Lived experience: Part III

This article has been submitted to us by Deb Roberts, Self-care Expert and Director of Yogabean, a Career Money Life Certified Supplier.

Is worthiness a myth?

I don’t need to do work to be worthy.

I don’t need a job to be worthy.

I don’t need a career to feel worthy.

I don’t need children to feel worthy.

I don’t need a husband to feel worthy.

I don’t need a family who loves me to feel worthy.

I don’t need to help humankind to feel worthy.

I don’t need to exercise to feel worthy.

I don’t need to do community works to feel worthy.

But I feel I do!  It is blinding me at the moment.

For as long as I can remember my sights are set fairly high on a daily basis and I don’t ever (if rarely) make the mark.

I swear I’ve been academic since being very young and a very studious child, teenager and adult.

If I’m doing work then somehow I feel like I’m making good use of time.

If I’m not I’m somehow wasting time.

Just chilling and doing ‘nothing’ is not on the radar unless I’ve really been doing A LOT of work.

What a trap!  Where did this come from?  A mix of nurture and nature and culture, no doubt.

I’m sitting outside a psychiatric clinic where I’ve been getting an outpatient treatment called TMS(Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation).

It’s meant to stimulate the part of the brain where mood is enhanced and has had positive research findings.

I’ve done 26 treatments.

So far it’s not been working from my vantage point.

My attitude has not been particularly positive but that may just be where I’m at.

I’ve been told to get to the root cause of my suffering…the stressors as such.

It’s because I don’t feel worthy for just living even though living is the ONLY thing I need to be doing and contributing as a human being.

There are people who are inpatients congregating outside the clinic and most of them smoking because they can no longer smoke in a designated area out back so they inhale and exhale on the front steps – breathing out and in, out and in – some more deliberate and intense than others.  Not dissimilar to yoga teaching breathing out and in, some more deliberate than others.  What a paradox.

Why is it that we can look ok from the outside and be falling apart inside.

I’m told that those who are insightful can see through the façade to see the unhappiness in people.

It’s definitely there.

The restlessness is definitely there.

What a combination!

I feel like its groundhog day again and my mind is so tough on itself day after day.

What do I have to do today to feel ok with myself?

I want to just give myself a break but it seems insurmountable.

I just feel like I’m not doing enough, putting in enough effort but maybe I am!!

The internal effort in my mind is taking up so much space.

I want to think less, be in my head less and just ‘be’.

That is overwhelming…at least today.

Today I feel weak, today I feel unable, today I feel I want to give up.

But I don’t…

I got up, did the good morning to the kids, walked my dog, taught a yoga class, went out to lunch, went to the store, had a meeting at a school for a consultancy, had TMS (2), and then went to hear an inspirational talk from a paralympian Jessica Smith who was born without a forearm and has beaten the odds on many fronts.  I went with a friend too.

Isn’t that enough??

NO, it’s not because I didn’t do ‘something’ – that could be something for my kids, exercise, whatever ISN’T on the list that I have done.

It’s an unwinnable battle and I need to recognize it.

It’s exhausting and I’m sick and tired of feeling this way and can’t seem to shift.

I’ve been discussing that I have a contrived construct that worthiness matters so much and constantly live a life around the (perhaps) myth of worthiness.

If I don’t have tangible achievements – academic achievements or likewise- I feel I am not worthy.  That’s such a narrow focus and I must call it out!  There is so much more to see in front of my eyes.

‘Chasing the will of the wisp’ says my wise council is what I’m doing which essentially means something that allures, is elusive or misleading (basically not there!).  My view has been so narrowed down to internal thoughts that other things are not getting into my brain and allowing me to really see what is out there in front of me, behind me, beside me.

I know a lot about yoga and mindfulness and living authentically.  I’m not living connected to the truth I already know and it’s very very challenging right now.

I need to reset my radar and repeat the resetting by doing something… anything and that it doesn’t have to be constantly viewed as worthy or measured.

My mind needs to take an altered path and replace worthiness with just a set of daily ‘being’ with some activities and ways of living that are just that – living.  I need my mind on a different pursuit.

May my eyes see other things than I’m currently seeing since it seems I’ve stopped looking with my eyes and I want to see things anew for what they are.

I’m going to India next week with my husband and hoping that the change of scenery might spark some of the light that is behind the clouds and that I start to ’see’ differently.