Selling myself short - What am I worth?

Reinforce a sense of sovereignty within yourself, despite any self-limiting beliefs, habits or appearances to the contrary.

The above is from one of my daily readings. Fake it until you make it my friend that is the word today anyway.

I have always struggled with my own value. What I bring to the table and I am not sure if that is because I have lived most of my life without any positive feedback or is it because I somehow think it is bad to toot your own horn.

As I have mentioned before I am a worker bee stealth in my actions. Working for the personal enjoyment of producing and completing a project. This has hurt me in the past because until I am gone no one realizes just how much I was doing. This is true in my personal and professional life and I am not sure what to do about it.

The idea of worth keeps coming up for me. I sent an invoice to a customer who wants me to justify the work I completed for her in writing. This is how design is and once a project is finished some people discount the value.

It feels personal and takes me back to the part of myself that thinks maybe I am not worth it. I am once again trying to get my self-worth from other people. If I don't believe I am worthy how can I expect anyone else to.

I can feel a shift within. It has be slow but after a year of scraping by I feel I am starting to come to terms with this and to stop selling myself short. I really have nothing to lose if no one wants to pay me then at least I will be free to do something else with my time. Instead of doing work I am not getting paid for.

It comes down to some basic desires. I want people to love and appreciate me. I want them to value the work I put into creating a lovely space.

In the words of Byron Katey, turn that around, I need to love and appreciate myself. I need to value the work I put into creating a lovely space.

How do I convince myself that I am worth it?


Picture: collegecandy.com

Trusting myself - Commitment Phobe

Tomorrow is the big the day when the business gets signed over to us. Maybe. It all depends on whether the owner agrees to the terms. I feel both excited and terrified at the same time.

Granted I have prepared a resume to hunt for a new job in an old career but I am moving forward with this at the same time. The uncertainty I see in everything is a reflection on my own inner inability to commit.

I have a hard time with commitment because once I am in it might be decades before I resurface. This is my story if I choose to believe it. So I am straddling the fence per say while moving forward at the same time.

I know myself well enough to see that I am pretending not to commit leaving the door open so I can run off at any moment. Have I ever done that planned an escape route or ran off. Nope not ever.

I have documents in a folder with my name on a new corporation. Scary stuff that sounds like commitment to me. I am still pretending.

I keep thinking that if I am not suppose to do this he will not sign those papers tomorrow. I am trusting in God and my own process for working through this and I will listen carefully to my gut tomorrow.

I want to be free and if we can make a success of this business I will have freedom. If I don't focus on all the things that could go wrong or the mountain of obstacles my mind has made up this could actually be fun and exciting.

I will keep you posted.

Hey does anyone know how to remove the underlines that suddenly showed up on my blog.

Magic Words - Possibilities

I have been dealing a lot lately with emotions and reactions. My own and a number of people around me.

Everyone has a different way of dealing with stress. I define stress in my own world and something I am not willing to accept. Whether that is the lack of funds or the behavior of someone I just can't accept the situation as it stands. This causes me stress. I just don't like what is happening.

My immediate reaction is to just dig in and refuse to see the obvious this is also know as denial. The length of this period depends on how bad I wanted things to go my way or if my slight belief that I could change the outcome. I say slight because if there is a shred of hope I can make that into a mountain of possibilities.

I wish I could by-pass this merry-go-round and shot straight to acceptance. It would save me some time and a lot of stress but I am stubborn. I believe that I can change things and sometimes people. It isn't true if people change it is because the want to and not because I said some magic words.

When I use to meet my husband, you know the one from 20 years ago, I would pray that God would give the perfect words to keep him from leaving me. I wanted him to see what a mistake he was making but he didn't.

When it comes to dealing with people, especially the ones we love, there is no magic words. Everyone is on their own path and sometimes we travel great distances together and other times just for a short while.

I am not sure why he has come up so often lately or why this post got so sappy.

Letting go is the name of the game and sometimes you have to just keep letting go until you get someone or something out of your system.

I see a Frosty in my near future.

Bad dreams - Staying on the path to peace

The other night I realized I was dreaming. I woke myself up sobbing in my sleep. I didn't really remember why I was sobbing but it seemed like a deep sadness.

My life is stressful not in the oh my God I got so much to do way but more in the oh my God what is going to happen to me way? How am I going to survive? I know no matter how I seem in the waking world my inner world isn't buying it.

I use to create a lot of stress for myself by overbooking and being all dramatic about my to do list. Then I realized it was my list and if I wanted to have less stress I could put less on the list. I figured out that being so booked made me feel important and more valuable to myself and others.

Today I live a pretty simple life and float above the chaos that was once part of my own existence. Everything use to go on the really important list. Everything was life or death for me. It created the drama that I had become accustomed to from childhood it felt like home.

Over time I have found that not many things fall into that category for me anymore. I enjoy living this way until someone tells me what I should be doing or I look around and everyone seems so busy doing nothing. I panic momentarily and my trust in God goes out the window. I have nightmares in my sleep I am terrified that I have let go and something bad will happen if I don't take the control back.

It doesn't last for long. I lived the first 30 years of my life dependant only on myself. I was miserable and my life was going no where. I was busy for sure but it wasn't satisfying and certainly not joyful. I was on to the next thing and never really savored any moment. I lost big chucks of time this way I think that is the point. When your unhappy you got to keep moving or your emotions catch up with you.

I am back to being peaceful and trusting that all will be revealed. This week I am taking care of the little things. It feels life I am preparing for a long trip of some kind. I am ready to let go now and move forward in whatever direction I am led. A calmness has set in and I know I am not on this path alone.

Opinions - Everyone has one

I have to remember I am right where I am suppose to be. Even if it feels unnatural to let go when everyone around me has an opinion about what I should be doing.

My sister gave me an ear full last night about getting my resume together and getting out of my job situation. Today we went to a lawyer to draw up the papers to get me into the situation my sister thinks I should be running from.

This afternoon I met with my retirement planner and he said I have wasted a year of my life keeping a business open that wasn't mine. I said it was necessary to get me where I am today. He said that that was just an excuse and the road blocks were just in my mind.

Meanwhile back at the bat cave the boy wonder, my cousin, was leaving me nasty messages saying he hated me and is glad the my husband Bob left me 20 years ago. He wants from his trust and I won't authorize it. Sticks and stones...

What is it they say about opinions? This is a long way from the beautiful Manatees I visited on Monday. Beautiful is a lose term when it comes to Manatees they look kind of like slugs with faces and a tail.

I am content in letting go even if no one thinks I know what I am doing. I do really.

One thing I know a lot about and that is me. I know how my mind works and the emotional process I have to go through to make decisions. I might take longer than others but when I reach a conclusion I will rise to the occasion and kick some butt.

I am floating today somewhere between trusting myself and God and the opinions of others. I feel pretty good actually and I will come out ahead, I always do.

According to the Chinese horoscope I am a Tiger and regularly wait in the brush until I am ready to ponce or sometimes I might fall asleep and miss the whole thing.

We shall see.

Being happy with the ordinary.

I started my weekend last night with friends celebrating the Vietnamese New Year. The year of the dragon which doesn't come around but every 60 years. We had fresh spring rolls and various yummy food.

Today it was 80 degrees and I decided to put my running shoes on and go for a run walk. I didn't want to make a big deal about it so I just threw on some old jeans and head out the door. Sometimes if I think too much about preparing to do something I can talk myself right out of it.

What should I wear? What route will I take? Where is my ipod? Is it charged? Instead I threw on my loose jeans, my shoes and t-shirt and I hit road. I just started walking and when the spirit moved me I ran.

It was freeing and I covered about four miles. I live near the river and stopped a community dock where a number of people were fishing. While I stood looking at the water a woman pulled in a 10" catfish and a man hooked an eel but it got away.

I haven't been out in my neighborhood really since I have lived here. Being in darkness I have missed a lot and it feels like I am seeing everything for the first. I did see a woman coming out of house that I actually looked at before I bought the one that I am in now. I said hello and moved on.

I really liked the house it was built by a famous architect and was diamond in the rough. The woman selling it hadn't updated since it was new and it needed more time and money than I had to bring it back to life.

It is located in the neighborhood next to mine where some of the houses are on the river and are maintained beautifully. The rest of the area is nice but is dotted with vacant homes some in serious disrepair. Many were vacant and it made me sad to think how many lives have changed these past few years but life go goes on and we adapt and wait for time to work things out.

I am wrapping up my weekend by rising at 6 am to make a trip south to see the migration of the manatees. It should be a real treat if I can keep my eyes open.

I going with the flow these days and letting go of the outcome. It was nice to just have a ordinary fun weekend.

Am I good enough? Fake it until you make it.

What am I afraid of? I stayed home today from the office to work on my resume and somehow I can't summon the courage to put my work life on paper. Is it because I am afraid I might actually get a job or is because I am afraid I might not have what it takes to go back to corporate life.

I am older but I am wiser. I am reliable and a really hard worker. I know my strengths and my weakness but am I good enough for the real world?

When I lost my job at the mortgage company when I was 40 I didn't know what I was going to do. I was middle manager working 60-70 hours a week and really burned out.

I decided to go to college for the first time in my life. I was afraid then too. I hadn't looked at a text book in over twenty years I wasn't sure I was smart enough even though I was a success in my profession.

How is it that no matter what success you have in life it isn't good enough. There is that thought that we don't really have what it takes to make the next move.

I got my degree and graduated with a high grade point average. I did have to take some prep classes but I did it. I was the oldest in my Algebra II class but I made A's even if it took me forever to finish the test. I did my best and it was good enough.

Fake it until you make it that is what the program talks about. Everybody gets scared it is what you do next that matters. This is what I keep telling myself.