On unworthiness, self-worth, and the exhausting search to feel like I’m enough
I’ve written a lot this year about my inner critic. I’ve spent a lot of time reflecting on this part of myself. And just recently, another character showed itself very clearly: unworthiness.
I saw that my inner critic sprouts up from cracks in my self-worth. My unworthiness seemingly being the mother of my inner critic. And my work on my inner critic has essentially been work on my self-worth.
I discovered that there is a part of me that can sometimes feel totally not good enough, as if she is just wrong, as if her existence, her being, is just wrong.
When I try to connect to what this part really feels, I think it’s shame. Ashamed.
And then there comes my inner critic.
My inner critic doesn’t like to feel shame, so it comes up annoyed that here we are, feeling this. It comes up trying to fix things, so I can finally do it right and don’t have to feel ashamed anymore. My inner critic is a fixer, a protector. The wound beneath is unworthiness.
As I look at this wound, I wonder why it came to be. It hurts to see that it’s there. How come I, sweet I, can feel that there is just something wrong in my very existence?
It clearly doesn’t make sense. But it’s there.
So firstly, I acknowledge this with a lot of love and a lot of softness.
I’m sorry, beautiful Upeka, that you sometimes feel unworthy of existing.
And I’m so sorry I tried to push away this feeling so desperately, with so much force, by being so hard on you.
I apologize to my inner critic for trying to fix it all the time instead of just letting you be, giving you space, and taking the time to get to know you.
What I see is that having a wound in worthiness means that while you are not in the feeling of being unworthy, you are looking for reassurance of your worthiness and reasons to believe otherwise. Since there is no inner baseline, it’s a search.
If somewhere inside me I don’t fundamentally know “I am enough,” then I have to keep looking outside myself for evidence.
Am I loved?
Am I doing well?
Do they approve of me?
Did I do that right?
Am I impressive enough?
Did I make a mistake?
Do they still like me?
Am I being good?
And there is never enough evidence, because the underlying question hasn’t been resolved.
The search itself becomes exhausting.
A search for recognition, a search for love from a partner that finally makes you feel worthy. It brings the desperation to do things perfectly, to do it all right. It brings the absolute rejection of making mistakes. Because a mistake is another confirmation of the unworthiness.
I am unworthy → I must prove otherwise → I must do things correctly → I make a mistake → evidence! Maybe I really am unworthy.
This creates eggshells. So much pressure around how to perform in the best way. And total fear of doing something wrong. It brings the expectation that people are going to judge you, and it makes any feedback or harshness land with such brute force, as a direct attack on your worth.
Where it comes from
We come from imperfect parents who perhaps couldn’t always create in us the belief and knowing that love from them was unconditional. Perhaps we felt it was conditional.
We live in a society where so much of our worth feels conditional, based on how we perform, the results we bring, how much we are able to meet the standards of success.
I know many of us who grew up in Sri Lanka, like me, carry wounds in this area. We went to competitive schools where the focus was on perfect grades and being “the best.”
From a young age, the pressure was on to perform, and not just to perform, but to outperform others.
To be better, the best, the first.
I knew people who were hit by their parents for not being top of the class, and others who were given iPhones as presents for being first of the class.
I did well in school. Top grades. And it took me a long time to shake the belief that my worth came from how well I performed.
Then, in university, COVID came. Classes went online; it was a stressful time, and for the first time in years I couldn’t push myself to study and focus. I couldn’t get perfect grades anymore. And the stress and discomfort and insecurity this brought me showed me how much of my self-worth I’d placed on those numbers, how much I’d actually needed them to feel okay in my life.
I was initially successful within that system, and only when I couldn’t perform anymore did I realise how much I had attached my worth to performing.
I’m glad to have shaken that out of myself now, choosing a path that my previous academic self would have totally feared.
Children should be reminded, again and again, that they are worthy irrespective of the grade they get at school. They need to know, deep in their hearts, that they are loved and accepted, even if they don’t perform well. Of course it’s good if they do, if they can. But love should never be on the line.
Growing up, my good grades gave me worth and positive recognition. My boyfriends, my partying habits, gave me judgement, shame, a sense of being dirty.
My mother struggles with her self-worth too.
She often questions each decision she makes, wondering if she did the wrong thing. She’s never direct, never really says what she feels when it’s difficult, because she’s scared of disappointing, scared of what others think. She grew up with extremely tough rules, tough expectations. Expected to do things perfectly. Shamed for mistakes she didn’t even make. Without the security of knowing she was always loved, no matter what.
I see she searches too. And I see how maybe instead of searching, she hides. Avoiding situations that could touch this wound of unworthiness.
And I find this such a shame. Because here is a beautiful woman with big wisdom, with big art, that the world should have seen.
My parents did things very differently than they were raised.
But I find I have held the same shaky self-worth.
An inherent feeling that I am simply not enough, not worthy of being here.
That I have to prove I deserve the ground I stand on, the air I breathe.
It’s in our systems, our societies, our way of seeing life as a game we constantly have to prove ourselves in. And it can be suffocating.
And it’s devastating that so many of us feel this lack of self-acceptance. This fear of being outcast, rejected, shamed. That this makes so many hold in their gifts, their truths, their voices.
Where I’m at now
I look back down my family line, and I see I come from a line of shaky self-worth. Those who lived with persistent self-consciousness and fear. Where mistakes came with punishment. Where feeling loved and safe was conditional. Especially for the women.
Now it became clear for me that there were some interesting things I wanted to do with my life, things that required me to put myself out there.
And I believe I am the first in my family to do it this way.
To own that there’s something I wish to bring, that there is value in my words, in my story, in my experience.
And to go through this process is a constant mirror to all these wounds of unworthiness and fear.
And I feel grateful. Grateful to have this opportunity to meet all these places where I struggle to love and accept myself. This is my opportunity to create a solid sense of self-worth. To show myself that love from me is unconditional.
Because I see the little girl in me that feels unworthy looks so much like the little girl in my mother. And I wish for her everything. So I feel, yeah, I will figure it out. So I can share my voice, my art, for both of us.
And maybe that’s what this wound has been. An invitation.
An invitation to deepen my self-acceptance. My self-love. To meet the part of me that feels it has to prove itself, and remind it that it doesn’t.
Because if I don’t have to prove that I am enough, I don’t have to constantly do things to prove that I deserve to exist. I can just be here.
I can do things because I want to do them, because they matter to me, because I am curious, because I love them.
Not because I need them to prove something about my worth.
No desperation to get it right.
No desperation to be the best.
No desperation to be liked.
No desperation to prove I deserve my place here.
I can relax.
I can make mistakes.
I can be imperfect.
And still be me.
Still be worthy.
Still belong.