I have recently become more aware of how much energy I put into proving my worthiness. In some respects, this is not new to me, but recently the extent of it is becoming clearer. I am trying to prove I am good enough to deserve love, appreciation, support, reward, rest, a place and more.

It’s always been confusing to me that some people are more deserving than others. The rigid part of me yearns for rules to resolve my confusion, but of course every rule has its exception. It depends on your perspective and your

values (which, as therapists, we know are shaped by our experiences).

I have worked hard since beginning my therapy training to cultivate an attitude of “unconditional positive regard” for my clients. These days it’s not too difficult to see clients as worthy and deserving of the best the world has to give. No matter what they have done in the past, I can usually see past their actions and behaviour to the beautiful soul inside. But until recently, I wasn’t aware that I wasn’t being so generous towards myself. I hold myself to a much higher standard than I do my clients.

When we ask for a fee for our work, or when we speak of our work to someone who might refer work to us, we meet the place in ourselves where we may not be convinced of our own worth. Where we haven’t yet proved to ourselves that we deserve it. Where we remember in glorious technicolour all the reasons why we do not deserve. Sometimes we don’t deserve because we value someone else’s deserving more than our own (she is such a good person, he’s got cancer, his business isn’t going well, she’s lost her job etc) Sometimes we are still punishing ourselves for things we’ve said or done in the past (I made all those terrible mistakes), and sometimes it’s a judgement about who we are (too unreliable, too forgetful, don’t know enough yet, grumpy, anxious) and so on. We do a double whammy on ourselves. Our clients are deserving because of their vulnerability and humanity, and we are not deserving because of ours.

The difficulty with all of this is that we are placing our deserving in the hands of others. Others who may see our worthiness through their own lenses. Other people may not know who you really are. Others who are not in any position to validate or withhold our deserving. Rather than give that power away to someone else, maybe it’s time we claimed it for ourselves. Maybe it’s time to say, I am just as deserving as everyone else, not because of what I do, or what I have or have not done, but because I am.
How do you withhold deserving from yourself? Where might you be seeing others as more worthy than you are? And if you truly believed in your own worthiness, what would be different in your practice, in how you meet clients, and in how you feel about yourself?
If you believe that a lack of self worth is holding your practice back, maybe I can help. Contact me here.