Patience Starts with Owning Your Worth
An unexpected upside of learning my worth was discovering a deeper well of patience.
An unexpected upside of Owning my Worth is that I have more patience. When I started my self-worth journey, I was searching for confidence, clarity, and the courage to take up space. But as I stopped questioning my worth, I also let go of the need to prove myself or control everything around me. Patience became one of the many unexpected pieces of Owning my Worth that fell into place with wonderful outcomes.
More patience for the silence in the company of others
I have learned to retire my mind’s job of endlessly formulating the next sentence to speak or analyzing the conversation to make sure what I said met the criteria of intelligent, witty, or funny. It was exhausting acting like a character in a play, playing a part. A part that changed based on who I was with or what situation I found myself in.
Changing my persona wasn’t done with malice, it was done out of low self-worth. I agonized over every word I would say trying to decipher what they would think of me. Even in times of silence it wasn’t due to comfort or a lack of things to talk about it was more about me believe that I wasn’t Good Enough to contribute to the conversation.
The answer most of time came back in my head as “No” keep quite, or after having the courage to contribute, the voice came back as “that was stupid, you are stupid for saying that, they think you’re stupid.” It was an awful place to live from which negatively impacted my relationships, and my career because I really didn’t have the belief that I was good enough.
In conversations there is now an increased comfort with the silence. I no longer need to fill the void with small talk or over analyze my thoughts. Through reciting the Metta prayer, I have transformed my belief about my worth and instilled the belief that I am good enough and deserving of blessings. I am now at peace with my own silence or the silence of others.
Send yourself Blessings through reciting the Metta prayer
May you be filled with loving kindness.
May you be safe from inner and outer dangers.
May you be healthy in body and mind.
May you find peace and be truly happy.
More patience for accepting imperfections
The transformation from my previous mode of operation, impatience masked with irritation, has been eye opening. I was deeply unhappy and it showed. I was entirely dependent on the on the moods, behaviors, and attention given to me by others, because I didn’t know how to give myself what I needed.
The thought of being a burden terrified me to the point where I would become paralyzed with indecision and perfectionism. I told myself that I had to be worth the bother so what I did had to be perfect, I had to make it effortless for them to like me, to work with me, to be around me.
I no longer feel like a burden and now embrace the messy imperfections of life. I’m okay with making mistakes and am a wiz at evaluating what to spend my time on and what to dump. I use the Good Enough, Move On strategy to keep moving forward with an appreciation for what I do contribute, regardless if it’s perfect or not.
An easy way to combat perfectionism - “Good Enough, Move On”
Overcome perfectionism by recognizing when a task has been completed to the point that any additional effort won’t result in an significant change in the outcome. It’s good enough, so move on to what’s next!
More patience to allow others the space they need to be themselves.
Realizing I am enough brought an unexpected shift in my ability to have patience. For a long time, I felt extremely needy and in general incomplete. I learned to rely on others to fill the voids. But as I grew more secure in my worth, I became more capable of detaching from others in a healthier way.
My impatience for the attention or affection others gave me, began to loosen. Others’ perceptions of me no longer felt like personal slights or threats to my well-being. I was becoming less dependent on them to provide my worth and they could think what they wanted and I began to accept that I didn’t need to fix, change, or control that.
Owning my worth gave me the patience to hold space for others exactly as they are. Finding acceptance through the Serenity prayer helped me to step back with acceptance and allow people to show up authentically without judgment or resistance. In doing so, I found a new ease and grace in relationships, one where both of us could simply be ourselves.
Finding Acceptance through the Serenity Prayer:
Give me the calm to accept what I cannot change.
The strength to change what I can, and
The clarity to know the difference.
It is in these moments of patience that I see clarity in situations, notice the beauty of things not going as planned, and the unlimited potential that we all have when we are allowed to be authentic.
Be Well,
Nicole