How Can You Regain Your Sense of Self-Worth After An Unwanted Experience?
Posted on June 8, 2021 Leave a Comment
All of us experience some form of disappointment in our lives. At five years old, two family members led me into the dark wilderness of childhood sexual abuse. After calling out for nature’s help, I chose to learn from life instead of being a continuous victim. Of course, over the years, anger, guilt, resentment, shame, and the like visited me, but I set my overall navigation on growing and learning. There was more to life than my childhood sexual abuse experience. So, how do we recover from broken expectations and prevent further damage to our self-worth?
Here are four steps to help you remember your worth.
- You acknowledge the experience for what it was. You don’t need to pretty up the story or tell a different story to achieve inner peace. When we deny our experiences, we increase the risk of denying our creativity, innate ability to heal, joy, peace, and like-minded virtues. Many emotions (anger, etc. )and feelings (incompetent, etc.) we experience come from denying what happened. Ask yourself. What am I refusing to accept about the experience?
- Part ways psychologically and physically, if you can. You do not need to continue in pain or repeat the past. Hurtful actions and words come from people who hurt. Often, their pain has nothing to do with you. For years, I lived near the two family members who misused my body. I saw them get on with their lives, and I knew I had to move forward with my life, too. Ask yourself. How can I move forward with my life?
- Learn from your experiences. Although your experiences can give you insight into your strengths and things to improve on, your experiences do not define you. You choose the life you want to live and set the standard for future experiences (relationships, employment, and other areas of your life) with what you now know about yourself. Self-empowerment comes from realizing you are greater than your experiences. Ask yourself. How can I use what I learned for future experiences?
- Create moments of stillness to reflect on your life and lessons learned. Throughout my day (i.e., cooking, cleaning, and other activities), I allow my mind to sift through experiences. Stillness is not about where you are but achieving inner peace despite where you are. Don’t get me wrong. I’m grateful for quiet moments, but sometimes I can’t wait until the kids go to bed or go outside on the deck to achieve calmness. Ask yourself. How can I achieve calmness regardless of my environment or passing storms?
- Forgive the teachers in your life. Every experience has something to teach us about ourselves””unfortunately, unhealed wounds and pain blind people to the Truth. Forgive them for they know not what they do (Luke 23:34). Ask yourself. Who am I permitting to interrupt my inner joy, peace, and other virtues?
We can turn broken expectations into opportunities by not taking our experiences personally, separating our worth from experiences, setting our life navigation on learning, and creating time to reflect on what we learned.
Make this lifetime great!
Timika
MSN BSN RN, Integrative Nutrition Health Coach, ACE Fitness Instructor, CDCES
P.S. I would love for you to join my community of being bent on using our experiences as stepping stones to our divine purpose, healing from the inside out, and achieving and sustaining optimal health. Subscribe to @timikaschambers.com for my quarterly newsletters. Let’s break the generational cycle of pain by creating a generational cycle of Love.
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How To Walk Instead of Jumping The Expectation Hurdles?
Posted on June 7, 2021 Leave a Comment
Often mother would say, “as long as people have a tongue, they will talk. Pay attention to their actions.” My mother was not telling us not to trust people but to leave some space between expectations and realizations. The Webster dictionary defines expect as 1. to consider probable or certain. 2. to consider reasonable due or necessary 3. to consider bound in duty or obligated. 4. to anticipate or look forward to the coming or occurrence. Other definitions include await, look forward, suppose, stay, or think, or wait (https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/expect). When I read the above definitions, I thought no wonder expectations could negatively affect us. We bound and wait for someone to do their duty. No wonder many of us put up with certain behaviors. We wait and hope the other person change without doing anything on our part.
Often, we put up with how others treat us and hope for the best. We hope someday soon they see the Light. But, the days, months, and years continue to be the same. We make excuses for people. They are stressed, unhappy, in pain, or others, and we end up stressed, unhappy, in pain, resentful, and others. We may even blame ourselves for what someone else does. How does that last sentence sound to you? We blame ourselves for what we cannot control in the first place.
Between the ages of 5”“10, I waited for the two family members who misused my body, and I waited for them to do the right thing. What I learned was I had to speak up for myself to change my situation. I couldn’t wait on the two family members to decide my fate any longer. And, I continued to use my voice and legs to change and free myself from situations that did not benefit me.
I didn’t want to keep jumping the hurdles. Instead, I exited the experience and kept walking.
As you know actions speak louder than words, and when people keep showing you they are not on the same level, it’s time to change. And I believe we don’t have to hurt others to make our requests known.
- Please pay attention to the actions of a person and their words. Do their actions and words match?
- Use your voice to tell someone how you feel and let others know about it. Keep speaking until someone believes you and helps you do something about the situation, especially if you are in an abusive situation.
- Remind people of your shared goal. Sometimes we get off track (personal, family, and other situations), and a friendly reminder is all we need.
- Make sure your actions and words match (living with integrity). I believe we do attract who we are. When we think less of ourselves, someone or something may try to prove our low sense of self-worth.
You deserve joy and peace. You are more than your experiences.
Make this lifetime great!
Timika
MSN BSN RN, Integrative Nutrition Health Coach, ACE Fitness Instructor, CDCES
P.S. I would love for you to join my community of being bent on using our experiences as stepping stones to our divine purpose, healing from the inside out, and achieving and sustaining optimal health. Subscribe to @timikaschambers.com by clicking the link below.
