Tag: self worth

The stories we make up about ourselves

Posted on by philipdodson

The stories we make up about ourselves, this is a follow-up from the stories we make up about others.

Yesterday I blogged about the stories we make up about others and how they create suffering for ourselves and others.

Well, there are also the stories that we make up about ourselves, and these are the most corrosive and create great suffering within us and for others too.

What we tell ourselves affects greatly our self-worth and when we do not feel worthy, it affects everything in our lives. Worthiness is not a conditional thing, we are born worthy and we die worthy…no matter what, there are no conditions to that.

As I talked about in earlier posts when we a loving to ourselves, when we are kind to ourselves, and when we give these things to ourselves, we can feel worthy. If someone does not love us, see our value or question us that does not change our worth at all. Our soul is ours and no one else’s to judge or question, our worthiness is not open for debate.

However, based on other people’s words and actions we create these stories about ourselves that corrode our self-worth. We tell ourselves these falsehoods about ourselves.

Brene Brown sums this up brilliantly in a section about learning to rise in her great book ‘Dare to Lead’  she says:

“The three most dangerous stories we make up are the narratives that diminish our lovability, divinity, and creativity.

The reality check around our lovability: Just because someone isn’t willing or able to love us, it doesn’t mean that we are unlovable.

The reality check around our divinity: No person is ordained to judge our divinity or to write the story of our spiritual worthiness.

The reality check around our creativity: Just because we didn’t measure up to some standard of achievement doesn’t mean that we don’t possess gifts and talents that only we can bring to the world. And just because someone failed to see the value in what we can create or achieve doesn’t change its worth or ours.“

We don’t need to tell ourselves any stories, the truth is we are worthy and lovable…no conditions.

What happens when we tell ourselves the wrong story?

Posted on by philipdodson

All of our lives we tell ourselves stories internally based on what we think or what others think about us, even though in the case of others we do not actually know what they think unless they tell us. We take what others say about us or do to us and then we create stories in our heads as to what we are, who we are, what we are like, what we are good at and most often, what we are not good at. We create these lenses of self-judgement and create whole stories based on them.

The common thing about these stories is that they are not true, they are based on the temporary mental creation of others and our own minds, with absolutely no substance to them whatsoever.

From these stories, we then create a self-image about ourselves and then we think, believe and act based on them. Total insanity.

Even more insane, we do this all our lives if we do not wake up to the fact that they are utter nonsense. 

We are what we believe we are and therefore, we have the choice as to what story we are going to tell ourselves and what we choose to take from others. It does not matter what others think we are or say we are, it does not matter what happened before, it is just the past, simply that and no longer relevant.

We are what we believe ourselves to be right now this moment and when we are conscious and awake, we are alive in this moment now. There is no need for any stories then or roles to act out. We are simply being, being our truer authentic self, which comes from our soul and is not something that comes from the mind or the views of others.

When we tell ourselves the wrong story, we live an unreal, false life, trapped within our minds and the minds of others. We live an inauthentic life and we suffer from not being.