Be Less So You Can Finally Be Worthy
The air pushed against my skin. The mountain blurred at the edge of my vision. I was in free fall.
No chute. No line. Just falling.
Everything went white and my vision cut out.
I felt cold, wet ground beneath me. I opened my eyes and saw the forest canopy stretching to the sky. The sun did its best to find me.
Disoriented and scared, I began dissolving into the forest floor.
And for a moment, the world around me stopped.
The ground shook, clearing the leaves where my body had been.
A garden began to emerge filled with vibrant orchids, lilies, and tomatoes, too exact to be wild.
The cold and fear turned to warmth and peace.
Then a voice whispered, “On my count, return to your breath and when you’re ready, open your eyes.”
I blinked my eyes open. Salt had dried on my face.
I was consumed with thoughts that I was not good enough.
I believed I was only worth as much as the money, status, looks, and sexual prowess I could bring to a relationship.
The externals were the only thing that mattered, because inside I felt broken.
I kept raising the bar for what I believed I had to be.
Chasing a moving goalpost shrank my love into a sealed, opaque container.
Protection over connection.
My wife was dead, and I would joke it was her only escape from me. The joke never landed, but each time I told it, a part of me believed it more.
The constant rumination of my failures and ways I couldn’t measure up haunted me.
But there in the forest, surrounded by life and beauty, I found my worth.
And so, my path to restoration of mind and body began. Because what grew in the garden wasn’t from the things I did or had, it was from who I am.
Your Pricing Model Is Flawed
If you’ve been pricing your worth on moving goalposts, this is the moment to stop.
You are holding onto the same belief that I held: worth must be earned through externals we can provide.
But the truth? Worth is intrinsic.
Externals are masks we use to hide the pain we bury and distract from who we really are.
I started dating my wife when we I was eighteen years old.
She died when I was thirty-five.
The first time I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror after her death, I saw myself instantly age seventeen years.
I was alone.
And I felt every bit my age and more.
You Aren’t Broken, You’re Just Flawed
It can be easy to find compassion for others’ flaws. But we refuse to tolerate our own.
“If I rest, I’ll get lazy.”
You cannot inhale without first exhaling.
”Without proof, I feel fake.”
You have proof, but it’s never enough.
”I’m too broken for them to love me.”
Flaws are human, not brokenness.
You exist with your thoughts 24/7, which amplifies how you see your flaws.
So you try harder to push them away.
You distract yourself.
You numb out.
You overcompensate by exerting more control over your externals.
Because what you can see, you think you can change.
You wash your outside when the cleaning needs to happen inside.
But, you aren’t alone.
I do it.
We all do it.
It doesn’t mean you’re broken. It means you’re normal.
“You Must Love Yourself First”
“Love yourself first, before you can be loved” is overly simplistic at best and prohibitively restrictive at worst.
It takes our overactive thoughts about our flaws and makes them louder.
It convinces us that we must rid ourselves of every flaw before we can love ourselves.
Before we can be loved.
It’s just another goalpost. Another achievement we need to have before we feel worthy.
So, no, please don’t think you have to “love yourself first.”
Start developing your ability to extend compassion towards yourself.
And then do what you are most afraid of–deal with your shit.
Dig into the pain you have been avoiding.
Speak out loud the parts you hate.
The more you run away, the stronger your resistance becomes.
The more you run towards the pain, the deeper appreciation you have for your worth.
We are not repulsed by the humanity in a person.
We are repulsed by the dissonance in who they are and what they present.
In my vision, a garden grew where I disappeared. That version of me was built on insecurity and pain. When it dissolved, peace remained.
I carry that experience with me and have to constantly remind myself there is freedom in acceptance, even if it takes great pain, work, and sacrifice to get there.
So next time you feel yourself moving the goalpost, ask yourself: “What am I trying to protect?”
- CJ
What are you running from? 👇🏻
If you enjoyed this read, the best compliment I could receive would be if you shared it with one person or restacked it.
Worth is intrinsic 💯