It’s like the old saying, “You can’t love someone else if you don’t love yourself first.” And you can’t love yourself if you don’t first know just how much you are worth. I have really good relationships in my life these days. People that have been around for a decade or more. Friends that knew me in my clubbin' days, my crazy hair color days, and my unfortunate boy-crazy days. Most even made it through grad school with me, when I thought I would lose my shit more than a few (dozen) times. I 100% believe that relationships with other people get better as your relationship with yourself gets better. I want to explore how the way you view/understand yourself and your own worth determines the quality of the relationships you allow in your life, by sharing a bit of my own story with you. I have never been the girl that didn't have girlfriends and I'm not the one that says, "guys are easier to get along with." I have always had the most amazing girlfriends in my life and they are such a blessing! In fact, I have so many close friends that for my beach wedding (which was super laid-back to start with), I literally didn't bother having official bridesmaids. There would have just been too many! I told everyone my color scheme and to pick something they felt comfortable in and just stand with me as I married my best friend. It was perfect.  I have been lucky enough to never really experience what it's like to have fallout with a girlfriend. How have I gotten so lucky? I believe it’s because I know my worth in friendships and I am drawn to women who do too. Doesn't mean either of us are perfect, but I'm drawn to women who support other women, and I do the same. That’s why friendships have been so easy for me. Relationships, on the other hand, have been a different story. When it came to boyfriends, I consistently settled because that was an area I hadn’t yet found my worth. I had a couple of long term relationships, mixed in with a long list of one-monthers, with emotionally unavailable guys because I didn’t think I could/would be able to do any better! I spent over a decade of my life being a girlfriend when I wanted to be a wife. I was cheated on. Disrespected. Manipulated. And the funny thing is, the entire time I had this idea in my mind that I was strong, independent, and confident! But the way I allowed people to treat me showed a completely different story. Things didn’t change for me until, after a particularly painful breakup, I decided to be single (for the first time in my life), find myself, and take time to understand my mistakes. I asked myself the important question of, “Why do I keep ending up here and how can I get out of this cycle??” That is when I was able to develop my Self-Worth on my terms. Once I fell in love with not being given the message that I wasn’t good enough, I vowed never to let it happen again. I started to understand why I had always made decisions based out of fear of being alone. I forgave myself for the positions I put myself in and promised to take better care of myself in the future. This is how developing Self-Worth starts to change the way you function. You care for yourself so much better. You don’t settle, you don’t rush yourself, you find what real confidence looks and feels like. It allows for grace and compassion for yourself, forgiveness where needed, and it pushes you into unknown territory with a calmness that everything will work out for the best. This doesn’t just go for romantic relationships either. When you start to know your worth, you don’t allow family to use or mistreat you. Setting boundaries becomes easier because you care less about upsetting someone for just trying to protect yourself. It also helps you to function from a place of security- if you know your worth, you don’t overcompensate to keep people in your life! If they want to leave, it’s easy to let them go! It also begins to change the way you see and interact with others. You start seeking out people that have done this same internal work. Without realizing it, you look for people that know their worth and make themselves emotionally available too. For me, I realized that the person most available, the one that cherished me for who I am, and also knew my worth (even before I did), was this guy I had kept in the friend zone for 3 years.We got married 4 months later. Never had I ever imagined he would be my type, because my type had always been in line with my old beliefs about myself. If you are having problems in a relationship, I can guarantee that you need to do this work. I’m not saying you are to blame for where you are, and really not saying the other person is either- it's not about blaming at all. I’m only saying you need to take time to explore how this relationship got where it is, and what happened prior to it that had already planted the seeds about your worth. It’s like the old saying, “You can’t love someone else if you don’t love yourself first.” And you can’t love yourself if you don’t first know just how much you are worth. -Julie Julie Hilton, LCSWJulie is a licensed psychotherapist working in Alpharetta, GA. She specializes in empowering women to shed the pressures and expectations of the world, and find peace in the identity God intended. Click here for more information about her services.  “The opposite of play is not work- the opposite of play is depression.” If you had the chance to read my blog last week about Anxiety and Self-Worth, thank you! I would love to hear your feedback on it and if any of it resonated with you. If you haven’t landed here before- I am doing a series of blogs right now discussing how your Self-Worth, whether positive or negative, impacts so many issues that we face in life. This week I’m moving on to how Self-Worth plays a part in depression. Let’s jump in.
If you don’t know who Brené Brown is, you need to. She is one of my favorite human beings and also a fellow social worker. (Google her. Read her books. And especially watch her Netflix documentary, “The Call to Courage”.) I absolutely love this quote from Brené: “The opposite of play is not work- the opposite of play is depression.” I am fascinated with this because it is such a unique illustration of depression and certainly true. Many people think depression typically presents as sadness and lots of constant and uncontrollable crying, but that is not the typical case I see in my office at all. Mostly people with depression are holding down a job, raising children, serving in their churches, in healthy relationships, and even being wildly successful. The majority of people that I work with who are living with depression (although I do not formally diagnose in my office anymore to avoid labels) usually have very little awareness that depression is what they are dealing with. They would just say they feel... checked out. Life is passing them by. They are unhappy, sure, but don’t have enough energy to try to fix it. Not a lot of energy for most anything, honestly. Nothing excites them, hobbies aren’t fun anymore, family is draining, they have very little to give. Life is pretty disappointing. There is absolutely no “play” in their lives. I typically start asking questions like, “Looking back, what kinds of things did you enjoy growing up? When was the last time you felt excited? When does it seem like this started to change for you?” I need to know- when did you stop playing? That usually tells me so much. Some event (or a series of events) in life started giving you a message about yourself (remember those negative core beliefs we talked about last week?) and you internalized it. They became a belief about yourself that you accepted. Again, those negative beliefs can sound like: I’m not good enough I’m a failure No one will ever truly love me I don’t deserve good things I’m worthless Here we are again, staring our self-worth in the face. If you haven’t done the work and taken the time to define for yourself what you are worth, where your worth comes from, and what your truths are- the message other people give you gets adopted as your own. Their words become the internal narrative that plays inside your head, like a song on repeat. Before you know it, it’s not their voice saying you aren’t good enough, it’s your own. For many people anxiety and depression come as a combo package (life is fun like that). Like I talked about last week- when you are put in a situation where your negative belief is on display for others (like the bad annual review with your boss) anxiety kicks in because you are being given the same, painful message again. Your alarm system is activated. Depression, on the other hand, often comes when you are home alone and the only one saying those hurtful things is you. The constant stream of thoughts that beat you up is so completely draining and takes so much energy, no wonder there is hardly any ability to be invested in life at the end of the day. Every time you try, it just feels like another failure and a waste of time. No wonder there is no more playing. Because at this point, why bother? This is exactly why doing the work to define your worth is so important (and never too late). We work to go back to those events that taught you something negative and we rewrite that script. What do you want to be able to believe at that time? What do you want to say to that younger version of yourself? How can we reject what you were taught and reclaim your truth? That’s where change begins. Believing that you are worthy and DESERVE to live a full, happy, rewarding life gives the energy to play again. If you are ready, don’t wait another day. If it feels daunting, you can do this. We can start small. If you are taking the time to read this, that tells me that you are ready. -Julie  No wonder by the time we are in our 30's and 40's we suddenly start to feel anxiety that we never experienced before! The snowball has grown!!! Last week I shared a blog about how Self-Worth (SW) is, to me, at the core of so much of who we are. It can have such a positive or negative impact on our lives, depending on how we see our worth and how that leads us to show up in every aspect of our lives. Over the next few weeks I’m going to share some thoughts on how the problem of not developing your SW shows up in so many different ways, for many different people.
Today we’re starting with ANXIETY because that is surely something most of us know at least a little bit about! (I also wrote about anxiety a few weeks back if you want to take a look at different symptoms and how it shows up for everyone differently). So, how could Self-Worth be impacting your anxiety levels? Here’s my theory: Anxiety is a snowball- not a single event. That means every time in life that you have been given the message that something, whether physically or emotionally, could be dangerous or potentially hurtful, your brain sends you a message to be aware, concerned, or ready to implement that fight-flight-freeze response if necessary. Anxiety is your brain’s alarm system that something could hurt you. When events that have caused the alarm to go off aren’t properly processed, your brain ties those feelings to the memory forever because it doesn’t know what else to do with them. It just stockpiles the emotion. It starts a snowball. Properly processing the events means that by the end of the day, you have accepted that you are safe, you aren’t at fault, and that your worth hasn’t changed based on the day’s events. I’m not just talking about severely traumatic events (although those definitely contribute here). I’m talking about tripping on stage in front of the entire elementary school, middle school mean girl run-ins, subtle messages from family that you are worthless, boyfriends cheating, failing tests. All of these experiences are emotionally unsafe. Our brains are wired to protect us. Unfortunately, sometimes we hold on to emotions that we need to let go of. As the emotions build from each of these events they cause “Negative Core Beliefs” to form about yourself such as: I’m not good enough (probably the most common I see in women) It’s unsafe to share emotions I’m a failure I’m bad I’m alone Once we establish a negative core belief, every time something happens (again, big or small) that sets off our alarm and FEELS similar, it gets added to the anxiety snowball. So in the moment when you are sitting in your boss’ office, getting a bad annual review and you can feel your breathing get shallow and your hands start to sweat- you aren’t just experiencing the stress from that moment. You are feeling the emotion from every unprocessed memory that has given you the feeling of your negative core belief (say in this case, “I’m being told I’m not good enough”). No wonder by the time we are in our 30’s and 40’s we suddenly start to feel anxiety that we never experienced before! The snowball has grown!!! How does SW fit into this equation? Because your self-worth has been grounded in a serious belief that you aren’t good enough (or any of the others I listed above and countless others). That is where you are operating from on a daily basis now because of all these messages you have been given. One of the things I work with clients on in therapy is revisiting some of those major events that have contributed to the negative core belief and we reprocess them from a different lens- one of reclaiming your SW in that moment. You can look back on those moments and rewrite what you tell yourself you are worth on that day. As we go through and define your SW for yourself (not by what others told you on that day), the snowball diminishes. The anxiety melts away. It’s absolutely possible to redefine your self-worth and undo what was planted, even at a young age. If this sounds like the work you are finally interested in doing, I challenge you today to make the call. Contact me so we can start the journey of increasing your self-worth so we can get rid of that anxiety, once and for all! -Julie  "If you are feeling the pressures of society are too much, that's because they don’t fit you. They aren’t your rules. Expectations shouldn’t be one-size-fits-all for what a woman is “supposed” to be. " My favorite topic? Self Worth. (You might have picked up on that by now ; )
Why is it so important for me to talk about? I deeply believe it is the heart of so much of who we are and yet we spend the majority of our lives unaware of its importance or impact! I mean really- have you taken much time in your life to think about your worth? (It’s okay, I hadn’t for many years of my life either- but I changed when I did.) Self Worth differs from self care, confidence, and from loving yourself. It’s not the same thing as self-esteem either, which many people confuse. It’s so much more important. You can also find it at the core of almost every issue- that’s why I talk about it so much! So, HOW is it different? In my opinion, your worth is what lies underneath all of these other things. If you think your problem is your confidence, dig a little deeper and you’ll hit on a lack of self worth, I can almost guarantee it. How can you be confident when you don’t know what you are worth? How can you take care of yourself if you don’t have your worth defined? A lack of connection to your self worth contributes to so many different issues: anxiety, depression, relationship problems, difficulty with boundaries, the need for perfectionism. When my clients present with any of these things on the surface, I always take it back to their self worth (or lack thereof). That seems to always be my ground zero to begin building a foundation to support all of the other good things that follow. The biggest problem the average woman has with her self worth is that she doesn’t know what it means, where it comes from, how she wants to define it for herself, or what would/could potentially change it. You can easily be shaken and persuaded to believe what someone else tells you you’re worth, if you haven’t taken the time and done the work to define it for yourself. Believe me, the world is sending you messages about your worth from a million different directions at any given time. That’s why we do this work in therapy, by the way. Over the next few weeks I’m going to write a blog series on how self worth impacts each of those important categories: Anxiety Depression Relationship problems Difficulty setting and holding boundaries The need for perfectionism (and any other topic that you would like me to weigh in on- just comment below) I also talk a lot about defining your worth for yourself. What does that mean? It means you get to explore what’s important to you and write your own rules. If you are feeling the pressures of society are too much, that's because they don’t fit you. They aren’t your rules. Expectations shouldn’t be one-size-fits-all for what a woman is “supposed” to be. I hope this resonates with you. I hope it has you thinking. I pray that you are at least contemplating beginning to challenge what you have been told about your worth and knowing that you have the option to reject it. And stay tuned as we start exploring how your self worth may be the underlying cause to some of life’s biggest troubles. -Julie |
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