“Don’t ever negotiate your worth and belonging with other people” Brene Brown
I absolutely love Brene Brown, she talks so much sense and just says it as it is.
I was listening to her speak this week and this really resonated with me. How many of us DO negotiate our worth and belonging with others ALL the time?
I mean we do things to please others, that don’t necessarily please ourselves, we do things to fit in, to feel more accepted. We say things to please, to placate, out of duty, because we think we should, for fear of rejection and fear of judgement. If we actually take the time to stop and think, I bet most of us spend our lives people pleasing and fitting in – as Brene Brown says we are negotiating our worth and belonging with others.
It is a funny thing that we all want to fit in, to be accepted, to be liked, yet most of us also spend our time looking and searching out ways to prove that we don’t belong, that we are different or that we are somehow not good enough. We constantly compare ourselves to others and find ourselves lacking. The really sad thing is that we do this so frequently, it feels so normal, that most of us are no longer aware we are actually doing it.
What we say to ourselves matters. What we think about ourselves matters. What we do with our lives matters. How we live our lives matters and not to just to us but to all the people we come into contact with – the ripple effect.
One thing is certain that “if you walk through the world looking for evidence that you are not enough – you’ll always find it. If you walk through the world looking for evidence that you don’t belong – you’ll always find it” (Brene Brown)
So, who is it that gets to decide your worth and belonging? No one else should ever decide this for you, it should be totally non negotiable and ONLY ever YOU.