The more I observe society the more commonality I find amongst us, especially, I feel, where people my age are concerned. We struggle with our with, our inherent value & worthiness that we bring with us into the world. I think growing up in the 90s & later, the 2000s, our worth was minimized. We were given participation trophies, shown that the work we put in didn’t matter, that we’d still receive the same level of prize. We were thrown into jobs as teenagers that had us working minimum wage jobs where that minimum wage never increased despite the value of a dollar decreasing. We were told we were special then shown the exact opposite.
Worth is definitely something that I’ve struggled with myself, I haven’t felt worthy of success or happiness or whatever else. Why? Lord knows, but something in me was ingrained to believe that I was only worthy of being considered a human being when I had found success. When I no longer struggled for money or had to fight to make headway in the music industry, only then would I be worth of the name I carry & the feelings of success or happiness I have.
I think a lot of that stems from growing up in church. No shame to the big man upstairs, I’m a fan, just not so much of the church world. When you’re living actively in the christian world there’s a lot of rhetoric around shame. We must be shameful of being inherently sinful or ashamed of the parts of ourself that some printing press decided should be included in the bible back in 1946 due to personal politics. We are told that we fall short of the glory of God simply by being born.
So of course so many of us struggle to find our worthiness. We’ve been told from a very young age that hard work & success are what brings us worthiness, but what happens when society doesn’t hold up its end of that bargain & your hard work just leads to more struggle instead of success or financial freedom? We’re told that if we want to be worthy in the eyes of the church or in the eyes of God that we have to hide parts of ourself or be ashamed of who we are. That no all loving God would accept you as they made you, that you have to fit the christian mold to be in God’s grace. That’s never sat right with me.
So many books that are published these days seek to resolve this issue. In “Rich As F*ck” Amanda Frances makes the bold claim that we are worthy of happiness & of our dreams simply because we are. You are worthy because you are. You were born worthy, raised worthy, & will die worthy of basic human rights, decencies, success, abundance, & happiness.
We, as millennials, definitely have a worthiness problem, fortunately it doesn’t seem to have carried over to Gen Z who appear to see right through the BS & are ready to come swinging. So many of us end up failing though simply because we do not believe that we are worthy of success. We self sabotage, we doubt, we make excuses instead of owning our inherent worthiness & just doing the damn thing with our chests puffed out & our head held high. We are so afraid of the fall that cometh after pride that we have completely depleted ourselves of any of it.
So here’s my challenge to you this week, in all honesty it’s probably something that’ll take more than a week but we gotta start somewhere don’t we? I want you to practice your worthiness. I want you to stop accepting the abuses you deal with at work or at home. I want you to demand to be paid what you’re worth. I want you to stand up for yourself & say “enough.” Why? Because you’re worthy. Why are you worthy? Because you are. Write it on your mirror, put a memo in your phone, put a slip in you car that says “I am worthy because I am.” & own it! Say it, repeat it, feel it, live it!
You are worthy because you are my lovelies, have a fantastic week, much love to you all!
-C