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Deserve: The Ugliest Word in the English Language
42 Plays8 years ago
Have you ever wondered in the back of your mind, "Do I deserve this?" You can fill in "this" with anything. Do I deserve that ice cream? Did I work out enough today, do I deserve it? Do I deserve a promotion? Have I worked really hard at my job and have I been overlooked or I got a promotion, did I deserve it? Have you asked yourself if you deserve to find love in your life?
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Transcript
Introduction to Self-Worth and Deserving
00:00:17
Speaker
Welcome to this week's episode of the Art of Authenticity. Thank you so much for tuning in. Today I wanted to talk to you about a question. Have you ever asked yourself, have you ever wondered in the back of your mind, do I deserve and fill in the blank? Am I worthy of, you know, do I deserve that ice cream? Did I work out enough today? Do I deserve
Challenging the Concept of Deserving
00:00:35
Speaker
it? Do I deserve a promotion? Have I worked really hard at my job and have I been overlooked or I got a promotion? Did I deserve it? Have you asked yourself if you deserve to find love in your life?
00:00:47
Speaker
I have such an issue with this concept. The word deserve, do something, or have, or show qualities worthy of reward or punishment. Right? That's the actual definition of the word deserve. Do something, or have, or show qualities worthy of reward or punishment. So in other words, do I have a right to? Am I entitled
Cultural Conditioning and Childhood Lessons
00:01:07
Speaker
to? Am I qualified for? Am I worthy of?
00:01:10
Speaker
But here's the issue. I get it. You have to work hard and then you get the reward. We don't want to just have a world in which we just give everything out for free. I remember 15 years ago when my nephew was little, everybody was just getting an award for showing up at the soccer fields. And I understand all that. But what about this question? Do you deserve a hug? Do you deserve love in your life? Do you deserve to voice your opinion?
00:01:35
Speaker
And this is what I see with my coaching clients. It comes up over and over, and I'm so struck by the quantity, the sheer volume of times that I hear this question. We're brought up when we're little kids, right? Did you do the right thing? Did your mommy say, you're being a good girl, you're being a good boy today? You deserve my affection, you deserve my love, right? I mean, that's what's happening when we're little. Everything we do, it's contingent on whether or not we get our parents' love. If we're behaving really badly,
00:02:04
Speaker
then they aren't happy with us. We might be punished. They might withdraw factions. If they're happy with us, they give us things. They tell us, good girl, mommy loves you. You can come sit back at the table. You're not on a time out.
The Struggle with Adult Self-Worth
00:02:16
Speaker
And I understand we need to discipline our children and we need to teach them how to function in culture.
00:02:20
Speaker
But this message that we receive over and over and over and over throughout our childhood of if you do the right thing, quote unquote, right, then you deserve the love, you deserve the affection, you deserve that new toy that you've been wanting. We take that into our adult life. So then people show up in coaching sessions with me asking me this question, do I deserve the right to my opinion?
00:02:44
Speaker
Do I deserve the right to say how I really feel? Do I even deserve the right to feel the ways I feel and not even tell anybody else about it? How many of you out there have feelings that you don't think you have the right to have? I shouldn't feel that way.
00:02:59
Speaker
As soon as we go down that slippery slope and we start to question whether we have the right to our own feelings, our own voice, our own opinion, we fall into this trap. I call it emotional weight. I call it the junk food thoughts of our life. It's what weighs us down. It's what is toxic inside of us because what happens when you start to question whether or not you have a right to your own feelings?
00:03:22
Speaker
Even if you don't have the right to maybe project them out to somebody else and mistreat somebody, but do you even have a right to your own
Emotional Birthright and Self-Expression
00:03:29
Speaker
feelings? Do you even give yourself a moment to fully express yourself just privately and make peace with that moment? It's okay to feel anger. It's okay to feel frustration. It's okay to feel sadness, but we don't think we have a right. I should suck it up. Man up. I can't tell you how many people tell me. It's just, I need to get over it. Well, okay.
00:03:51
Speaker
We don't want to wallow in self-pity, and I definitely agree. We don't want to spend our days wallowing in self-pity, but we do have a right to our feelings. We actually, we have a birthright to our feelings. And here's what I want to say to anybody listening, whoever's had this experience of questioning whether or not they deserve, whether or not they're worthy of self-expression, of their truth, it's your birthright.
00:04:14
Speaker
You're human. You're here. You live and breathe. How can anybody take away your right to your own feelings? Maybe when you were little, full self-expression did not work out. Maybe your family didn't respond well. Maybe you got punished for speaking your truth. But now you're an adult. You don't have to remain silent.
00:04:36
Speaker
You don't have to cut off those feelings and your beliefs and your truth. You don't have to ask the question, do I deserve the right to my own voice, my own feelings. The question is, do I have a right to them? That's the literal synonym to the word deserve. So ask yourself this. Do you have the birthright to your own feelings? We're born feeling human beings. We're born with emotions. They are yours.
00:05:02
Speaker
And now you're free, you don't live at home, you don't have those parents, you don't have to get their approvals. So take today, notice your emotions.
Embracing Emotions and Personal Growth
00:05:10
Speaker
Allow them to just be. Pema Chardron, if you haven't read any of her works, I highly recommend her. She has a book, Start Where You Are. And she talks about this idea of starting exactly where you are. And what she means by that is start with whatever emotion is really coming up with you and just allow that emotion to exist.
00:05:28
Speaker
Breathe into the emotion and breathe out compassion and allow it to be in your body and not resist it and not push it away and not judge it. The emotion will move through you rather quickly. If you don't judge or resist or critique your right to have these emotions, you deserve it. Everybody deserves their feelings. It's not a question of deserve. It's a question of that's how we're built. We're born having feelings. We have no choice. This is we are, we are thinking, feeling beings.
00:05:56
Speaker
So take today, see if you can notice your feelings, see if you can allow them to happen without judgment, just breathe into them. And when you sear yourself saying the question, I shouldn't, I don't deserve, I need to get past it, remind yourself that it's your birthright. You're here, you're alive, and your feelings, they matter. And if they don't matter to the person to the left or to the right of you, just let them matter to you. Thank you so much for tuning in. If you liked today's episode, hop over to iTunes, subscribe, leave a review, and thank you for listening.