I remember talking to Wepwawet a few months back. I was feeling depressed and worthless because I hadn’t been doing much of anything. I was burned out in more ways than one. I told him I felt bad because I couldn’t do those things anymore. He said that was ok, because I had been doing them for the wrong reasons. Better to drop them than to continue down that path.
He wasn’t telling me to do nothing. He wanted me to think.
The burn out itself was an indication that the path was not sustainable. I thought it was ok to take let myself get scratched up while getting things done. Why? Because I didn’t think I was worth that much to begin with. My own losses were acceptable. Isn’t that what it means to be a hero?
Oh, but look at that ego! Trying to get that low self esteem to make a U-turn by way of noble self sacrifice. Guess what, it doesn’t work that way. You can’t fill a hole by digging it deeper. You can’t discover your own value when you continue to devalue yourself. And you can’t cheat by looking for that value from the outside. Outside praise is like ice cream. It is sweet and cool on the tongue and oh-so tempting, but it melts fast and you probably shouldn’t try to sustain yourself on it. Ice cream isn’t evil, it’s just not a substitute for real nourishment.
If the problem is that you don’t value yourself, that gives you a clue on where to look. How do you learn to value yourself? If this is a problem that you suffer from, it’s nearly certain that your brain can come up with a thousand reasons why you should not. Chances are good that other people told you that crap over a long period of time. I grew up hearing a lot of it. Funny story, but Heru-sa-Aset grew up with that too. It’s an odd mix of “chosen one” and “total loser.” It’s a flavor I know well. With that kind of pressure, you might grow up feeling that those are the only two options available to you.
Both of those messages are unrealistic and untrue. Both of them can do you harm. It sets you up to believe that anything less than perfection is failure. It’s never going to be “good enough.” But Chosen Ones can be replaced, and focusing on them denies the fact that anything really good in life is put together by groups of people working together. The Total Loser doesn’t exist except in the minds of those who have their own problems with understanding value.
During my time away I completely ignored the Chosen One crap. The world didn’t end. I discovered that I was not a Total Loser either, in fact, I had more time to devote to the people around me. I started making progress on things that had been stalled out for a long time.
I discovered that self-love is not dependent upon those kinds of value judgments. Do you make other people pass impossible hurdles before you decide to love them? I hope not. With that love, I started to discover my own value, no more and no less than you’d value any other loved one. Those destructive situations where I used to push myself too hard are no longer acceptable. Rather than grin and bear it, it’s time to make adjustments and accommodations, and outright refusals when the others aren’t enough. At the same time, I value the abilities that I do have. Maybe hiding away on a shelf is no longer acceptable either, because honestly, that’s no fun. All things in balance, right?