Happy 2024, everyone! Let’s start the year with an important topic! A longtime reader wrote in with a weighty question, paraphrased with permission here:
For various reasons probably stemming from early childhood, I believe I am not a good person—not because of anything I have done or said or anything I am. But it is a core belief that has, in my life, been unshakable by all the good things I do.
Thankfully, achieving, following rules, and being approved of works most of the time. But I cannot afford to let up on these behaviors because without them, I have nothing left to value in myself.
I have yet to encounter therapy that can help me believe that I have value just for being alive. When there is no self-love underneath, how do I create it?
I’m grateful for this reader’s eloquent and vulnerable question. Now, I won’t pretend that 1) I have *the* answer, or 2) a newsletter is sufficient to cover it. But I want to ponder it with all of you, dear readers, because of how very common this question is. Oddly, feeling worthless connects us to so many other humans on this planet, even as we feel alone in our pain.
Perhaps even more oddly, my take isn’t about how to “prove” or “build” self-worth and self-love at all. Our reader’s belief exists “not because of anything I have done or said or anything I am.” In other words, the absence *or* presence of lasting, inherent self-worth isn’t contingent upon what we do or say or what other people think of us. Therefore, let’s shift our perspective.
With that, here are three very different ways to approach this common human experience.
One: Take the “I have nothing to value in myself” belief seriously, but not too seriously.
“I am not a good person” is a story that was either told to us overtly, or absorbed from the world around us.
Let’s look back on those early childhood years. The following example isn’t meant to be disrespectful—it’s meant to show the fallibility of parents. Remember Talladega Nights? Think of Ricky Bobby’s deadbeat dad’s elementary school career day proclamation: “If you ain’t first, you’re last.” Ricky Bobby builds his whole life around that quip, only to have his dad reveal decades later: “Aw, hell, Ricky, I was high when I said that. That doesn’t make any sense at all.”
We are wired to love, trust, and believe in our parents. Of course we’re going to take their lessons to heart.
For you, maybe your parents’ intentions were good—they pushed you hard to achieve or behave a certain way, but the lesson came off as, “You’re not good enough as you are—in fact, you’re bad.”
Or maybe intentions weren’t so good: some parents rule over the tiny kingdom of their household like a dictator—they build up their value by taking away yours. Or maybe one or both parents were absent, which your child brain took as a loud and clear message about your value. Maybe they struggled with serious mental illness or addiction.
Regardless, the story “you are not a good person,” or “you have no value” came across loud and clear, despite it being incorrect and inappropriate.
Now, even if the lesson, “You are not a good person,” was wrong, it still had an effect on you. Honor that. Take it seriously.
Simultaneously, don’t take it too seriously. Treat the “I have no value” belief as you would a small animal—a fuzzy hamster, a wiggly salamander, or a trilling songbird. Hold it lightly, gently. With a small animal, if we hold it too firmly or are over-engaged with it, we will make a big mess. But neither can we pretend they’re not there. Therefore, take your belief seriously, but not too seriously. Honor it, take care of it, but hold it lightly.
Two: Get irreverent. Even deep, dark beliefs can be played with.
Even lifelong core beliefs, at the end of the day, are just thoughts. They’re not the truth. They’re not you. They’re thoughts.
Now, we can’t control our thoughts—brains are going to churn them out whether we like it or not. But we can engage with our thoughts without letting them control us. Therefore, let’s walk a fine line between serious validation and irreverent play in order to reclaim some power and take the air out of our darkest thoughts.
Here are some examples: One client we’ll call Stephanie has a core belief of, “I’m doing everything wrong.” Bill’s is, “I’m going to let everyone down.”
As for me, the lifelong thought floating around in my head is something along the lines of “This should be better,” which has gotten me some nice achievements, but also confers a pesky, chronic sense of dissatisfaction.
In order to play with her thoughts, Stephanie pictures herself casually sipping from a coffee mug emblazoned with her core belief in red font: “I’m Doing It Wrong.” Bill sings his deep-down belief to a little tune he made up. Last week he told me he hummed it to himself while washing dishes: “I’m gonna let…everyone do-o-o-wn!”
As for me, when I find myself beset by my chronic dissatisfaction, I like to picture a bizarre, out-of-touch royal, like Paul Reuben’s Gerhardt Hapsburg on 30 Rock, pronouncing, in a ridiculous accent, “THIS should be BETT-AH!”
For you, is there a way to play with your core beliefs? Picture a shower of Monopoly money emblazoned with “I Have No Value.” Envision a fancy needlepoint sampler that says “Not a Good Person” in curly script.
Why do this? Again, we can’t keep our brains from pumping out the “I have no value” or “I am not a good person” thoughts. We can’t control them. But passively getting punched by “I have no value” puts us in a low-power position, while playing with the beliefs, especially by adding some humor or irreverence, lets us exert some influence over our own thoughts. And that can be very empowering.
Three: You don’t actually have to feel self-love before you practice it.
Unpopular opinion: you don’t have to feel love for yourself to move forward. You don’t actually have to believe you have value to live a life you love. I know, I know: this goes against every magazine cover, social media influencer, and pop song commanding you to love yourself.
We can’t control our feelings. If you’ve ever been told, “Just relax!” or “Cheer up!” you know this to be true. We can’t magically start feeling the warmth, appreciation, or positive regard for ourselves that is self-love.
But guess what? You don’t have to.
Instead, focus on what you can control: your actions. You can offer yourself love, warmth, and appreciation with your own behavior.
What would people who appreciate themselves do? Maybe they would let themselves rest at the end of the day rather than grinding through email at 10 PM. Maybe they’d have friends over for pizza and focus on connecting, rather than putting all their energy into making homemade gnocchi to be impressive. Maybe they would forgive themselves for getting sucked into an two-hour-long TikTok rabbit hole rather than lambasting themselves.
And when we start to treat ourselves as someone who deserves self-love, or to act as if we have value, we might believe it. Or not. Either is okay. We’ll still be treating ourselves with love, which is pretty much the same outcome as believing it.
That was a long one, so let’s summarize: hold even your darkest beliefs lightly, add some playful irreverence to your most deep-seated fears to take back some power, and treat yourself as if you love yourself, even if you don’t feel it.
Heck, especially if you don’t feel it.
Be kind to others and yourself!
Did you find this note from me useful? If so, please forward it to one person you care about. Even in our digital world, a word of mouth recommendation is still the most valuable.
One of my favorite journalists at The Atlantic, Olga Khazan, reminded me of the time I was blindsided by too much information, too soon, in her Substack article “How Much Information *Is* TMI?”
And Jenna Ryu from Self magazine included me in her all-too-relatable article, How to Recover When Socializing Has Totally Drained Your Battery. Spoiler: you don’t have to take that bubble bath all the other advice columns recommend!
Top photo credit: Jon Tyson
Relate to this so much. Appreciate your writing. I love the idea of a pillow with “bad person” embroidered. Going to try this.
Yeah, that belief/feeling is extremely relatable. I'm in comprehensive DBT right now sooo I have a ways to go before I can practice self-love or self-compassion, and for some reason I'm *super* attached to my thoughts---as in, I'm not willing to detach or defuse from them, for some reason. HOWEVER I found the first point to be super helpful. To take it seriously and also not, that's a dialectical right there lol.