how to be with the shame of realizing our worthiness wound

I’ve been talking a lot about the worthiness wound lately and while I have received so much positive feedback from women resonating with this information, I have also heard some quiet whisperings from women who feel a tremendous amount of guilt and shame for both having the worthiness wound and for recognizing the damage the unchecked worthiness wound has done in their lives. In some cases there is also an additional hint of embarrassment, a fear of what their friends and family will think of them if they find out they’ve been reading about the worthiness wound.

It feels like there’s an unspoken cultural norm that everyone adheres to to simply not talk about this stuff. While therapy is slowly becoming normalized, there is still a sense of taboo against admitting that we’re imperfect, that we don’t know how to handle it on our own, that maybe we do need help.

I want to explore this with you now and why it’s so important to dismantle these beliefs so we can Rise as sovereign, whole, liberated women.

For thousands of years, there has been a power dynamic between men and women where men are the center of society, the ones in charge, while women lie at the fringe of society, the supporting role. In order for this power dynamic to be sustained and manipulate over half of the population, certain myths were perpetuated. Myths about how men are the stronger sex, myths about how women were less intelligent and too hysterical to be taken seriously, myths about how this is all God’s wish for “man” kind because of biology or fate.

While much has changed since the days where women were not allowed at city centers unaccompanied and did not have rights to her own money {though in some parts of the world this is still the case}, the patriarchy is alive and well and the underlying message it tells women to this day is to be invisible, to not be difficult, to be strong. 

So when we desire to do the deeper inner work, we are met with societal resistance that says that addressing these broken parts of ourselves is:

• Wallowing in your negativity

• Feeling sorry for yourself and playing victim

• Blaming other people

• Focusing on the problem instead of the solution

• A sign of weakness

This intentional narrative puts us in a difficult position where we want to seek healing but the very process of doing so elicits guilt and shame for being inconvenient, keeping us stuck and alone. This is the ultimate tragedy, that by cutting off our ability to get support, to be vulnerable together, to hold hands in sisterhood, we diminish our capacity to show up and feel worthy, which serves to perpetuate the power dynamic.

This is why we must resist and push back against the belief that we are not allowed to take up space by taking our healing seriously. This is essential to our liberation. To our wholeness. To our worthiness.

Because not healing the worthiness wound has grave consequences in our lives and in our community. If we ignore the call within us to tend to our despair and inadequacies, we will forever live with the trappings of perfectionism and comparitis, competition and lack, and a sense of brokenness and shame. We risk not succeeding in our businesses and being complicit in our silence while those around us are harmed. We risk love, both for ourselves and for the meaningful relationships in our lives. And we risk passing this wounding along to our children.

Until we bring the unconscious conscious, we will struggle to live in alignment and get free from the myths that act as ropes, holding us down in painful cycles of self-hate.

Knowing who you are and reclaiming your worth is worth the risk of being misunderstood and misperceived by others.

I understand the ache. We fear of knowing that we are wounded. We fear being judged. We fear being dependent. We fear being different. We fear admitting to ourselves that we don’t know what to do.

So we say things to ourselves like: 

• This brokenness inside me isn’t that bad

• Other people have it so much worse than me

• If I just work harder, it will be fine

• This will go way on its own if I just ignore it

• No one else seems to have this issue, clearly I am making a bigger deal than it is

• Maybe a new job, more money, having a child, getting married, buying a house will make me feel worthy

We fool ourselves into believing these lies which keeps us isolated and hurting.

You see, women thrive in community, in seeing our hearts, in holding one another, in sitting in circle and in leaning on each other. But being in community is dangerous to the patriarchy because there is a power in knowing we are not alone.

Just look at the French Revolution, a movement inspired by women coming together and sharing stories. Quickly after the mob overthrew the monarch, rules were instituted where women were not allowed to come together in groups again. The system of inequality remained intact.

So we’ve become exiled in our own homes as housewives, taught not to complain to our husbands and be difficult, cut off from those who can support us by competing with one another, expected to only think of others.

And while this may not be stuck at home anymore, these underlying beliefs seep into our lives from our mother, our grandmother, other female caregivers and society as a whole, a society that benefits from keeping us small. Now, we must do everything to push against it.

Healing the worthiness wound is the journey of dismantling the voice within us trying to convince us {often effectively} that we are inadequate and insufficient and that we have to hide parts of ourselves to be loved and accepted. It’s the journey of untangling from the internalized narratives that culture placed on us on who we should be and how we should manage our pain. It’s the journey of redefining womanhood, sisterhood and feminine values and integrate them with the masculine dominant skillset we've learned over the years.

What we are doing here is not blaming society or playing victim, but rather taking an earnest look into the affects our culture has on our psyche and choosing to do the opposite of what we’ve been conditioned to do.

This is a radical act of resistance and it's critical to our embodied Rise.

When we can begin to break free from who we should be and tend to our wounding in a deeper way, we develop a new way of navigating our lives, one where we have a rich understanding of our power and how to use it effectively. We cultivate new relationships with other women based on mutual respect and nourishing communication. We feel more grounded in our connection with the Earth, leaning into our intuitive wisdom without fear and dancing the challenges that inevitably come our way without collapse and judgement.

This healing is a powerful catalyst to our sovereignty, allowing us to become our authentic expression. When we tend to the parts of us that we were not taught to love, we stop punishing ourselves for our mistakes and start developing awareness of what we truly want and need.

It’s time to drop the cloak of invisibility that was given to us from birth that is preventing us from seeking support and healing our worthiness wound. You are not a burden, you are a gift.

You are deeply deeply worthy of your desires, of being the greatest version of yourself, of going after your dreams. Because our worthiness lies so deep at the core of who we believe we are, by healing the sense of brokenness that lies there , we are offered tremendous wisdom and insight. We no longer feel the compulsive need to people please and play the good girl. We can drop the masks that hide our true hearts. And most importantly, we begin to feel safe in belonging to ourselves and our bodies.

Our voice, our power, our solidarity with one another depends on this work. Let’s get started.

To your worth,

PS. My signature program, Worthy Women Rise is a four month quest on reclaiming your worth, embodying your truth, and rising into your most expressed self. This is your invitation to do the deeper inner work of healing your worthiness wound so you may take up greater space in the world. I believe in your visibility. Learn more and get on the waitlist here.