Imagine you are at a car lot looking at a car for sale. You ask the salesperson to tell you about the car.\u00a0 They respond, \u201cIts okay I guess. It could be shinier, and it could go faster, and the color isn\u2019t great, and it doesn\u2019t have the best radio, and it\u2019s not the cleanest, and its technology isn\u2019t the latest and greatest, and there are obviously other cars that are much better looking\u2026.\u201d\u00a0 How excited would you be to drive that car off the lot?\u00a0 And even if you went on to buy it out of need, would you really have it front of mind to treat that car well? Or would you haphazardly throw your wrappers on the floor and forget to take it in for its routine oil changes?<\/p>\n
Now let\u2019s contrast that to how you would have felt if the salesperson had described that car differently.\u00a0 If they had responded, \u201cIt\u2019s an amazing car! It is incredibly reliable, and it is very safe for a family, and it is very comfortable, and it has a radio that plays beautiful music, and the color is very unique\u2026it truly is one of a kind and a car to be treated with tender loving care.\u201d\u00a0 How excited would you be to drive that car off the lot? And how hesitant would you be let that car get dirty or scuffed?\u00a0 And wouldn\u2019t you want to keep that car well serviced so it will last for a very long time?<\/p>\n
Don\u2019t ever think that the way you feel about yourself won\u2019t have a major impact on the way that others will feel about you.\u00a0 It will and it does.<\/p>\n
I learned this lesson myself when I worked with a counselor following a divorce from a difficult marriage.\u00a0 I was struggling to understand why I continued dating men who didn\u2019t treat me very well. Certainly I should have learned my lesson after my first marriage, yet I kept finding myself dating the same type of men.\u00a0 I shared my concern with my counselor and her response was very direct and it hit me really hard.\u00a0 She expressed that I was dating men that valued me as much as I valued myself \u2013 she went on to express that it wouldn\u2019t be until I came to value myself that\u00a0 I would find a man who valued me too.\u00a0 I was stunned. My thought was, \u201cbut I do value me.\u201d But as I went home and reflected on her words for a period of time, I knew that if I was totally honest with myself, that I had to recognize that that deep down, in that place of vulnerability I didn\u2019t like to face, perhaps I didn\u2019t feel that I was of much value.\u00a0 And what scared me most about that was the fact that I didn\u2019t know how to change that \u2013 I didn\u2019t know how to feel good about myself, so how was I ever going to change it.<\/p>\n
It took much study for me to figure out what things I could proactively do to get to a point where I valued myself.\u00a0 I was worried about summarizing the things that helped me do it until this weekend I heard a talk that summarized perfectly the ways to improve your value of self and gain self-confidence:<\/p>\n
The bottom line is that each of us have to evaluate ourselves to determine if we do, in that place of vulnerability, truly value ourselves.\u00a0 One reflection that might help you answer that question is to take stock of your current relationship or your employer \u2013 do they seem to value you?\u00a0 If you feel they don\u2019t, or if you find yourself consistently feeling undervalued by others than perhaps it is time to take matters into your own hands and begin doing those things that you can to help to feel your own value.\u00a0 And as you value yourself, you will see that you attract others who will value you as well.<\/p>\n
Have a great weekend everyone!<\/p>\n
~Amy<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Imagine you are at a car lot looking at a car for sale. You ask the salesperson to tell you about the car.\u00a0 They respond, \u201cIts okay I guess. It could be shinier, and it could go faster, and the color isn\u2019t great, and it doesn\u2019t have the best radio, and it\u2019s not the cleanest, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":96,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[698,838,46,1677,91,1301,650,1499,210,1718,1289,517,1494,4520,5090,5093,743,152,378,598,296,11,5092,150,2070,2389,1196,3955,5094,129,496,27,1498,2560,509,516,938,5095,4006,894,1426,5091],"class_list":["post-5032","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-accountability","tag-apologize","tag-attitude","tag-bad","tag-change","tag-counselor","tag-dating","tag-divorce","tag-do-the-right-thing","tag-do-your-best","tag-employer","tag-enough","tag-esteem","tag-evaluate","tag-feel","tag-fix","tag-forgive","tag-impact","tag-improve","tag-job","tag-lesson","tag-marriage","tag-meditation","tag-others","tag-physical","tag-reflect","tag-relationship","tag-repair","tag-repent","tag-responsibility","tag-self-worth","tag-self-confidence","tag-self-reflection","tag-sorry","tag-spiritual","tag-thoughts","tag-value","tag-vulernable","tag-well-being","tag-words","tag-wrong","tag-yourself"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.amyreesanderson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5032","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.amyreesanderson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.amyreesanderson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.amyreesanderson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.amyreesanderson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5032"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.amyreesanderson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5032\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5037,"href":"https:\/\/www.amyreesanderson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5032\/revisions\/5037"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.amyreesanderson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/96"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.amyreesanderson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5032"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.amyreesanderson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5032"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.amyreesanderson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5032"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}