Journey to Self Worth

I’m writing this at a time when I don’t usually write. It all just kind of rushed in though. I had a revelation yesterday. I made myself a voice memo in my phone to detail it because I was walking in the freezing cold. After that, I had a brief conversation about it with a close friend, but it did not occur to me at all that this, in itself, was a topic; worth writing about, worth discussing on the podcast. As transparent as I am, I think I’m reckoning with how…personal this is. 

I’ve only really been in Love once. I hope this wouldn’t offend another Lover or two, but Love as I remember it, as it felt then, it’s only happened once. I was 19 and it was over before I was 21. Of course it lingered a bit after, but it was done. When it started, it was a whirlwind. Everything happened so fast, but it felt right. It felt safe. This wasn’t some one-sided infatuation. Everything I felt, we felt together. 

So much of it was blissful. All of it really, aside from one thing—the way I felt about myself. 

We’ll get back to that, but let's fast forward a bit. Here I am now, fresh out of the only real relationship I’ve been in since then. I’m 29 now. A few years back, in my first year of therapy, before meeting my most recent partner, I broke down a lot of layers that needed to be done away with. I admitted that I did actually desire to be in a partnership, that was big for me. From that point on, my intentions shifted in dating, I wanted something that was more than casual. 

In that process, though, I noticed something. I craved intensity. I wanted that whirlwind, that infatuation. I wanted to feel something, and when I didn’t, I wrote it off. Bringing those moments back to my therapist, I was told that a lot of those whirlwind feelings were tied to anxiety, and that when it’s real, it should feel safe, calm. These lessons were echoed in programs like Black Love, so I felt myself trying to peel that layer away, trying to do away with that desire. 

Being in a space of depression in my latest relationship put a lot of pressure on us both. That and everything else kept the echo of “relationships take hard work” bouncing in my head. On top of the work that needed to be done to create a secure attachment with my partner, I also was starting to see how much healing I had to do, on my own, still. So, I kept that front of mind. 

I told myself that I was doing the work, one thing at a time. There was no space to nag about the passion and admiration I wasn’t getting while I was still broken. So, I allowed those needs of mine to go unmet. You may be catching on to where I’m going with this.

The revelation that I had yesterday was that my self-worth is the key, and it’s gone untapped in all of my romantic connections. Since my first, real Love, I’ve been searching for that intensity. I’ve been searching for passion and admiration, for out loud Love. We were too in Love to remember to be cool (you should see our tweets from 2011). It was fun, and free and beautiful, but I’d been convincing myself that it was unhealthy because Love is supposed to feel calm, but the truth is: what made it unhealthy was my lack of Love for self.

I hated myself, and I put him on a pedestal. I often said things like I don’t deserve him, and I really didn’t know enough then to see how much my depression was in play. So, as time went on, and even in my latest relationship, I subconsciously went back to the only thing that felt was in my control. I couldn’t control whether our passion and admiration was mutual. I couldn’t control whether I was genuinely interested in and supported. The only thing I could control was how I felt about myself. 

I would refer to myself as broken or dark. I saw myself as something that needed to be fixed in order to, eventually, get all the feelings I’ve been desperate for. Subconsciously, it always came back to low self worth, which, of course, manifested into all types of negativity. 

I’m here to tell You right now, You deserve to be adored even though you’re still healing.

So, the revelation I had now is that the key to everything is self worth. Self worth and self Love, first. Not only do I need to ensure that I don’t walk into any new spaces without it, but I need to commit to ushering it in for myself everyday. 

Now, of course, I’m not undermining my therapist. She’s 100% correct, I do tend to attach anxiously and those sensations, I call them Love. What I know now though is I don’t want to diminish all of those things. I want passion, I want out-loud, forget to be cool, Love. I also want a partnership where we are doing the work, individually and collectively to create something safe and secure out of our connection. I want balance. I’m tired of telling myself that I can’t have that, that I’ll never feel those things again. 

I’m ushering it in. Safely, securely, but just as wild and free as I am. From now on, that’s the Love I will give to myself, and when the time comes, I’ll share it with someone as wild-hearted as me.