Weeding Out the Root of All Fears: Realizing Our Self-Worth
The root of many, dare I say all, fears is the notion of not being enough — the idea that we are somehow less than we really are. That we are not strong enough (mentally, emotionally or physically). That we are not capable enough. That we are not beautiful enough. That we are not wealthy enough. That we haven’t lived enough. This is simply untrue. It’s a lie that feeds on our deepest insecurities, which become compounded and create many of our fears.
To truly understand this source of our fears requires us to recognize how pervasive it is. Whether we like to admit it or not, at one time or another we’ve all suffered from the notion of not being enough. This sometimes stems from childhood experiences or our parents’ own issues. We’ve all experienced it and dealt with it in our own way, often by overcompensating and striving for perfection or, at the other extreme, falling into self-destructive patterns of behavior that merely serve to reinforce the very notion.
At the same time, the notion of not being enough constantly surrounds us, underpinning so many of our social and economic constructs. Buried beneath these are the many narratives we’ve been fed and internalized, negatively impacting our sense of self-worth.
These narratives fuel our economy — everything from home and beauty makeovers, to lifestyle, celebrity and matchmaking reality shows, to plastic surgery and fillers, all leading to the excessive consumerism that ultimately leaves us feeling overweight, overspent and overwhelmed.
We’ve allowed these stories to inform our decisions in many ways from generation to generation, thus enslaving ourselves to a system and, in effect, allowing a small cadre of pseudo-elites (in the media and in Hollywood, Silicon Valley, Wall Street and Washington) to assert their superiority and control over the masses. It’s the same lie that historically enabled a select few (from monarchs to Popes) to assert their supremacy over entire populations and nations, the lie that enabled whole races to become colonized or enslaved.
It’s the same lie that today continues to keep people on a treadmill of achievement and spending and accumulating debt; the lie that keeps people from seeking true loving relationships and preventing them from accepting the truth, which is that they are deserving of love; the lie that keeps them from realizing their true potential. And it’s the lie that ultimately disempowers us all.
Once we can understand this source of our fears, it takes more to move past it. Seeing beyond the lie takes open-mindedness and compassion to understand how each of our decisions (or lack of decision) or responses has contributed to its continued existence. It takes accepting responsibility for the many times in which we were complicit in reinforcing the lie through our conspicuous consumption. It requires taking ownership for the fact we have, in one way or another, allowed this lie to be perpetuated. And ultimately, it takes forgiving ourselves for this and for the fact that somewhere along the way we gave up on ourselves and ceded our personal power.
What’s most challenging about overcoming the source of fear is facing life after it. That will be the most exciting or most terrifying day because our identities and self-perception have been so wrapped up in the external that we haven’t known our true selves. Up to that moment, we had been directed by the lie at the root of our fears to look outside of ourselves (focusing on what we didn’t have) and to want and desire. We will no longer have to look outside of ourselves to make us feel whole and alive. We will no longer accept half-assed relationships that demand we compromise our self-respect. We will no longer tolerate jobs that drain our life force. Instead we will be able to look within, to learn to friend and love ourselves, to find the kind of pure joy that has eluded us for most of our lives. We will be able to show compassion and receive love in return.