Not a super flexy slender Yoga chick talks "the Power of Recognizing your Worth"

Let’s start here: I do not have a six-pack, I cannot do the split (yet), and you will not catch me in a handstand (mostly because I am still perfecting the “not falling over like a startled flamingo” part) on some remote cliff with my hair flowing in slow motion. Before Yoga, I often used to think, “If I were just a little more "something", then maybe I would finally be worthy,” worthy of being seen, loved, chosen.

Guess what? You will never be “enough” if you are measuring yourself against that imaginary “something” outside of you. Chasing worth through external validation is like running on a treadmill that never stops, you just get more exhausted while staying in the same place. The road is paved with burnout, disappointment, and a grab bag of questionable coping mechanisms.

It took me nearly four decades (next year is the big 40, but mentally… 😏), and more than a few emotional, professional, and social face-plants to figure out something important: Your worth is not something you earn, it is something you reclaim. Read that again: RECLAIM.

The real power lies in recognizing it yourself before anyone else does, spoiler alert: nobody is coming to save you.

As children, we had zero doubt that we were enough. Social media is full of confident toddlers serving looks, singing off-key, and demanding snacks like tiny CEOs. We are born knowing our worth and slowly unlearn it. You might still feel confident in certain areas, but how often do you meet someone who is at peace in every part of their life?

There is a sneaky lie many of us buy into early on: that we have to do something extraordinary or be someone different to deserve love or peace. And yes, most of this is our parents’, teachers’, relatives’, or friends’ fault, not on purpose. Even the least aware parent rarely sets out to harm their child, but words and actions in early years leave deep marks on the subconscious.

A few greatest hits from some childhoods:

• “Do not come crying to me if…”

• “Then I will leave you here”

• “You are overreacting”

• “You are so lazy”

• “I know what is best for you”

• “Big boys or girls do not cry”

• “Stop being so loud”

All of these can turn you into an expert shape-shifter, polite, pleasant, useful, smiling even while drowning, disconnected from your emotions yet filled to the brim with limiting beliefs.

Here is the good news: you can remember, you can rebuild the feeling of being enough.

It turns out that healing often looks less like a glowing goddess on a beach and more like sitting in your living room wearing sweatpants, wondering why you just cried over an empty yogurt cup. Some days you cry, some days you laugh, some days you do both at the same time, it is all release.

And then it happens… One day you say no without guilt, you look in the mirror and do not instantly zoom in on your “flaws”, you eat the chocolate without calculating the “consequences”, you go for a run without tracking every heartbeat, you spend time with friends without needing to drink or smoke to fit in.

That is when you know something has shifted. You have found at least some of your worth within, you stop punishing yourself for being human. The world might not give you a standing ovation, but you will give one to yourself.

Knowing your worth does not mean you feel confident every single second, it means you choose yourself even when fear gets loud. It means you stop overexplaining, stop begging, stop adapting your truth to make someone else comfortable. It means trusting that if something ends, if someone leaves, if an opportunity fades, it was not meant for you. Things happen for you, not to you.

So tell me, what are you doing to remember your worth?