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Women, quite often, end up blaming their own selves for everything. But it's not always your fault. Here's 3 ways to ensure that your self worth is intact!
Women, quite often, end up blaming their own selves for everything. But it’s not always your fault. Here’s 3 ways to ensure that your self worth is intact!
Dear women, your self worth is not for sale!
Yes, you read it correctly! The process of truly involving and participating in most things in life is way more fulfilling than the final outcome. (of course when the outcome is in your favor who wouldn’t like it)
And the same goes for your self worth too especially for a woman. Your self-worth is your asset and no one in this entire world should be able to take that away from you!
As a woman in her late ’30s, I see myself not only questioning my childhood and teenage days but empathising with my younger version of me. The one who went through tonnes of social conditioning and pressure even I had supportive parents.
However, it was their conditioning too, to always seek an output or a result out of a task or an activity. The process or the journey itself hardly mattered back in those days. But can you be sure if that the conditioning has completely gone away? Have you seen or heard of a mother ever feeling guilty for not doing a self-care regime?
Or have you ever tried any new things when there’s no tangible output? Don’t you tend to question the reason of the task and the whole existence?Have you ever, in a professional space, when one of your presentations or negotiation didn’t go well, inwardly start the blame game? Did you not shame yourself to how incompetent you were?
Guilt, the fear of who we are, the inferiority complex, being apologetic of our behaviour is just some of the social conditioning that is so strong in women. I see it all around me and some times, I realise I am doing the same too. If someone criticises a woman, why does she take it to her heart? Why does she feel so much for everything and everyone around her, both consciously and unconsciously? How is she the only one able to connect and understand most of the human pain around?
Well, a lot of research studies show that women are more emotionally intelligent than men. They have the ability to empathise with most situations or circumstances.
I’ve seen this even in professional set ups as well. Women will understand a team member’s needs and not just those of the subordinates but also for those in leadership positions too. Their ability to see things as they are and to empathise with the situation is one of the most brilliant skills that women possess. Then why do we need to talk about a low self-worth?
There are times when our confidence and this strong emotional skill is shaken due to some incidents. This makes us vulnerable and that is not at all a bad thing. It becomes a bad thing when we allow it to let us harm and make us emotionally, physically and spiritually weak.
Especially when someone close to us doesn’t believe in our efforts, we see a lot of self doubt creep in. While it is spoken and discussed a number of times, I have realised that self-worth can be protected, preserved, and nurtured by simply being self-aware. And here are things that have helped me stay self-aware.
Either meditating or sitting quietly by yourself for about 10-15 days everyday can do wonders to your body. Especially if you do so without feeling guilty about it.
Self-awareness, to me, is the ability to bring the mind, body, and soul to the present moment. Nothing matters but this exact moment one is in. To be able to bring the dimensions here with us and to consciously see ourselves being alive and present. I believe is the best gift we could give ourselves every day.
I believe practicing empathy helps us understand people and makes us deal with the world in a much calmer and sensitive way. It’s a great skill to be able to understand and be mindful of the ones suffering around us. And it also helps in ensuring that we treat them with care and tenderness.
Developing the habit of being able to write, on a daily basis, about some of the highlights of the day and how you could make your tomorrow better is a good one. We all know the benefits of “Gratitude Journaling.” Similarly, it also helps to write about those who helped us swim through the day. Or even how we made a difference to someone else’s life or made someone smile! You will be amazed at how this piece of documentation can help you pick yourself up on the low days you go through!
The power of women is limitless and she can turn her emotional ability either as intelligence or as her enemy. It is completely up to us to preserve ourselves and our self worth with the tools and opportunities we’ve around us.
Living the daily mundane life day in day out is what probably makes it count and not just the outcome of everything we do.
Picture credits: Still from Bollywood movie Queen
As I like to say, life in progress. The journey matters so much than the destination in most cases, and that's what keeps me going. read more...
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UP Boards Topper Prachi Nigam was trolled on social media for her facial hair; our obsession with appearance is harsh on young minds.
Prachi Nigam’s photo has been doing the rounds on social media for the right reasons. Well, scratch that- I wish the above statement were true. This 15-year-old girl should ideally be revelling in her spectacular achievement of scoring a whopping 98.05% and topping her tenth-grade boards. But oddly enough, along with her marks, it’s something else that garners more attention – her facial hair.
While the trolls are driving themselves giddy by mocking this girl who hasn’t even completed her school yet, the ones who are taking her side are going one step ahead – they are sharing her photoshopped pictures, sans the facial hair, looking nothing less than a celebrity with captions saying – “Prachi Nigam, ten years later”.
Doctors have already diagnosed her with PCOD in their comments, based on photographic evidence. While we have names for people shamed for their weight – body shaming, for their skin colour- racism, for their age- age shaming, for being a female- sexism, this category of shaming where one faces criticism for their appearance has no name. With that, it also has zero shame attached to it.
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