The real reason why you matter…

In a recent newsletter, Amber Krzys spoke about the true meaning of integrity, and her article really resonated with me. Integrity has been a core value of mine for most of my life. Amber shares that for most of her life, she thought that integrity meant keeping your word.

And when I slow down to consider this, I think the same was true for me. I saw integrity as honouring my word to myself and others. In other words, when I say that I will do something, I follow through on it. I firmly believe that this is how trust is built.

For me, this is captured in something Devon Bandison often says, “Your word creates your world”. What I took that to mean, is that whatever I say, is what I create in my life. The words I speak are a reflection of how I see the world, and I create what I am. I create what I believe. When I believe that I’m not enough, guess what I will create – outcomes that prove that I’m not enough. When I tell myself that I always make a mess of things, I will unconsciously set myself up to do exactly that. When I believe that no-one wants me, I will create evidence for that in my life.

For this reason, we need to be mindful of the thoughts we entertain, because our thoughts create how we feel, our feelings inspire a lot of our actions, our actions, when consistently taken over time, become our habits, and habits shape our character. So, when we sit with the question, who am I really, the answer is whatever I do consistently. I am my habits. I am what I consistently say and do. And it all starts with our word. Our word creates our world.

So, I would say that I agreed with Amber’s perspective on integrity. And I considered myself someone who lives with integrity, because I honour my word and my commitments. When I say will do something, I do it. In fact, I used to take it to the extreme, where I would follow through on a commitment, even when it no longer served me. I would judge myself as being out of integrity if I were unable to keep a commitment.

Then I learnt to have more compassion with myself, and I discovered that I also had the option of reaching out to renegotiate agreements or commitments, if I were unable to follow through due to circumstances beyond my control. And I could clean up when I messed up. This would help me get back in integrity with myself.

So, imagine my surprise when Amber shared that there was a deeper meaning to integrity. Integrity was not just about keeping your word to others (let’s call this outer integrity or external integrity). It was also about keeping your word to yourself (inner or internal integrity). I knew this, and yet I did not live this fully. I knew this in the sense that in my work with my coach, I had learnt to honour my commitments to myself too. Where in the past I only kept commitments to others, I learnt to not only follow through when someone else was the recipient of my goodwill or service, I also started following through on commitments where I was the only recipient. I would keep my promises to myself.

And yet, I still didn’t really understand the full truth of this inner integrity. There is another piece to this inner integrity business, and that is to admit your truth to yourself and others. And I sucked at that! I have spent most of my life so focused on other people’s wants and needs, that in a very real way, I had lost touch with my own needs and wants. Half of the time, I didn’t even know what my truth was, because it was being obscured by my focus on pleasing everyone else. And often I found myself feeling angry or resentful, without fully understanding why.

Reading Amber’s article, I finally understood why. I was disowning my own truth. I was negating my own wants and needs. I was telling myself that what I wanted didn’t matter.  A lot of the examples Amber shared resonated:

I don’t care where we go for dinner.

Sure, you can lead that section of the workshop.

Yes, I can make that time work.

Of course, you can join us. 

We would love to have you stay in our home your entire visit.

How many times have I experienced intense anxiety over not knowing what I wanted for dinner, or feeling like I’m inconveniencing everyone else when I took too long to decide what I wanted while out to dinner with friends or family? So many of the arguments I’ve had with my husband have been about him asking me what I want, and me feeling unable to answer that question. That often leads to him feeling frustrated, because he would really like me to say what I want, and I simply can’t, because I don’t know. For him, that was confusing. How could I not know what I want? And yet, that was true for me. I was so focused on what everyone else wanted, that I did not check in with myself to know what I wanted.

How often have I second guessed myself, doubted my own abilities, downplayed my knowledge and expertise, or deferred to someone else, because I thought they knew more about something than I did? How often have I said yes, when I had wanted to say no? How often have I created discomfort and frustration for myself, because I was unwilling to be honest about whether something was workable for me or not? Most of the time, I would have a sense of what I wanted, and I would shut my own needs down by telling myself that wanting what I wanted was selfish or that I was being too demanding…

In Amber’s words, “Being agreeable and accommodating was automatic. Keeping the peace at all costs was the program.” And just like Amber, I allowed no space between the circumstance and my response. I reacted, without slowing down to consider what I wanted, without checking in with my own truth. I would trust that someone else’s truth was more valuable than mine. In fact, there was often a sense of urgency around needing to respond. I have had so many conversations with my coach about how I treat most things as an emergency when they are not. I need to reply to that email immediately. I need to have an answer to a response right now. I need to get the thing I said I would do done as quickly as possible.

For a long time, I couldn’t figure out why I was treating everything as an emergency. I got logically that these things I was stressing about were not emergencies, and yet, on the inside, there was this pressing sense of urgency. I now know that it was my Perfectionist and Pleaser Selves putting pressure on me. I was so afraid of letting anyone down, or disappointing anyone, that I lived in a constant state of hyper-vigilance about what others needed and how long I made them wait for my response.

Recently, I read Sheryl Richardson’s book The Art of Extreme Self Care, and I discovered the power of disappointing others. One aspect of extreme self-care is exactly that – the willingness, the awareness, the acceptance, that I will disappoint others. I will not always live up to others’ expectations and that’s ok. If it means I spend less time living with resentment and frustration, it’s so worth it to sometimes disappoint others when I decline a request for help, or say no to an invitation that doesn’t align with my schedule or with what’s most important to me.

Amber shares that part of what kept her automatic response in place was her inner story of unworthiness. And even that resonated deeply for me. I have often seen myself as less than, and my coached has often called me out on how often I put other people on pedestals. That doesn’t serve me or them. I would not provide my input in a situation, because I thought it didn’t matter, or that no one would like my preferences anyway.

Amber says that underneath her pleasing behaviour was the desire to keep the peace. I don’t know if it was that for me. I guess for me, it was more a belief that I didn’t deserve respect or the same consideration that I would give to everyone else, because I was unworthy. I had not earned the right to be and to want things, yet.

Amber explained that after the initial heartbreak of realising how she had treated herself as if she didn’t matter, she met her unworthiness with tenderness and compassion. She let herself cry the tears she needed to cry for all the times that she shut herself down, or self-rejected. She noticed how often she treated herself as the “the helpless child, who deferred to the “real” adults for decisions and guidance.” And she committed herself to a daily practice of reminding herself that she matters.

For me the process has not been that clear-cut and simple. I experienced tremendous inner resistance to bringing more compassion and tenderness to the parts of myself that was making me feel like I didn’t matter. The belief of unworthiness was so deeply entrenched. It had been with me since birth, really. I was abandoned by my mother, and received many lessons early on in my life that I didn’t matter, that my needs were an annoyance or frustration, and that I best keep quiet, or prove that I’m worthy of having my needs met.

That started a life-long cycle of working to prove myself, working to earn my self-worth, working to deserve love and respect, without fully understanding that I was going about it in completely the wrong way.

I had the awareness that I didn’t feel like I was good enough. I saw all the ways that I was telling myself I wasn’t enough, or I didn’t know enough, I didn’t do enough, I wasn’t smart enough, thin enough, efficient enough, pretty enough, wealthy enough etc. I got that, and I could easily point out the ways that I was playing the “I’m not enough game”.

What I didn’t get until very recently, was that the not enough was simply a symptom of not believing in my own worth and right to exist. The not enough games I had been playing was my Ego’s attempt at proving that I mattered. And I firmly bought into my Ego’s truth, without considering that there was a deeper truth that I was denying – my Soul’s truth.

A recent health scare brought things into perspective for me. I realised I didn’t want to die, and I was angry at Life. In a very real way, I slowed down to consider what really matters to me, and what I would regret most if I were to die now.

In a deep coaching session with my coach, she helped me see that until I don’t start acting as if I matter, nothing will change. She went right to the heart of the matter. She asked me whether my children mattered. Of course, I said. They always matter. They matter very much.

She asked me how I would ensure that they knew that. She pointed out that simply telling them that they matter would not be enough. Our children don’t learn from what we tell them, they learn from what we model to them. They learn whether they matter by noticing whether we treat ourselves as if we matter. If I don’t treat myself as if I matter, then my children will learn that they don’t matter either.

And I don’t want that for them. I want them to have a deep inner knowing that they always matter. So, my coach gave me a homework assignment. Find 111 ways that you matter.

And of course, it was a trick assignment. I started making my list with so much enthusiasm, and soon I lost the motivation to complete the list. What I had in front of me was a list of whom I matter to – how I matter to others. And I had no way of knowing whether I really matter to the people I think I matter to.

And for me, this was more of the same. This was a way that I was putting my own self-worth in the hands of others. Did I really only matter if others believed that I did? That felt inaccurate to me. It felt like it was another way I was looking for evidence that I don’t matter, because if my worthiness relied on whether others agreed, then I would have to continue to please others.

Thankfully, I finally saw through my own trickery. And I only needed to put ONE item on the list of reasons why I matter: I matter because I exist. That’s it. Nothing more. Nothing less. I matter because I exist. All living things matter. I get that at a deeper level. The trees matter. The bees matter. All animals matter. All my loved ones matter. Their existence actually matters to ME, because if they were not here, my experience of life would be completely different. I need them to exist in all the ways that they are unique and different. Each person in my life is valuable in their own way. And why would I be any different?

It’s actually quite arrogant to imagine that I’m special enough to not matter as much as anyone else. No-one matters more and no-one matters less. We all matter to the same degree – to the degree that we exist.

Recently, I reflected on the word, “matter”. What does that word even mean? The first definition of the word in the dictionary reads: “physical substance in general, as distinct from mind and spirit; (in physics) that which occupies space and possesses rest mass, especially as distinct from energy.” Matter occupies space. YOU take up space too. Because you ARE matter. And for that reason, you are significant or important. When things take up space, we need to account for them.

If I’m navigating a ship across stormy waters towards land, then the land matters. And the lighthouse in front of our ship or any other ships in the water matter too, because I would have to account for them when I’m navigating towards the shore. Pilots must take account of other aircraft in the sky, because they matter. They take up space. Not accounting for them, could result in accidents and loss of life. When I’m walking in the forest, I notice the trees, and if I came across a bear, the bear would surely matter. I would care that the bear is there. So too, YOU, dear reader, matter, because you are matter. You take up physical space, so it’s important to take YOU into account. You are one of the threads in the fabric of life, so you matter.

The other day in a thinking session I shared with my thinking partner that I recognise how each person that I have known and lost has mattered to me in some way or another. They all had an impact – some positive, some negative. And they all mattered. Even when you try NOT to have an impact, it’s unavoidable. You inevitably WILL have an impact. So, you might as well consciously CHOOSE the impact you want to have by acting as if you mattered. So, I’m choosing to live as if I matter. And I’m curious to see what I will create from this belief.

References

Richardson, C. (2012). The Art of Extreme Self Care.