When you feel worthless, looking in the mirror and reminding yourself that you are beautiful is not going to happen. Being told that you are special, you have the light inside of you, and to appreciate your value in life is something that worthless feeling individuals cannot relate to. And, the more you say this, the more they will resist; the more they will see you as untrustworthy and a phony. Trying to mend the surface or the symptoms of worthlessness will not be lasting or effective in people that have extreme low self-worth. Cognitive change is only partial change in attitude. Setting up a plan on how to tackle your attitude of worthlessness on a daily basis is good. However, it doesn’t support deep change, and it doesn’t last.
During my darkest days, some time ago, I became the observer. One day standing in the middle of my kitchen, I moved out of my body and looked down over top of myself. This experience was strange in the moment and a miracle in the end. It was after I threw a glass Pyrex dish in rage at my husband creating a huge hole in a wall. I realized, at that time, I could have killed him, and that, in itself, was enough for me to say “this madness has to stop.” As an observer, I viewed the life I was living, and I asked myself why I was behaving in such self-defeating ways? Something needed to change quickly. I finally figured out, right in that instant, that this chaos in my life wasn’t about him anymore. It wasn’t about any of the men. It was about me, and why I was attracting these types. Memories of sexual exploitation, physical and verbal abuse as well as two rapes haunted me. Domestic violence and later drugs and alcohol were a part of my behavior. Shame, guilt, disgust, and hate were who I was.
Cognitive-behavioral change was the way I went to heal my life, initially. I didn’t have to go to the past, and I surely didn’t want to at the time. It worked, to a certain degree. However, after almost two years of diligent work, I still felt this haze of darkness. There was this heavy ache in my gut that wouldn’t go away. With tears streaming, I fell to my knees praying and asking what I needed to do to feel joy and to know self-worth. What did I need to do to put these horrific memories a safe distance away so not to harm me anymore. I wanted to feel the real happiness and not the fraud that I had become. Thinking positively was not doing the job. It only made a superficial coating on a big pile of mess. I pleaded daily to be shown the way. Desire and willingness was the only thing that I was equipped with. With this in mind, I was prepared to do anything to heal the dark pit in my stomach and the invasive memories.
Being completely open to receive, I was finally shown the way. I never questioned any message that came forward. I did the work because I believed that my asking was unfolding in front of me, and either I could use the information or leave it. With such desperation to heal my soul, I wasn’t about to leave the messages brought to me. I chose to use all of what came forth. Every single sign post; and, I was busy! Not knowing how life was going to work out in the end, I continued with sweat, tears, and tenacity to the one honoring my asking.
To heal the worthlessness inside of you, it takes more than cognitive-behavioral change. It takes going to the source. It takes going in to those dark spaces and facing the mess or horror. For real joy to surface from deep within, for love of self to resonate, separation must be corrected where it was made, and, miraculously, life will transform.
“It is not necessary to seek for what is true,
but it is necessary to seek for what is false…
That is why atonement centers on the past,
which is the source of separation,
and where it must be undone.
For separation must be corrected
where it was made.”
[A Course In Miracles]