Claiming My Worth: Letting Go of "Shoulds" and Embracing My Dreams

For years, I've created vision boards to project my desires for the year ahead. And they've worked! From falling in love in 2020 to receiving a free car, visualizing my goals has been powerful. My usual process involved spending the end of the previous year visualizing, collecting images and quotes, combing through magazines, and compiling them into a Google Doc.

This year, however, felt different. I was uninspired to create, even lackluster. My corporate job was leaving me depleted, with no energy to even imagine my future, and then I was laid off, which, while initially jarring, ultimately freed up mental space and time for me to truly focus on what I wanted. It was time to play bigger, to focus on what I truly wanted, not what society tells me I should want, like a stable corporate job. So, I began to hone in on my true desires, even if they wouldn't necessarily manifest within the next year. I poured energy and visualization into things like owning my dream home: a place with a bathtub big enough for my 5'12" frame (hehe!), a massive garden to grow fruits, veggies, and herbs, a gorgeous kitchen to lovingly prepare meals and to entertain, and a great room with super tall ceilings.

Another dream of mine is to own a yoga studio, driven by a deep desire to create community. "Community" kept surfacing as a theme for me. I cherish the sense of belonging I find in fitness classes, through yoga, my mountain biking group, and my close friendships. When I finished my vision board this year, I felt incredibly vulnerable and raw, like I'd opened a wound. That's how I knew I'd tapped into something important. Creating this board meant truly stepping into what I want and visualizing its reality.

My vision board process also includes choosing a word of the year. This year, it came as a phrase that kept echoing in my mind throughout the fall of 2024: I AM WORTHY.

For so long, I chased things I thought would make me worthy: the perfect job, a relationship, the dream house. But I've realized that even when I achieve these things, the desire for something more always arises. Social media only amplifies this, constantly showcasing what others have, making me feel like I need it too.

We all grow up with ingrained beliefs about what we need to do or have to be loved and accepted. These neuropathways, shaped by our families and societal expectations, are natural. In our ancestors' time, belonging to the group was essential for survival.

But I've learned that certain things don't define my worthiness:

1. A job doesn't define me. Being laid off from my corporate job for the second time in eight months feels like a sign. Perhaps corporate life isn't my path. It's hard not to have an answer to the "what do you do?" question, especially after working some form of a job since I was 16 at Ramone’s Flower Shoppe. For the past decade, teaching yoga has been my joy, my "fun job." I want to follow this spark.

2. My dream house doesn't define me. Growing up, I imagined I'd have my dream house by 42. Approaching 43, I realize that societal pressure to own a home doesn't align with my current needs. I've owned a home before, and for now, renting offers more freedom and less responsibility.

3. Being in a relationship doesn't define me. I used to measure my worth by my relationship status, equating it with success. In my first marriage, I focused on the fact of being married rather than on myself. Now, in a loving and supportive second marriage where I feel loved, seen, heard, and held, I understand that my worth doesn't depend on Travis's love; it depends on my love for myself.

   
   

Operating from a place of love and care, my intention is to show up authentically. I strive to pour from a full cup, not an empty one. This has already fostered more compassion, reduced resentment and judgment towards others (and myself!), and empowered me to say "no" more often.

So, what does define my worthiness? I'm still exploring that, but it boils down to simply being me. Realizing that I can show up as I am, with whatever I'm feeling on any given day, and still be worthy of love and belonging.