Some people are naturally able to feel worthy.

Their confidence shines. They glow as they walk and have no difficulty in pleasuring themselves fully.

Others don’t even know what that means. For them, feeling worthy is a yucky task. Every morning they have to look for a speck of self-trust just so they can make it through another day.

They feel like they’re barely surviving, all because they don’t know how to feel good enough—to love themselves deeply.

I know what it feels like. I’ve been there, and more often than not, my constant search for “enoughness” has blocked my vision. I’ve never been able to see the attainable opportunities or the potential success ahead of me because I’m too busy chasing external validation.

I try to remind myself every single day that not feeling good enough is an illusion. I tell myself that it’s all in my head, but I can’t always shake off that pesky feeling. The truth is it’s hard. Having to rewire our entire emotional and mental system comes at a cost.

We need to let go of our rigid ideas and beliefs about ourselves…and doing that is painful. Because our old self will always lure us, even if she is filled with feelings of unworthiness. There comes a time, however, when our life stops making sense and we are forced to pause and rethink our old ways of loving ourselves.

We may discover that we’ve never truly loved ourselves—that our value has always been attached to how other people see us. I’ve learned the hard way that I’m the only one who can replant the seeds of worthiness within me—and I’m the only one who should always water them.

Here are two simple steps to stop feeling worthless:

1. Focus on you. The more we focus on others, the deeper we disconnect from ourselves. When we’re disconnected from ourselves, we fail to see our small wins; we only see the “bad” and the “failures.” Furthermore, focusing on others moves us away from the truth, and the truth is other people’s opinions don’t matter at all. Sadly, even when others don’t judge us, we may think they do because we believe that they only notice us. So focus on yourself just so you can pay attention to who you really are. Understand your makeup and be your own judge.

2. Dive into your childhood wounds—and the traumas in your adulthood. A major part of our lack of self-worth is our experiences. What we live impacts our self-image, even if it’s long gone. Whether we do this deep dive alone or through therapy, we should be brave enough to face whatever has contributed to making our self-worth lower. Remember that the purpose of those brief visits to the past is to understand that you can make better decisions and become a better person. Also, a big part of healing and moving on is to forgive the people who may have hurt us. When we do that, we become patient with ourselves and trust the process.

There are many things that can help us to increase our self-esteem, but focusing on ourselves and revisiting the past are the most important ones. We should forget about the rest of the world for a few minutes every day so we can reconnect with ourselves and rebuild our self-love from the ground up.

~