sense of worthiness

Tonight, I listened to this talk by Brene Brown, recommended by a friend.  I've mentioned her book a couple of posts ago, and what I didn't like in the book, I didn't like in her talk.  Frankly speaking, I think she tends to dramatize her so-called breakdown.  But maybe that's just because I'm Japanese and sometimes every sentence spoken by an American can sound exaggerated (no offense; it's just a cultural difference).  Either way, that's not what I want to write about.  Below is breifly what she says (for people like me who aren't really interested in her personal stories but still want to know the essence of her talk in five minutes):

We all live for connection, but there's an obstacle called shame.

Shame = fear of disconnection.
"Is there something about me that if people know or see it they would think I'm not worthy of connection?"  The feeling of "I'm not smart/thin/pretty/promoted enough."

But in order to let connection happen, we have to allow ourselves to be seen.

People who have a strong sense of love and belonging have a strong sense of worthiness -- they think they are worthy of connection.  These people have
1. courage = the ability to tell the story of who they are with all their heart; the courage to be imperfect
2. compassion = the ability to be kind to themseves because we can't practice compassion with others if you can't treat yourself kindly
3. authenticity = the willingness to let go of who they think they should be in order to be who they are

Connection is the result of the above three.  Those people with a sense of worthiness embrace vulnerability and believe that what make them vulnerable make them beautiful.  They know the necessity of the willingness to do something where there are no guarantees.

The world we live in is a vulnerable world.  So we numb vulnerability with addiction and whatnot.  But we can't selectively numb feelings without numbing other emotions so we end up numbing joy, gratitude, happiness, everything.  We struggle to make the uncertain certain, to perfect ourselves and our children (when in fact, they are wired for struggle when they get here and our role is to tell them they are worthy of love and belonging despite their imperfection), and to pretend that what we do doesn't affect others.

Instead, what we should do is to let ourselves be deeply and vulnerably seen, which means
1. to love with our whole hearts even if there's no guarantee
2. to practice gratitude and lean into joy in those moments when we're wondering: Can I love you this much?  Can I believe in this so passionately?  Can I be this firece about this? -- just to be able to stop and instead of catastrophizing what might happen, to say I'm just so grateful, because to feel so vulnerable means I'm alive.
3. to believe that we're enough.  Not when we're perfect, but just the way we are. 

...So how do we believe that we're enough?  I get it that if we feel worthy, we can allow ourselves to be vulnerable and hence find connection.  But how do we believe we're worthy?  This was the question I was left with.

The word worthiness hit me strong because the moment I heard it, I knew it was exactly what I lacked when I did what I most regret in my life: sleeping with someone I didn't even like.  It was just once, but the regret has haunted me for years.  I knew a guy was drooling over me, thought I could use him to make myself feel worthy, and ended up feeling used, probably because I let it happen when deep down my mind was actually saying no.  It's the most foolish thing I've ever done, and one of the saddest stories I've ever known --  I was not brought up by parents who loved me only when I was perfect.  They always, always loved me, no matter what, and still, I took their love for granted and thought I was not worthy of anyone else's love.

I don't think about it anymore, but when I do the pain is excruciating -- my imperfection regarding this mistake is almost unacceptable, though at some point I realized there was no other choice but to accept it and move on.

As a result, I no longer suffer to find the reason of my worthiness, but I still think it's impossible to love myself unconditionally.  I mean, you can't just sleep all day, do whatever you like, and say, well, that's me, I love who I am!  I know all I can do is to do what I can, keep doing what I must do to accomplish my dreams, however small or big they may be, and just do my best every day, because that's the only way for me to feel worthy.  At least, that was how I lived my life when I was still very young and never knew what it was like to hate myself.