“No Thanks, I’m Good” — A Lesson in Self-Worth
Have you ever said, “No thanks, I’m good,” when someone offered you something—a glass of water, an extra blanket on a cold evening, or another helping of dessert—when in truth you would have appreciated the offer?
Have you ever passed up the last slice of cake, pie, pizza, or chocolate when you really wanted it?
I know I have.
Recently, I’ve been wondering why I do that. Why do I deny myself these simple pleasures and friendly gestures? Accepting them wouldn’t create a hardship for the person offering them. Yet my response is almost automatic.
“No thanks, I’m good.”
The best answer I’ve come up with is that somewhere deep inside, I don’t feel worthy of the gesture. I'm holding the thought in my head and heart that I’m not worth the effort, the kindness, or the thoughtfulness being offered. Huh? Where did that come from?
Before trying to answer that question, I turned to the dictionary, as I often do when I’m curious about a word, and I looked up the word worthy in the dictionary.
Worthy
1. Having worth or value.
2. Honorable, meritorious.
3. Having sufficient worth or importance.
Interestingly, the definition of worthy points right back to worth, so I dug a little deeper.
Worth
1. The value of something measured by its qualities or by the esteem in which it is held.
That caught my attention: the value of something measured by its qualities.
As far back as I can remember, I learned the song Jesus Loves Me. One line says:
“Little ones to Him belong, they are weak but He is strong.”
I don’t ever remember questioning what “they are weak” meant. I had learned not to question, not to doubt. But now I can imagine a little boy proudly saying, “I’m not weak. I’m strong,” and struggling to understand why he was being told otherwise.
The song reinforces this message with another line:
“The Bible tells me so.”
That makes it difficult to challenge. You don’t question the Bible. You accept what it says as truth…as “gospel”.
And then there are verses like:
“All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” — Romans 3:23
Or Paul’s words in Romans 7:
“I know that good itself does not dwell in me, that is, in my sinful nature.”
For me, these teachings planted something deeper than I realized. They cultivated a feeling of unworthiness.
Not consciously, perhaps. But emotionally.
A sense that I am somehow of little worth. That I don’t deserve the glass of water or the extra blanket.
“Don’t trouble yourself on my behalf.”
“No thanks, I’m good.”
But there is another way to understand worth, and it comes through a hyphenated word:
Self-Worth
Self-worth is defined as:
A sense of one’s own value as a human being.
"people with low/greater/higher self-worth"
And one thing becomes immediately clear: self-worth is something that develops.
It can be low or high. It can be strengthened or diminished.
If we grow up in environments that repeatedly teach us that we are weak, sinful, and forever falling short, how do we develop healthy self-worth?
I’m suggesting that it takes conscious intention to free ourselves from the illusion that we are somehow unworthy.
It takes more than simply leaving a faith tradition. It takes awareness. It takes attention.
It takes the desire to change deeply rooted beliefs.
That first step is crucial, it takes awareness, recognizing that this dynamic is even operating within us.
What amazes me is the freedom I’ve experienced simply from becoming aware of it.
Today, I can much more easily accept the offered glass of water or the extra blanket.
And, perhaps even more surprising, I’m more able to offer those same simple kindnesses to others. When I no longer see myself as undeserving, generosity flows more freely in both directions.
Of all the spiritual wounds I have worked through since leaving the church, this issue of worth and worthlessness has been one of the hardest to identify and overcome.
If I had five dollars for every time I’ve said, “No thanks, I’m good,” I’m sure I would have accumulated a small fortune.
A Few Questions for Reflection
· What is your sense of self-worth today?
· Can you receive simple acts of kindness that make your life more comfortable?
· Do you find it easy to accept help, or do you automatically decline it?
· Can you offer those same gestures to others with ease and pleasure?
Perhaps healing begins with something as simple as saying “yes” to a glass of water, an extra blanket, or the last slice of pie—and recognizing that receiving kindness is not selfish.
Maybe it’s one way we remind ourselves that we are, and always have been, worthy.
Healing Back to Your True Self
Conforming Away from My True Self
The word I’ve been thinking about lately is conform.
This word has kept appearing in my mind as I reflect on the spiritual wounds I have identified from my past. So much of the pain I have experienced resulted from denying my True Self and putting on a False Self. In other words, I conformed to an ideal that was expected of me but was not necessarily natural to me.
The dictionary defines conform as:
Conform (intransitive verb)
- To be similar or identical; to be in agreement or harmony.
“Changes that conform with our plans.”
2. To be obedient or compliant.
“Conform to another’s wishes.”
3. To act in accordance with prevailing standards or customs.
“The pressure to conform.”
A common thread woven through these definitions is the idea of conforming to or with something. In every case, there is movement from one state of being to another.
In the first definition, we might imagine one group changing its plans to align with another in order to maintain harmony. In the second, someone shifts from their own intentions toward the desires of another person out of obedience or compliance. In the third, we can picture an outlier yielding to the pressure of a culture, community, or faith tradition and changing beliefs or behavior in order to fit in.
All three definitions suggest movement away from one way of thinking, feeling, or being toward another.
As I reflect on my own life, I have often asked myself why I so thoroughly moved away from my True Self and towards a False Self as I conformed to what I believed was a good understanding of what it meant to be a good Christian.
The most dominant answer is surprisingly simple:
I wanted to belong.
As a young boy, I wanted to belong in my family. Later, I wanted to belong in the church groups that became such a significant part of my life, especially the youth group and choir at the church where my father served on staff. As an adult, I wanted to belong within the professional ministry that I chose as my vocation.
Belonging became so important that I unconsciously learned to reshape myself to fit the expectations of the communities around me.
So I accepted that:
· I am a sinner.
· I can do nothing on my own to change that.
· I need God in order to make good decisions for myself.
· I am set apart from and should isolate myself from the secular world.
· I shouldn’t feel—and certainly shouldn’t express—certain emotions.
· I should always put others first.
· And, this may sound strange to some of you, I should never take the last piece of cake, pizza, or chocolate, etc, just in case someone else wants it.
Along with many other conforming choices, my False Self grew stronger and convinced me that:
· My curiosity had to be contained lest I be tempted away from faith.
· My confidence needed to be controlled lest I become arrogant.
· My expressiveness should be muted lest I draw attention to myself.
· My outgoing nature should be confined primarily to Christian circles.
· My decisiveness should become “waiting on the Lord” for guidance.
I believe my True Self would have been more curious, more confident, more expressive, more outgoing, and more decisive.
Unfortunately, the version of Christianity I absorbed and attempted to conform to often taught me—whether explicitly or implicitly—that questioning was dangerous, humility meant minimizing myself, and being a good Christian meant being quiet, restrained, and cautious.
Looking back, I wish someone had recognized what was happening. I wish someone had noticed how much of my True Self was being hidden behind the False Self I was constructing in order to belong.
It has been a long journey to recognize the consequences of that conformity and intentionally make healthier choices. More than thirty years later, I am still uncovering the ways denying my True Self shaped my life, and I am still learning how to reclaim who I naturally am.
The journey is ongoing.
I am a work in progress.
Sometimes healing begins when we stop asking, “How do I fit in?” and start asking, “Who am I when I no longer feel the need to conform?”
Take a moment to reflect on your own journey.
Have there been places where you conformed in order to belong?
Do you still feel the lingering effects of those choices?
Do you sense a binding energy that formed when you surrendered parts of yourself in exchange for acceptance?
If any of this resonates with you, it may help to talk with someone who has walked a similar path. I offer a free introductory conversation where we can explore your story together. Just go to the "Moving Forward" tab above and select a time.
Let’s talk.
Healing Back to Your True Self
There are certain words that pull me in.
And, as you may know by now, I love looking up words in the dictionary because sometimes a single definition opens an entirely new way of seeing life.
This week, the word I looked up was heal.
The first couple of definitions were what I expected:
- To make free from injury or disease; to make sound or whole; to make well again; to restore to health.
- To cause an undesirable condition to be overcome; to mend; to patch up or correct a breach or division.
But the third definition made me literally sit back in my chair and take a deep breath:
“To restore to original purity or integrity — healed of sin.”
That definition stayed with me.
If we consider our “original purity or integrity” to be our True Self, and if we understand “sin” as becoming separated from that True Self by living behind a False Self, then suddenly healing takes on an entirely different meaning.
That understanding is deeply connected to why I created my Healing Your Spiritual Wounds program in the first place.
Much of my healing journey has involved recovering from the wounds I felt were dealt to me through church teachings that told me I had to become something other than myself in order to be worthy, accepted, or spiritual. Over centuries, many teachings have been interpreted and reworked into systems that can become far more limiting than I believe was originally intended.
When I revisit that first definition of healing — “to make free from injury or disease; to make sound or whole; to restore to health” — it makes perfect sense to me in the context of spiritual wounds.
I was injured.
I was wounded by teachings that implied I could not fully be myself.
And the difficult part was that I lost touch with who my original self even was.
I was born into the church, and when I became a Preacher’s Kid at age ten, I unconsciously
decided I needed to become a “super Christian” in order to be an example to others. I lived from that False Self all the way through my ordination at age thirty-two and four years of ministry.
Even now, thirty-three years after resigning my ordination, I still sometimes struggle to reconnect with the purity and integrity of my True Self.
There are moments when I still have difficulty identifying what I truly want. And even when I recognize what I want, asking for it can feel surprisingly difficult. Small wounds still surface from time to time.
I have overcome so much, yet healing continues to unfold layer by layer.
Part of what I now understand about healing is that we are not one-dimensional beings. There are multiple layers within us — physical, psychological, spiritual, and what I would call higher or divine aspects of self. Over time, I have learned how to “converse” with these different aspects of myself in order to gain insight into my original integrity.
And the more I reconnect with that deeper integrity, the more naturally my behavior begins to reflect my True Self.
Not because I am forcing myself to be “good.”
Not because I fear punishment.
But because authenticity naturally produces compassion, honesty, and connection.
I am discovering ways of being that lift others up without putting myself down in the process. I am learning how to recognize the divine in others without limiting or judging them for being who they are.
There is an ancient Sanskrit greeting from Hindu and Buddhist traditions: Namaste.
It is often translated as:
“The divine in me honors the divine in you.”
I love the beauty and balance in that idea.
It is not self-effacing. It does not place one person above another. Instead, it recognizes the sacred worth within both the greeter and the greeted equally.
My True Self finds deep joy in both offering and receiving that recognition.
And perhaps that is part of what healing really is.
Not becoming someone new.
Not earning worthiness.
Not striving endlessly to meet someone else’s definition of purity.
But slowly returning to the original integrity that has always existed underneath the wounds, the conditioning, the fear, and the False Self.
Our divine nature is not dependent upon a particular belief system.
Belief systems may shape the language and expression of our spirituality, but they do not determine whether we possess a divine aspect. That sacred essence is already woven into our humanity.
Healing, then, may simply be the lifelong process of remembering who we were before we learned we had to become someone else.
Are you living your True Self, or are there some remnants of the False Self you put on in order to belong to a church fellowship?
Are there times when you still observe yourself acting out of your False Self?
It may help to talk with someone about these events to get to the bottom of this old behavior and step more fully into your True Self.
Use this link to schedule a free introductory call to see whether “Healing Your Spiritual Wounds” might be right for you.
There is an online self-directed option or a more personal one-on-one coaching format.
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Achieve Optimal Wellness with Healing Your Spiritual Wounds
Self-Care is ACCEPTABLE
When I was in the Youth Group growing up, we used to refer to the acronym J.O.Y. That stood for Jesus 1st, Others 2nd, Yourself 3rd. Always in that order. The point being that it was important to have the mind of Christ and consider how I could be a good follower, disciple, and example of Jesus in my day-to-day life. And, in being a disciple, it was critical to be a “servant” in how I treated others. The emphasis, as I recall, was never placed on the “Y” element of the equation. I learned never to think of myself even if it was 3rd, 4th, or 5th. To consider what I thought, wanted, or needed first was anathema. Self-care wasn’t even on my radar. To think of myself first would have been cause for guilt and shame.
True self-care is when you consider your needs, wants, and desires when making decisions about how to spend your time, resources, and energy. What if someone in need comes to you with a request for your time - can you give them a ride to the store? And you have plans to see a friend for a couple of hours. Would it be ok to offer your friend a ride after you have had your visit? If they are desperate, then it is up to you to decide what you are willing to do. It needn’t be assumed that you will choose the other person’s needs before your own or that you are your friends only resource.
Radical self-care doesn't stop you from caring for others or stop you from acts of kindness. Not at all. In many instances, self-care is totally private and doesn’t involve choosing between caring for yourself and someone in need. And you will inevitably find yourself in situations where you need to consider your own needs and wants before even responding to requests for help. If there is a conflict, open a dialogue, stating what your needs are and determining whether there is a win-win compromise that serves both of you.
The JOY way of being was so ingrained in me that it took years after leaving the church for me to feel comfortable thinking about myself first. Now, before going any further, I must emphasize what I illuded to above. I am not promoting selfishness, self-centeredness, or narcissism. I will always encourage acts of kindness that provide an opportunity to think of others when asked for a favor or simply in response to someone in need. And, I promote the idea of giving as I am able to help others. One way to practice putting yourself first is to ask yourself, ‘’What do I want in this situation?” and expressing it with no strings attached. There was a time years ago when I couldn’t even answer that question. One year on my birthday my partner asked me where I wanted to go for dinner. I was stumped on two fronts, first I didn’t want to disappoint her and ask her to go somewhere she may not have wanted to go and secondly, I couldn’t even make a choice, I couldn’t even think of a choice. I was so used to saying, “I don’t care, where do you want to go.”
I’m all for JOY when we can put “and” in between those three words; Jesus and Others and Yourself, avoiding the hierarchy of service over self-care.
