Why I Had To Quit My Self-Help Techniques To Find True Self-Worth

When I embarked upon the self-help-slash-personal development barge for over three years, I stubbornly decreed that I would do all it would take to develop the most expansive version of myself and to uncover my brilliant purpose—starring-sessions-in-the-mirror affirmations included.

I’ve loved all the self-help courses, books, and shortcuts that I have taken because, without them, I wouldn’t stand on a rock-solid sense of worth today. So please do not even begin to assume that I am dismissing the merits of such practices. They really did save me at the time, and they took me from a Lyna who faked being good enough for the world to a Lyna who doesn’t care about being good enough because she only gives a damn about the crusade of her soul. The rest is quite irrelevant.

Who cares if anyone thinks I’m not a good writer, or whether a man wants to date me exclusively? I don’t even date anymore anyway because I am already too full with goodness to go after a myriad of forced dates.

I used to list all of my strengths in the world in my journal as my “self-worth hunting” exercise—my so-called gifts and talents from God (I would not be where I am today without His love). And yes, those are eternally treasured gifts in my life because they allow me to awaken the light in others. I remember forcing myself to list 20 of them one night, scratching my head and looking at feedback from clients to push me a little further along my self-discovery.

The problem was that it wasn’t really self discovery; it was ego discovery. I was begging my ego to be the begetter and the cheerleader of my self-worth. Looking for external ways to support my self-approval. Woohoo. Victory assured. For sure.

I could write, a little.

I could inspire, sometimes.

Average prettiness.

Fairly fit body.

Strength earned from overcoming cyclical abandonment.

Spiritual (that may actually be the number one agent of self-worth, forgive me for my trespass).

I think not.
Did the good feelings come? Yes. Did I feel empower for half-a-day? Sure. Why not, right?

Did my spirit dive into feelings of worthlessness again when I dealt with hurdles in my business and personal relationships. You’d better believe it.

I was doing everything right, though.

My daily lessons from A Course in Miracles.

My hourly lesson from A Course in Miracles—even going off on my phone every half-hour at times.

I used a fist-iron discipline to bring my mind back to all of my fantastic strengths that I had been cultivating for two years. I mean, I knew that hard work would ultimately pay off, and I would soon start walking the Earth with a pristine sense of self.

Well, let’s just say that it didn’t really engender such a crystal-clear, reliable sense of true, entrails-deep self-worth. As soon as I received a negative feedback on my writing (which was a cornerstone that defined my self-worth), my worth would cave in a little. Then it would crumble all together when I would mope for hours at end about my writerly-less-ness (There. Made up a word. See all the cares I give?).

I would recover a few weeks later, after going MIA on social media because I didn’t think that my work was wanted nor appreciated. I was still not walking as powerfully as I thought I would once I had resolved all of my self-love issues. Meh. I am going to write anyway. Until my fingernails fall off, probably.

There are two genies inside of all us. There is the good genie that is always connected into the source of all light, love, and miracles. That genie is our holiest mind and the one that only rings in wishes of utmost happiness for us, knowing fully well that we already have all the power and divinity we could ever positively affirm.

Then there is the other witty, sly genie that seems to want our happiness, but that genie uses roundabout ways of specialness, fear, and tricks us to find happiness only without. It works, albeit temporarily maybe, but we do get starlit sensations of being flipping amazing—even above the whole world.

That is a sure sign of counterfeit self-worth.

Veritable self-worth does not lead us to feel better or worse than anyone else. It knows in its gilded core that everyone possesses the exact amount of brilliance and goodness. And that it is just a matter of time until they meet their immeasurable, golden worth, and angelic genie.

Drum roll. Please welcome the majestic entrance of Truth!

I had built my self-worth on elements that could not go beyond the timelessness of my spirit, of my life. My strengths and skills, although meaningful, were not the pillars of my divine worth. They were only the natural extensions of my divine worth.

They were the effect of my worth, not its cause.  

Our true worth is the inestimable divinity that stems at the core of our essence. There is nothing we can do to affect its existence, although we can temporarily disconnect from it.

Aha moment, right?

Me too.

The path to an unshakable self-worth is danced through our identification with what is sacred within us because only the eternal is true and unchangeable.

We do not need to earn it or to inflate it. It is already whole and set in the universe.

I did not esteem myself as my holy self until I stepped into my inheritance as a child of the divine and put on my father’s gown of noble descent. It was not until my heart became woven with my divine nature that I could connect with the part of me that is eternally invulnerable to anything that is less than love. Through my reconnection with my identity as a true piece of divinity, I dived into a deeper level of soul-anchoring and spiritual guidance.

We are all entitled to splendid miracles, not because of what we do, but because of what we are before we do anything.

I know that your good genie is nodding right now, in love and gratitude.