Self-Love Starts With Self-Worth

This is part one of the self-care series.   Self-care and Self-love are the most important skills and practices as a caregiver.   In today's episode,  we're starting with self-worth.   

• What is self-worth and why it's the first step to self-care.
• Reflecting on your own self-worth
• The 6 thoughts and beliefs to improve your self-worth

Journaling prompts

• how would you describe your self-worth?
• What value did you place on yourself or aspects of yourself?  
• Are your descriptions generally positive, balanced, or negative?
• Where do your thoughts around your worth come from?
• What do you love about yourself?
• How do you treat yourself?   On good day and when you make mistakes.

Get the 6 thoughts and beliefs to improve your self-worth and the transcript from this episode at https://www.cathylvan.com/episode147

Transcript

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SPEAKER_00 0:00

Well, welcome to another episode of the Caregiver Cup podcast. We're going to start the episode in just a moment. I just wanted to let you know that there's just a couple of days left to register for the Caregiver Cup Circle for February. Yes, if you're listening on February 7th or February 8th, the registration is open. So go out to KathyLvan.com forward slash caregiver circle. If it's after February 8th, you can still go out there and join the wait list for March's circle. Okay, let's move now into the episode today. One year ago, I was sleeping on a twin bed next to my spouse in a room at our nonprofit housing facility while Dennis was going through his stem cell transplant process. We were at what was called Kathy's house. Yes, it's my name, but except that Kathy's house is a nonprofit organization and she spells her name differently. Mine is with a C, hers is with a K. This amazing facility was our home away from home for my husband Dennis' stem cell transplant. We spent the entire month of February there. Each morning I would wake up, walk down the hallway to the kitchen, which is they had a beautiful kitchen area with multiple places to cook, where I would make my spinach shake in the morning because it was too loud to make in my room. I would go grab a cup of coffee and then get ready for the day. There was this big screen TV next to the dining area that scrolled through announcements and the events that were happening and quotes for the for really for inspiration. I would always stop to look up and wait for the information to scroll through. Being February, the theme was all about self-love and self-care. This quote came up on the scrolling board, which made me want to take a picture of it for a screenshot so I could process it later. It said from Mandy Hale, it said, it's not selfish to love yourself, take care of yourself, and to make your happiness a priority. It's necessary. I love the quote so much. Like I said, I took a picture of it so I could process the words and reflect on them since I had to figure out my self-love during this difficult time. It's easy to say, and for other people to say, right? Take care of yourself. Or you may even start doing things. I'm gonna back up. It's easy to say, take care of yourself. And you may even start doing things each day and trying to get that motivation going. But your self-care and making yourself happy and giving yourself moments of joy in this tough season is hard. What I'm trying to get at is you gotta like what you're doing from a self-care perspective. And it has to make you somewhat happy, or it gives you a break, or it's not going to do it for you. So that's why we're going to break down this whole thing called self-care, or this whole thing called putting yourself first, or as my caregiver cup uh little tagline is filling your cup. This is part, this is gonna be uh a series. This is the first part of a series, and I don't know how many I'm gonna do. It's probably going to be three, but don't hold me to it because I'm just starting the first part today as I'm recording it. In the episode we're gonna talk about today, it's gonna be all about self-worth, W-O-R-T-H, because self-care is more than just an action to care for yourself. It's about loving yourself, it's about self-compassion, it's about recognizing your self-doubt and most importantly, aligning these with your personal values. Self-care to me, and what I did is when I I geeked out on this once, I saw this quote on the on the board. So I started collecting all of the data and started Googling everything. And one thing I found is it said, self-care is personal. It's your thoughts and your feelings, which are your self-worth. It's being kind to yourself, which is self-compassion, it's growth in taking action, which is your self-love, and it's believing and having beliefs and purposes about who you are, which are your values. Once you understand all the parts of this self-care, you will be able to see your path. So let's buckle in for an amazing episode series this month of February. And again, this week we're going to talk about self-worth, which is an integral part of self-care. I looked on the door handle that next morning, and there was a homemade pink yarn heart hanging on the door. It looked like somebody put their, for a pun on words, their heart and soul into this little door hanger. It was so cute. As I walked down the hall, there were red and pink hearts on everybody's doors. And so it somebody did every other one. I remember the quote that I took a photo of the day before and thought this is a sign that I need to really start focusing on what my self-care should be. And I still have this pink little heart hanging in my, I think we have it in our downstairs uh bathroom. It's just so cute. I began to snicker and giggle though as I drank my coffee. I just wanted it to be a self-care whole entire day. My version at that time, because it was such a hard week, was a day at the spa where I would dish up hundreds of dollars. I would be pampered with a massage and a facial and a manicure and a pedicure, and then I would with a white robe on and the it would be really nice and cozy warm. Then I would go home and I would just roll up on my my little couch and read my book, and nobody would be there to bother me. That was my my moment, and I'm gonna really age myself because this is like a 50s or 60s commercial where they said, Kelgon, take me away. And that was like a bubble bath kind of a thing. Then reality struck as I was thinking and giggling about my ideal day because my husband texted me and said, Did you start the car? We have to leave in 20 minutes. And at that time, he had to be isolated in his room. He had to be masked where we took him into the car and he went to the his transplant facility, and then I would pick him up in the evening. So he couldn't be out and about. And so I was down there taking a break and realizing that we only had 20 minutes. We had to get going. So caregiving is far from a day at the spa, right? Right. Or whatever you want it to be. Some days you barely have time to shower or maybe eat your breakfast or drink your coffee. But when you don't take care of yourself, we know that it eventually will catch up with you. It's just going to catch up. There's no ands, ifs, or buts about it if you don't take care of yourself. That's why one of the most important but often forgotten tasks for you and I as caregivers is caring for yourself. Caring for your emotional health, your physical health, your mental health. It's so vital to the well-being of your loved one as well. And always remember this statement that I've just created myself is to be a good caregiver, you must be good to yourself. Because if you don't take care of yourself, you can't be the best caregiver that you can be. It's not selfish to love yourself, take care of yourself, and make yourself a priority. It's absolutely necessary. Yeah, that's that quote again. How you care for yourself gives your brain messages that shape yourself worth. So you must care for yourself in every way and every day because your brain is going to recognize that. And if your brain doesn't recognize you're taking care of yourself, you're just going to go into those bad habits. Self-care is essentially the actions and approaches that embody being kind and considerate to yourself. It's your gift to yourself, but it embodies more than that. And what I want to go ahead and go through in these series is the four selves to self-care. It's like saying Sally sold seashells by the seashore. It's the selves, S-E-L-F-S. I feel like I'm spitting when I'm saying it to self-care. And that's why I'm going to want to dig into each one of these. Today, in this episode, we're going to talk all about self-worth. Self-worth is simply defined as the level of importance you place on yourself. It is an emotional outlook that determines how and what you feel about yourself in comparison to other people. Because you know as well is we care deeply about our loved one. But really, reality is, do we care that much about ourselves? Self-worth is a fundamental part of your being, and it controls the way you see yourself. Everything you think about, all the emotions you feel, and even the way you act is a product of what value you put on yourself or you place on yourself. Self-worth is the internal sense of being good enough, worthy of love, belonging from others. Self-worth is often confused with self-esteem, which relies on external factors such as successes and achievements to define worth or fill that self-worth. When in reality, it can often be inconsistent, leading to somebody struggling with feeling worthy. You have to fill your cup, not other people. That's really kind of the way I say it in layman's term. Whereas it's important to have a solid understanding of who you are. What are your strengths? What are your talents? What are your areas for growth? Also, you need to feel good enough even when you make mistakes or things do not work out in your life that you would hope for. You have to go ahead and understand why they're happening and be and really give yourself that the love that you did try something. I want you to think about it here a moment. And maybe even this could be something that you journal about or pull up a Google document on or think about as you lay in bed at night. How would you describe your self-worth right now? How would you describe it? And I want you to think about it. Are you proud of yourself? Are you feeling like you're enough? Do you love yourself? Because I want to start up by talking about the flip side. When you talk about low self-worth, low self-worth is having a generally negative overview or overall opinion of yourself, or you're judging yourself, or you're evaluating yourself too critically, and placing a general negative value on yourself. People with low self-worth often criticize themselves, and sometimes you might hear people say it out loud to themselves as a friend, and you're like, Stop. Why are you being so hard on yourself? Or they criticize their abilities or they brush off compliments or positive quotes without saying thank you, or positive qualities without saying thank you. If you have low self-worth, you're focusing on your mistakes versus what you've learned. Um why didn't why didn't I do that? Or oh, I can't believe I was so stupid and did that. Those might be some words you might say. Or you focus on what other people seem to think about you or what they have. You may avoid challenges or achieve less out of fear, become upset or distressed by any criticism or disproval. You bend over backwards to please others or extra or are extremely shy or introted or self-conscious. You avoid or withdraw from intimacy, vulnerability, or social contact, you're less likely to stand up for yourself from being abused or neglected as well. And so obviously, this can go really deep. So you want to just really start thinking about where is my self-worth right now? Is it low? Is it medium? Or am I good? So let's just kind of imagine. Imagine you and I start to have coffee together. We meet up and have coffee together, and I'm sitting across the table from you, and we're conversing and we're just getting to know each other. And I ask you, how are you, how do you feel about yourself right now? And I say, How do you feel about yourself? Really? When I got to this point myself, and I did this out of the self-reflection from that quote, I started to bawl and cry, especially when I was in this season of difficulty and challenge, and I was isolated for these six weeks, um, especially going through my journey now for five and a half years. As a caregiver, those first few years, I didn't feel like myself. I lost my identity, I gained weight, I looked tired, I didn't feel alive anymore. I want you to think about your self-worth. Is it suffering as a result of caregiving? And why? Another example, when I went to the grocery store when I was home, not during the stem cell transplant, and I saw a friend or relative. And you, I'm sure you get this as well. How's your mom doing? How's Dennis doing? And you think in your mind, hello, what about me? They ask about your loved one, but they never ask about you. And you again, you you lose that self-worth. Right now, everything may be focused on your loved one and you feel isolated. That may be a result of it. And so if you and I were having conversations over coffee, we would start to unpack some of that. Some simple ways you can unpack it yourself, though, are what words would you describe yourself right now? And then think about what words do you want to be described as? What value did you place on yourself or aspects of yourself, especially in this caregiving time? Are your descriptions positive, balanced, or negative? Where do your thoughts around your worth come from? Are they from the past? Are they triggers from a bad relationship? Are they just from caregiving now and you're just stuck? Where are they coming from? This is a lot to unpack. And I'll have these questions in the show notes so that you can go ahead and rehash some of these. If you're feeling down or negative now that we went through these questions about yourself and your self-worth is not there, let me tell you first of all, you are not alone. Let me tell you, though, that you can shift your self-worth because self-worth, I'm gonna tell you what it's not about. It's not about your age. It's not about your appearance, it's not about your finances, it's not about your health status, your career, or your caregiving role. Those are factors that could weigh into your thoughts and your feelings, but they are not your self-worth. You have to really segregate that from your thoughts. Your self-worth is feeling good about what you are doing. It's what you are, it's feeling good about what you are not doing, what you're thinking, how you're taking care of yourself, and more. You shape your self-worth. Self-worth, if you want to really work on it, you have to be proud of yourself. It comes from within. No one thing, no one person, no status or event can make you feel self-worthy. You have to feel that yourself. You have to find that love within you. There are many ways to increase your self-worth and self-compassion. Being compassionate to yourself is a wonderful place to start. Loving who you are, being proud of who you are. So, how do you improve it? It starts with changing how you think about yourself. Strength in self-worth comes from finding the qualities that you're proud of, the qualities that you're good at. These qualities will be a constant reminder. Whenever you start feeling like you are not worthy, you can go ahead and focus on what you what you love about yourself. You know, you love that you try new things, you love that you have a heart of gold, you love that you're emotional, whatever it is. Little things like a list of your talents, things you like about yourself that make you stand out, challenges you've won, helped you, uh how you've helped other people, how you how other great reflections, I'm trying to read some of my notes, and other great reflections are questions you should have to answer. Your strengths lie in those questions that you ask yourself, those things that you see in yourself, those things that you feel in yourself, those things that you are proud of. Not focusing on the negativity. When I started dissecting my self-worth, I journaled these words. And these are only my thoughts, but I thought I'd give you an idea of how I could increase my self-worth. I'm not going to get into all my negative feelings because I had a whole page and a half of those, but I want to tell you, as a result of it, this is what I came to. When I was in Kathy's house, I started comparing myself to other caregivers. And so I put on my notes: never compare yourself to others. Do things that you enjoy, Kathy, even in the hardest of times. Uh, you know, I started coloring, I started teaching myself to knit. I started reading books, I started going ahead and trying new things. Another thing that I said is forgive yourself when you fail, forgive yourself when you're struggling, forgive yourself when you're down in the dumps. Because again, like I write every day, I have to embrace those feelings and learn from them. And then I said, take risks so you can be a better version of yourself because I am a very introverted person. And so when I came into the caregiving world, into a new facility, into a new housing, I was introverted and I didn't want to talk to anybody. It forced me to go ahead and join communities, take a class, uh, hire help, whatever it would be, ask for help. So I have to take risks so that I can put my neck out there and be a better version of myself. Another thing that I put is accept yourself for who you are. Who I am. This is who I am. And if I don't feel like talking to somebody that day, that's who I am. That's who I am. Don't beat yourself up because you didn't go out and you weren't a bubbly person and wanted to talk to everybody in the kitchen at Kathy's house. I just didn't want to. I was trying to process everything. But what I learned is when I surround myself with healthy and positive people, I feel better about myself. So that's just kind of some of the things that I did. But what I want you to do is look in the mirror today and tell her, the person you're looking at right now, and that's you, give her encouragement. It's hard to be that caregiver, but you are amazing. And brag to yourself. Turn the shower on or make some noise if you have to, but talk to yourself. When you get down on yourself or have that negativity pop into yourself, catch yourself and start shifting and improving that. Yeah, I feel like dog crap today, and I didn't do what I had to do. But you know what? Look what I did yesterday. Look what I did the day before. I am strong. I am capable. It's just a bump in the road. Start telling yourself these things. So what I want to talk about in this next piece is my six thoughts and beliefs to improve your self-worth. What can you do to improve your self-worth? Take what you want and leave what you don't want. These six pieces. Number one is no matter what I've done or haven't done, I'm worthy of my self-love. Just like I said, if I didn't go out and I I was I was planning on talking to somebody, but I didn't, I'm still worthy of loving myself. Here's what my thoughts are a person with high a high sense of self-worth takes responsibilities and accepts their mistakes, but does not degrade themselves for making them. If they goof up, they say, ah, I did a bad thing, instead of they say things like, I did a bad thing, I'm bad. But instead, you just should say, Well, what can I learn from this? What can I do differently the next time? What's holding me back? What's the fear? They do not uh uh a person with self-worth, um, low self-worth is or high self-worth is they do not grieve alone. They find others to lean on, they find their community, they know that they're not the only person who is experiencing this, and that by sharing their story with people who have earned the right to hear it, they are taking care of themselves. On the other side, the self-worthy person does not become overly dependent on success, flattery, adoration. Remember what I said, it doesn't, that's not filling it. Your achievements or your, you know, anything that you do, that's not filling it. They instead they show grace and humility to that and say, thank you. I appreciate your compliment. But that's not their self-worth. Their self-worth comes from it within. The person welcomes both success and failure with good self-worth, both of which are useful, subjective, and never and never really checks out of their worthiness. So no matter what you've done or what you haven't done, number one is I'm worthy myself of self-love. The number two belief is my things, my situation doesn't define me. Hear that loud and clear. My things or my situation doesn't define my self-worth. You are not the clothes you wear, the car you drive, or the relationship you do or do not have. You are more than that caregiver wife, you are more than that caregiver spouse, you are more than that caregiver daughter, that partner, whatever you want to fill in the blank with. You are more than your loved one's illness or injury. The person who honors their worthiness knows that they can enjoy external things and passions and goals without attaching them to their identity. They appreciate what they have while they have it and wholeheartedly strive to get what they truly want. But they also know even without these things, they can look in the mirror and say, I am enough. You are enough. Number three, I am allowed to feel what I'm feeling. Just sipping a little coffee here. People with self-worthiness are not always happy. They are not. They're faking it if they are. They feel all the same feelings that everyone else feels. The difference is the person with a solid sense of self-worth creates space for their emotions without feeling guilty, without feeling shame. They understand that their emotions are just tools that are helping them pay attention. They notice their emotions and allow them to be as they are. Then when that this person or you no longer need these emotions, they simply let them go. This is something I'm gonna pound on my desk. I've been working on for the last six months. I write, I embrace my thoughts and my feelings, and I release the negativity and the untruths because I am allowed to feel whatever I feel, and I should be taking those in without guilt and shame and letting myself process them. So that's my little soapbox, and I'm shaking my hands up and down. Now, number four, my healthy boundaries are important to me. I hope you hear this loud and clear. A self-worthy person is not afraid to be stand up and make hard decisions. You don't say yes to the commitment simply because you're afraid of what others think or being left out. You believe the person who really matters will always welcome you. They will always respect you. And even if they don't, you still are okay on your own. I can't tell you how hard it is to set healthy boundaries with your loved one because you're afraid of what the outcome would be. But instead, you're letting yourself down. You know that what other people think about them is none of their business. You create time and space for yourself and honor that by setting healthy boundaries, you don't allow people to encroach on your privacy or at the most important piece, your overall well-being. You invite people into your life who have earned the right to be there and recognize that other people have the right to invite you in or not, as well. As a caregiver, healthy boundaries are important for you. You have to set healthy boundaries because if you don't have healthy boundaries, your self-worth will suffer. And so, by you saying, I need my morning walk, this is a healthy boundary that I know I need for my own health and well-being. So, how do I set that healthy boundary? I am not letting anybody down. I'll figure out a way that my loved one is cared for during that time. Maybe it's hiring in a nurse or having a friend sit with your loved one or working it through the you get up early before your loved one wakes up, or you get your loved one situated and then you go for your your walk. Your loved one will eventually see how important that is for you. And if they don't, you have to be prepared to say, I don't care what they think. I need this. That's just an example. Okay, number five, it's not about what happens, it's about how I respond to what happens. The same philosophy, you can't control what happens, but you can control how you respond to it. The same philosophy. It's not about what happens, it's about how I respond to what happens. People who have a high sense of self-worth haven't had it easy in life. And I think about you as a caregiver, and they simply remember only they are responsible for their own feelings, thoughts, and actions. They don't stay stuck in like a victim mode mentality or a feel sorry for me mentality. They don't spend too much time feeling sorry for themselves when things hit the fan or when things fall apart and they don't blame themselves. Same, I you know, you think about your situation, but it's not that people with self-worth never feel bad or get down on themselves. Oh my gosh, we all do. The difference comes in how these feelings are handled, how you process them and how you go ahead and learn to go ahead and dissect or differentiate between what you can control and what you can't control. Rather than getting stuck in what's wrong right now, there is a more powerful way to approach obstacles and the results and the resulting negative feelings. You can choose to acknowledge these feelings, forgive yourself for whatever we labeled as wrong, and move forward with the new information you have gathered because these because of these experiences. I mean, how many times have you forgot to do something as a caregiver because you are overwhelmed? You know, it's not about what happened, happened, it's about how I respond to what happens. If you forgot your keys, uh, or I forgot my debit card at the counter of a store. And I get all the way home, and I'm like, oh my gosh, do I have my debit card? You could beat yourself up all the way driving there and tell yourself, how stupid am I? This is just frustrating. Now I lost an hour of myself. Or you can respond by saying, Thank God, I remember that I left my debit card there. I called them, they saved it. What a uh a miracle. Thank the person and use that time driving back to the best of your ability. Maybe you turn on some music, maybe you go ahead and drive through the coffee uh place and pick up a cup of coffee and enjoy that extra time that you didn't expect. You have to grant yourself grace in those challenging times because as a caregiver, we're going to make mistakes. We're going to forget things, we're going to go ahead and fall flat on our face because we're tired, we're stressed, we're overwhelmed. Okay. The sixth one every day, every single day, I find things to be grateful for. You can find things to be grateful for. You, if you have you know me, this is like on the top of my list. I gratitude, I journal gratitude every day. I make it a daily practice. And this helps with high self-worth. Appreciate the small things and the big gifts of life. Express appreciation whenever and however you can. Send a text message, send a voice chat. I'm gonna cough here a minute. Excuse me. It's pretty easy to feel grateful when things seem to be going well, but when things are truly challenged, that's when you have to train your brain and challenge yourself to go ahead and continue to be self-worthy. And you will learn that. And so that's an important piece. Okay, those were the six. There are many ways to increase your self-worth, but those are just a few of my thoughts and my beliefs. It starts again with being compassionate to yourself, it's a wonderful place to start. And in the future series, we'll dig into more of the self-pieces, but in a nutshell, being kind to yourself is part of self-worth. It's part of self-love. And you need to go ahead and treat yourself like you are your best friend. You are your your maybe you treat your child like there's no other love that you can treat. You need to take whoever you love the most and whoever you take care of the most, and you're giving all of your self-love to that person, do it back to yourself. Love on yourself. So I want to give you some homework today. And I think this homework is going to be good. And if my notes don't have it all in there, I will go ahead and put the link to the entire transcripts out in my website. But these are the the questions that I want you to take some time in the next day or so to mull over, to think over. What do you love about yourself? Do you love your smile? Look in the mirror and say to yourself, I love my hair, or I love my cute little ears. I love, I know what you want to do. You want to go back to saying things like, I'm fat, or I have all of these wrinkles. But instead, like, I love my crow's feet that are on my eyes. I love my really deep wrinkles in between my eyes because it reminds me of the days where I was this strict boy mom raising my kids and having to go ahead and discipline them. And it brings me smiles. Uh your maybe it's maybe it's, you know, you love your your talents and whatever it would be, but your special talents to ask questions, maybe it's your special talents to ask questions at the doctor. And what talents do you have in the caregiving world that you're proud of? What do you do? Maybe how you can organize and simplify your loved one's care. I was talking with a client last week, and Rosa, if you're listening, you have this huge knack for organizing. And she's created a board for her mom with a week-long schedule for her mom so her mom knows what's happening during the week. She's got that knack. Is it your compassion and kindness? So I want you to ask yourself, what do you love about yourself from a physical perspective, from a talent perspective, from an inside perspective? What do you love? Then pay attention to how you treat yourself. How do you treat yourself? If you push yourself too much, what do you say to yourself? How are you feeling? Challenge you to what can what you can be better at and what what better ways there are. You deserve better. And when you self-love yourself, that's weird. When you love yourself, you only know what's best for you. If you make a mistake, how hard are you on yourself? And then ask yourself why. Why do you beat yourself up? Do you have to beat yourself up? What would you say to a friend if they did the same mistake? If they spoke to themselves that way? What would you say to them? I know you would probably say, Oh my gosh, stop being so hard on yourself. You're going through this challenging time and you're bound to go ahead and falter on occasion. It's okay. Yeah. Then the last question is, what love can you give yourself each and every day? So to end today, I want to just use these few points here. The first step in self-care for you is to develop a strong sense of self-worth. You have to believe that your own needs are important and worth your attention. You will then ideally come to the understanding that putting yourself first isn't selfish. It's actually a way to protect your own ability to be a resource for your loved one. I'm sending you a big hug today. I'm sending you lots of self-love vibes because self-care and self-love, hear this, are the most important skill set and practice as a caregiver. If I had to tell one caregiver or I had to tell caregivers what's the number one thing that you're responsible for as a caregiver, it's not your loved one. Yeah, that's an important second one, but you have to love yourself first. And you have to take care of yourself first. Then you can be the best caregiver because we've all know when we're not at our best, what it's like, what we're doing to ourselves. And so that's why I created this podcast, the Caregiver Cup Podcast. It's filling your cup first with self-care, self-love, and telling yourself you are worthy of this so that you can be the best caregiver you can be. I love you dearly, and I want you to go ahead and really think about the care that you're giving to yourself. Take care, and then next series, we were going to talk about another self in this self-care journey in series.