Worthy Title

Have you ever had one of those pivotal experiences in life that has taken years to teach you a very valuable lesson? I have. Mine came when I found myself wanting validation as an individual. As a stay-at-home mom, I got lost in between the household chores and the ‘tend to this concern’ or ‘tend to that need’ leaving me on a desperate search for who I was as an individual. I kind of felt like pieces of my identity had gotten thrown out with the weekly trash as the years went by. I wanted acceptance found outside of motherhood. I'm not trying to sound ungrateful here, I wouldn’t trade being a mom for anything in the world, but as a stay-at-home mother, my world had shrunk down to only the insides of a house and the fenced-in yard.

After watching a few successful entrepreneur mom's be able to do both; be a mom and a business woman, left me the intense desire to have my "own" title.

A desire to write fiction soon filled my mind and before I knew it I'd signed up for a writer’s course, so that I was able to develop this talent without neglecting my motherly duties. A win-win scenario in my mind.

However, I had some funny notion that my self-worth was attached to what I produced, to my art. As I put my heart on the line with my books, I failed to see that I was seeking for external sources to validate who I was. If other’s like what I produced, I had worth, if they didn’t, I was worthless.

We should NEVER affix our worth on a creative product that we produce. I learned this the hard way. I let my imperfections and other's opinions determine way too much.

There’s always room for improvement no matter what it is; professions, products, or even as a person, but when we let our self-worth be determined by what people think, we then become prisoners of performing more, pleasing more, and perfecting more, and we still will never be enough.

We should never put our worth on the table to be eaten and forgotten by the next meal. We are all more than an effective pitch, high-raking on Amazon or a novel we thought up.

It reminds me of the popular reality shows that air on TV where only one individual wins. Do all the others, who have the same talent but are not voted as the master, lack abilities or skill? No, they don’t. Let’s not let others, especially ourselves, dictate who has worth–because we all do. Our individual worth is never negotiable. No “title” is ever going to give us worth, because WE are born with infinite worth. It's our birthright. Regardless what we write, paint, produce, say or do. When our self-worth isn’t our offering, we are freed to be innovative and create, we can love without limits and we can give more of ourselves without holding back and we can connect to those around us without reservation.

I’ve learned that savoring the emotions and the feelings I experience personally while writing is enough. They become my own reward and they are mine and mine alone. Now, I must let others experience what they will, but my satisfaction of creating shouldn’t be minimized because they don’t experience what I did. If others don’t like what I have created that doesn’t take away who I am, and it never will, because my worth isn’t in my title. #selfworth