Mental Bondage: I am struggling with Worthiness

Sometimes I don’t feel like I am good enough.

A few years ago you couldn’t pay me to say that. I would always fake the funk….I would always pretend. Growing up as a young African American woman I was trained not to really talk about my feelings, or not to really say the things that “normal” people would not dare say. If you act like you have it all together how can people heal? So about a few months ago I decided to be authentic about my feelings, about the many instances of self-doubt and the feelings of unworthiness and as I began to share these feelings I noticed that people I knew had similar feelings.

I traced my feelings of unworthiness back to when I was a teenager and I was dating my little boyfriend then. The role he played in my life was instrumental in my self-destruction. I grew up in an environment where love was given in a tough way. So at age 17 when I had fallen in love with my little boyfriend at the time I thought it was the best thing in the world. I thought he could do no wrong. He could say no wrong. I thought that was it. He and I had plans to get married. Then the abuse began. We had been dating for about four years so of course we went through different stages in our relationship. Now as I reflect back on our relationship we both loved each other so much because we were searching for a love that we didn’t get at home. So our love became toxic. He wasn’t the only abusive one. I became abusive too. The verbal transactions we had were so unhealthy I would not wish it on my worst enemy today. As I reflect back some more I noticed that we were afraid of losing each other. Finally when one of us mustered up enough energy to leave the relationship I was already so far gone. That relationship was a pivotal moment in my life. The moment when I decided I wasn’t worthy.

The feeling of trying to keep up and trying to fix myself lasted for about 5 years.  I stayed with a different boyfriend. Finding a boyfriend was never a problem for me but what I noticed was I was trying to fill a void. When men couldn’t fill the void I abused food. When Food wouldn’t do the trick I abused alcohol. And when none of those did the trick I just began to exist and wait for the next bad thing to happen to me.

The sad part was that he moved on with his life found a girlfriend that he loved and they are still together to this day. What I realized now is that God created distance in my life with him on purpose. While my little boyfriend was focused on preparing me to be a wife at the age of 19 God was grooming me to be a World Leader…A change Agent….A person willing to serve and travel. I didn’t see that until about a year ago. I always felt bad for choosing to travel and live out my dream and my little boyfriend at the time wasn’t keen on me having a dream and following it if it didn’t involve him.

The sense of helplessness…..of how can life be so terrible? I am only 24 and I was miserable. I kept thinking “where the hell is the America dream?!” When will happiness come? When will my fairy tale life come?

Today as I embark on this journey called life I begin to see possibilities. A lot of my friends I know struggle with their singleness and they think it is because of their worthiness. One of my girlfriends told me the other day “ Am I too aggressive? I just graduated from Harvard Law I make 170k , I am only 26, I have a condo, and I drive a benz…..when is God going to send me a man?! Am I not good enough for these men?” I looked at her and realized that at times I was thinking the same thing. It use to feel like a waiting game until one day I really sat down and said “I am not ready for marriage and the fact of the matter is the next guy I am with will be my husband”. I no longer want to play with a man’s emotions. I enjoy my singleness….I can literally pick up and go anywhere I want. My decision to move to South Africa was so easy because I have no emotional ties to a man or a child. My commitment now is to myself and the people I serve.

If you suffer with the worthiness conversation ask yourself these few questions: why are you waiting to live your life? Why are you waiting for marriage or a relationship to be happy? Why are you waiting for that job or your finances to be joyful? If you keep waiting for the next best thing you will always be waiting.

 Lastly, as human beings our conversations about worthiness center around human beings and what human beings think of us. We give so much power to other people to determine our worth. Women particularly struggle with men and the role they play in our lives. No man gets to choose YOUR WORTH ladies. That is all a choice that we get to make. No human being can determine our worth. 

People always tell  “you live such a good life how do you do it”?

My answer: I decided I no longer wanted to wait for my happy day. I deserved so much more.

That was a choice. Mental Bondages was no longer going to live in my heart…..but unlimited possibilities lay here.

Checkmate.

         

   Sometimes I ask myself “Why cant you just live a ‘normal’ life”? What I mean by this question is why cant I just go out and get a normal 9-5 and make my guarantee 6 figures, have my family, nice house and nice car? Why do I have t be so determined and innovative? Doesn’t that sound crazy? The very thought of me being upset that I have a vision? Sometimes as a visionary our visions scare us. For me my vision complicated my life.

I remember when there was a time  I didn’t dare to dream about anything except becoming a high school graduate and getting a job. This was clearly a "I don't know my worth" move. Now as a young adult studying to become a Social Policy expert I can’t help but dream about the life and conditions of others. We live our entire life trying to figure out when God is going to give us our blessing, looking for the next big thing, looking forward to our next big promotion, our next big gig, or time to shine…I got tired of living my life waiting. What if all we had was today? What if God decided that today would be our last day? Would we decide it was enough? Can we say that we lived our lives to the fullest? I will tell you one thing I got tired of waiting…I was waiting and people were dying.

The feeling of discontentment was a battle I faced daily for the first half of my twenties. Nothing was ever good enough or I was doing thing’s for the wrong reason. I had no foundation…. no grounding…most of all I spent most of my twenties chasing after random men and negotiating myself worth. I also was not a nice person. I remember one day I sat at my apartment by myself and began to reflect on my life…. many people who I drove out of my life. I would lie to myself “they left because they cant handle the truth” when in reality they left because I was a trifling angry young woman. My anger showed (Now this move was a "since I hurt I want you to hurt move). While even in my darkest hour I was still able to create outstanding results…I didn’t have the feeling of joy.

Today I am still a work in progress and many people ask me “How do you do it”? I really don’t know. I just do. If you over think your life you will notice you will be in the same place. I noticed that while I was advancing on my resume I wasn’t advancing mentally. I was stuck mentality. So just like when I felt fat I went to the gym and began to eat clean, we as human beings also have to go to the mental gym. So I began to wake up every morning and start my day with some motivational music and dance it out. For the first couple of weeks it was “Man in the Mirror” by Michael Jackson. After listening to the song, I read a bible scripture reflected in my journal about what it meant. Listen I grew up in the Church but when I went away to college when I need God the most I abandoned him! I was out in the world creating all of these results leading trainings, coaching people, helping people start businesses, and checking people…. but who was checking me? It is dangerous not to have someone to check you. So I turned to the one person I knew I couldn’t get away with anything with and that was God. I set my timer and began to pray every morning for 10 minutes. I began to speak to God, I began to speak to myself, and I began to ask for guidance and protection from my own anger. I don’t consider myself a “Holy Moly” but I consider myself a believer. I believe in a greater power. Who ever that higher power is for you I hope you lean in. Ask for clarity, ask for guidance.

Lastly, I got clear on my vision. Sometimes we hold job titles and other accolades as the goal. When in reality if you wanted to contribute all you have to do is DO. I had a friend reach out to me a few days ago and asked my opinion about taking a new job in city council. She wanted my opinion and I asked her …”what is your vision for career?” She said “well I want to be elected to city council so I can work with mass incarceration”. So I asked “ Do you HAVE to be a council member to do that?” We hold these titles as a prerequisite to do the work we see fit. When in reality all she had to do was research some organizations that were doing the work she wanted to do and offer her services. She could have even started a support group in her community targeted toward that population and support convicted felons in getting jobs, mentors and housing. My point here is stop waiting for a title do the work you see fit! The founder of the 4Change organization in South Africa asked me “what organization are you here with” I told him “just me” he sat in disbelief. He said “You mean to tell me you came all the way across the work by yourself to support us?” Absolutely, I had to resources to do so….so why not? If I would have waited for a title or permission I would have never traveled to South Africa or headed to my next trip to the Dominican Republic and Haiti.

Finding out who I was....taking care of my mental wellbeing....not depending on a title or waiting for permission.

Checkmate.