Innate Worth

At Tubman in Minneapolis, we used to present Innate Worth in our Domestic Violence Group. I have been thinking and looking up quite a bit about innate worth as I start facilitating the Healing Support Group at The Shade Tree this weekend. I wanted to share some of the information that I found and that I will use in the first group this weekend.

Introducing the Importance of Self -Worth

What is your personal currency? What do you feel you have to offer to the world at large, and is that offering given the value, validity and respect it deserves? Are you happy to be a girl? When you judge yourself as we all do, how do you measure up? Are you an equally treasured part of society? Are you predictable? Does being a girl or a woman ever make you feel compromised in any way? When you consider your worth as a woman, what comes to mind? A woman’s worth as the subject of inquiry may expose emotions and responses that surprise you.

Do you even consider your worth at all? Perhaps not in so many words, but the subject of worth, worthiness, value, and validity comes up for women time and again, and is manifested by behaviors and gender stereotypes that don’t serve us well.

Why is it important to understand your true worth, your inner value, your personal currency? I’m going to be bold and say that not only is it important to recognize your innate worth, it’s critical that you do. Your survival and sense of well-being virtually depends upon it. No matter when or where you embarked on your journey of discovery, remember to tell yourself how worth it you are, because my friend, you are the one who is in charge of establishing it, and you are the one who needs to endorse and project it.

What does self-worth mean to you? How do you define or assess it? Is there a general measurement of worth that holds true for everyone? Most probably, you’ve formed a conception of what self-worth and self-esteem means for you. Can you feel validated and valued? Will you grant yourself that level of respect?

When you recognize your innate worth, you are more inclined to strive to fulfill your potential, and having done that, you will be happy. Women who are successful exude a sense of confidence in themselves. They realize that they are the directors of their own destinies, and therefore take a positive stance as they look forward. They are happy people.

The first step in acknowledging and accessing your worth, value, and sense of fulfillment, is to take an honest personal assessment. An assessment of who you are and where you stand is vital to your ability to function freely in the world. By assessing and recognizing your abilities, you validate yourself, and you need to be able to do that before anyone else can validate you.

Without personal awareness of your abilities, goals and challenges, you might lose sight of your choices. Resist the urge to accept out-of-hand what society dictates, and you will experience an enormous sense of freedom. You do have options in life; you just need to be willing to use them.
In concrete ways, by owning your worth you honor women everywhere, and the trickle-down effect of your actions will ultimately reach every corner of the globe.