice the art of tai chi and simply get out of the way or remove myself from negativity when it happens. This is a work in progress in my life still and I do not claim to do it perfectly every time, but most of the time I feel a peace in me I never used to feel and a happiness that was not there before.