How do you know if you’ve truly embraced your worthiness, or if you’re just fooling yourself? Hint: you begin to see through the hierarchies we human beings fabricate.
This is indeed a very fascinating topic to contemplate on and thank you for bringing us into a glimpse of the book, I can’t help but add a cultural dimension where I wonder how much of these hierarchies are also influenced by our upbringing and where, in your case, American is a very “achievements” based culture where value is measured to what you’ve achieved (and perhaps not achieved).
In Sweden (and I don’t say this is better, so don’t read it as such because I’ve suffered a great deal from the concept I’m about to explain), there is a thoroughly engrained behavioral concept of “The Law of Jante”, which basically means that you shouldn’t think you’re better than anyone. Now this, in relation to your example, is relevant because those who do have celebrity status also shouldn’t treat you, without celebrity status, as being less than - and this is the good side. But where it gets tricky is when the law of Jante becomes like a heavy blocker limiting you from doing just about anything and where, whenever you dare to do something different, you have to suffer the social consequences of not being accepted and encircle yourself in lengthy justifications as to why you stepped outside the mould.
I think the conclusion to this is that there’s no one size fits all and that there’s always multiple sides to every place and story, BUT and yes there’s a but there, what we must always remember is that we’re ALL of equal value whether we choose to pursue something higher or not. That the value is in our own inherent choices rather than any external metrics…
Elin, first of all, thanks for reading and commenting, it's great to have you here! And I'm fascinated by the Law of Jante! Like you, I love it in theory, but I can see where it would get complicated in practice.
If you succeed at something, you may not think you're better than others, but others may project that on you, so it is not you failing to practice the Law of Jante, but those accusing you that are actually failing to practice it. They're trying to use it to keep you the same, rather than celebrating that differences don't make us better or worse than each other.
I wonder if the Law of Jante is doomed to fail in practice because we all develop an ego, and the ego is always deciding whether it is better or worse than someone else, so it would be better restated as, "Be aware of when you think you're better than someone else, and be curious about your sense of superiority until you can relinquish it."
I used to consciously note whether someone was "better" than me or whether I was "better" than them. The second wasn't always bad because it could mean "better off" which meant they were in need in some way and I might be able to help them. But if they were "better" it was never a good thing as I would assume they should help me or I would defer to them in some way that was unhealthy. I don't make conscious assessments like this anymore but this is a great reminder to be aware that being a caring, loving person means thinking about people without hierarchies muddying our thinking.
Brenda, in a way, that is the sweetest sort of ego comparison I've ever heard: comparing to see who should help who. 😊 I'm so glad you're free of that and would love to hear more about how you got free!
Thanks for putting this so beautifully into words. Hierarchies are an automatic thought process that I am unlearning. And this was a beautiful reminder of how and why we want to let them die. Happy Wednesday!
Great to hear from you, Ann! Yes, exactly, they are automatic. They are a part of the constant ego chatter. It may never go away completely, but we can learn to wink at it instead of believing it. 😊
Thank you, Kelly. You’ve put into words perfectly how our ego, as Wayne Dyer called it, “Edging God Out,” gets in between our true selves and others. I’m going to muddy this quote, and I can’t remember if it’s from a Sufi mystic or another spiritual guide, “Life is about unlearning everything we’ve been taught that gets in the way of Love.”
To attend LDS Temple Ordinances we have to go through a "worthiness" interview with some ecclesiastical leaders. There are standard questions of belief and the practice of our beliefs but the final question is this: "Do you consider yourself worthy to enter the Lord’s house and participate in temple ordinances?" The gentleman conducting my interview to renew my recommend for another 2 years pointed out that all the previous questions demonstrate to him how I am worthy so far as the Lord is concerned. That final question is about whether or not I intend to use my recommend to go to the Temple and feel the love that is offered to me by the Lord or not. If I have access to blessings and a place of peace and learning, then the only thing stopping me from enjoying it (whether I'm in that building or not) is me. We have a scripture in "The Book of Mormon" that is my personal favorite. 2nd Nephi 2:25, "Adam fell that man might be, men are that they might have joy." We have a purpose for life. A why for being born, dying and I believe somewhere to go afterwards. It's all part of a plan. "Joy" is the core factor. I think the way to feel joy is to feel worthy. Jesus loves me no matter what. My mom loves me no matter what. My wife loves me no matter what. But, I have to love me (not selfishly) to make the what matter. To make the joy "feel", I have to be mentally on board with the universe of my existence and I have to believe.
I couldn't agree with you more. Joy comes from a sense of worthiness, which is why joy transcends and includes other emotions. You can feel sad and worthy, and thus joyful. I love the phrase "to be mentally on board with the universe of my existence." That might describe most of the work of spiritual formation!
Thank you Dr. Kelly for these encouraging and healing words. New replacement thoughts for me as I often question my worthiness and contributions to my family and the world.
I recall being at the school bus stop in 8th grade "realizing" the world is like a ladder with people above and below you. Typical junior high mentality. As an adult in the work world, I strived to treat everyone with respect and friendliness, as I continue to do today.
I also revere my friends and compare. It's nice to be reminded I have unique gifts, I'm not better or worse than someone, I'm doing my best, and to stop comparing someone's best traits with my worst. I can easily celebrate their unique gifts.
Henri Nouwen's life changed when he retired from an Ivy league college to serve in a community of individuals with mental and physical handicaps. He saw that they were no more or less worthy than himself, with all of his books, and audiences, and accomplishments. Worthiness has nothing to do with our doing, and everything to do with our being. We're all learning to trust that's not too good to be true. 😊
Thanks for this reminder of worth. As I watch my elementary age grandchildren work through social hurts, it all comes back to me. If I can be helpful to them in learning their worthiness, that will be priceless to me.
Elementary aged grandchildren? Wasn't 2005 at Heartland just yesterday? And yes, helping them to learn their worthiness. I think grandparents are uniquely positioned to do this. Parents have too many stressors, too little experience, and too many other dogs in the race. But grandparents? Grandparents have a spaciousness and clarity that makes unconditional love more possible, and that's the delivery system for a sense of worthiness.
Living hermit-like, off-grid in the mountains, my exposure to hierarchies is primarily the pecking order of weather, bears, and keeping alive the chickens and garden. And yet my ego continues to make judgments about how I don't measure up in community, relationships, global citizenship and environmental stewardship. But what I've learned from living life on the slope is that my worthiness has never been a result of my performance.
Last year when I chose my mantra for 2024, "Grace instead of Judgment," my goal was to stop assessing others because that usually ended with me feeling less than worthy. I am beginning to realize that grace must first be extended to my ego, “this psychic matrix of self-protections,” as Kelly submits.
Many people think my isolated life in the forest is lonely. But the real loneliness has come from the internal hierarchy that “perpetuates the sadness of separation which the hierarchy was meant to solve.” In my days of public activism I believed hierarchies needed to be dismantled from the top down. What I'm beginning to understand from Kelly’s post is that my internal judgment-created model of worthiness will be irrelevant when I make peace with the separated elements of myself. With grace, unworthiness will no longer drive a need to find my place in the system.
Deb, I've always felt "heard" by you, and it feels that way again. In the seven years since I published Loveable, learning to love my own ego has been my greatest source of spiritual formation. Other people are easy compared to it. I can leave other people when they get under my skin, then come back a while later with a smile on. I can't leave my ego. I need to learn to live with it, and who wants to live with something they don't love?
What a beautiful post Kelly. I too believe we are all worthy by the very fact that we were born. People’s choice of life style, and their actions might result in being shunned by one group or another, but nothing can take away their worthiness.
thank you for this reminder, why don't we emphasize connection more and comparison less? i think in part because we don't believe this really gives us more happiness and we wont believe it till we personally experience it. practical examples of how to test it for ourselves would help perhaps… thank you for the keen manner of placing this truth…
That's such a great observation. And I think there's some truth to it: if we only value happiness, connection is probably a bad choice, because connection comes with happiness, sadness, fear, frustration, and so on. I often think of joy, though, as the experience that comes from being able to stay connected to yourself, others, and God in the midst of the full range of the human experience.
That’s keen insight ! Thanks for that- staying connected in the midst of the full range of experience - that’s challenging and takes effort - easier to avoid often - so I wonder how we take steps to test that this gives us joy …. How we believe that this could really be the case …. That we’d find joy by staying connected even when we’d rather run.
Quick fact: Darwin did NOT write ‘Survival of the fittest’, he wrote’Suvival of the fit’. This small difference has helped create a mindset of competition in our culture that in my opinion has been a contributing factor to this pervasive sense of unworthiness in individuals.
As always, I enjoy reading your perspective on life and the big issues. Worthiness is definitely a core struggle for all of us. I don’t know when I truly understood and believed that we are equal in God’s eyes, therefore that can be the only true way to encounter one another. Equals. I have believed for some time that if we meet it means you have a gift for me and I have a gift for you. I have had so many interesting and profound conversations with total strangers over the years.
I think the reason folks typically trust me quickly and even perfect strangers pour out their life stories within moments of our meeting is just that I truly believe I’m not above or below anyone in anyway. I think they believe I will understand their struggle because they sense my struggle is similar. The one consistent big challenge in my life that grows my faith the most is when I sit with my hospice patients during a televised (typically bed bound patient) Christian worship service. The Scripture, God’s promises and provisions, that are used to preach the message of God’s love for us has to apply not only to me but also, has to make sense for my actively dying/suffering patient. To be able to worship with my dying patients and see the hope that it brings to them and at the same time to me is a great equalizer. Our situations are so different outwardly but we are the same on the inside. ❤️
What a profound litmus test for any pastor as they compose a sermon: can your able-bodied congregant watch this with their dying companions and have it be equally relevant to both? I have a sense that almost everything worth saying would meet that criteria.
Growing up in a toxic family where I was not valued made it difficult to realize my worthiness. The hierarchies was part of the deception to create the need to prove your worthiness. The truth that we are loved by God sets us free from this twisted reality. I did not pity my abuser because that would make me look down on them. I looked at them as equal. The difference was in what they believed. They believed they were superior and I was just something to be (ab)used. I believe that God created us all equal with the will to choose whether we will love and believe the truth. The truth definitely sets you free!
George, thank you for sharing, and I admire the way you side-stepped the ego trap of looking down on the person who once treated you as below them. That's real freedom there. Well done, and thank you for breaking the cycle.
Wonderful comments from Everyone as always. I recall being amazed when reading Victor Frankel's Mans Search for Meaning. He talks of how even in a concentration camp, there was jealousy of who got a better labor camp assignment, who was not beaten that day or sick, etc. and then little by little, they started remembering their purpose in life. That helped them offer up, to each other what they always had to give. The positive person inspired those that couldnt go on. The singer sung. I would become the therapist to those who needed support. They may have been killed, but they saved their souls by remembering who they were and that they mattered to themselves and to each other.
Beautiful reflection, Marilyn. When you think about how the ego is designed to keep us safe, then it makes some sense that it would be activated for the prisoners in the camps - the ultimate danger. It also makes it a beautiful example of stepping out of the ego and connecting soulfully with each other, because they did it at such a high degree of difficulty. May we all receive the lesson.
This is indeed a very fascinating topic to contemplate on and thank you for bringing us into a glimpse of the book, I can’t help but add a cultural dimension where I wonder how much of these hierarchies are also influenced by our upbringing and where, in your case, American is a very “achievements” based culture where value is measured to what you’ve achieved (and perhaps not achieved).
In Sweden (and I don’t say this is better, so don’t read it as such because I’ve suffered a great deal from the concept I’m about to explain), there is a thoroughly engrained behavioral concept of “The Law of Jante”, which basically means that you shouldn’t think you’re better than anyone. Now this, in relation to your example, is relevant because those who do have celebrity status also shouldn’t treat you, without celebrity status, as being less than - and this is the good side. But where it gets tricky is when the law of Jante becomes like a heavy blocker limiting you from doing just about anything and where, whenever you dare to do something different, you have to suffer the social consequences of not being accepted and encircle yourself in lengthy justifications as to why you stepped outside the mould.
I think the conclusion to this is that there’s no one size fits all and that there’s always multiple sides to every place and story, BUT and yes there’s a but there, what we must always remember is that we’re ALL of equal value whether we choose to pursue something higher or not. That the value is in our own inherent choices rather than any external metrics…
Elin, first of all, thanks for reading and commenting, it's great to have you here! And I'm fascinated by the Law of Jante! Like you, I love it in theory, but I can see where it would get complicated in practice.
If you succeed at something, you may not think you're better than others, but others may project that on you, so it is not you failing to practice the Law of Jante, but those accusing you that are actually failing to practice it. They're trying to use it to keep you the same, rather than celebrating that differences don't make us better or worse than each other.
I wonder if the Law of Jante is doomed to fail in practice because we all develop an ego, and the ego is always deciding whether it is better or worse than someone else, so it would be better restated as, "Be aware of when you think you're better than someone else, and be curious about your sense of superiority until you can relinquish it."
"... be curious about your sense of superiority until you can relinquish it"
I love the way you framed this. It moved into my body and became a walk around lens ~
Mmm. "A walk around lens." I can't imagine anything more gratifying for a writer to hear, Deborah, thank you for letting me know!
Reminds me of the line from the animated movie “The Incredibles.”
“When everyone is super, no one will be.”
Yes, and that would make for a very, very boring animated super hero movie! Can you imagine? 😂
I used to consciously note whether someone was "better" than me or whether I was "better" than them. The second wasn't always bad because it could mean "better off" which meant they were in need in some way and I might be able to help them. But if they were "better" it was never a good thing as I would assume they should help me or I would defer to them in some way that was unhealthy. I don't make conscious assessments like this anymore but this is a great reminder to be aware that being a caring, loving person means thinking about people without hierarchies muddying our thinking.
Brenda, in a way, that is the sweetest sort of ego comparison I've ever heard: comparing to see who should help who. 😊 I'm so glad you're free of that and would love to hear more about how you got free!
Thanks for putting this so beautifully into words. Hierarchies are an automatic thought process that I am unlearning. And this was a beautiful reminder of how and why we want to let them die. Happy Wednesday!
Great to hear from you, Ann! Yes, exactly, they are automatic. They are a part of the constant ego chatter. It may never go away completely, but we can learn to wink at it instead of believing it. 😊
Thank you, Kelly. You’ve put into words perfectly how our ego, as Wayne Dyer called it, “Edging God Out,” gets in between our true selves and others. I’m going to muddy this quote, and I can’t remember if it’s from a Sufi mystic or another spiritual guide, “Life is about unlearning everything we’ve been taught that gets in the way of Love.”
Mmmm. That sounds like a Rumi or a Hafiz. I'd rather have it muddy than not at all. 😊 Stay tuned...next week's post ends with a poem of Rumi's!
To attend LDS Temple Ordinances we have to go through a "worthiness" interview with some ecclesiastical leaders. There are standard questions of belief and the practice of our beliefs but the final question is this: "Do you consider yourself worthy to enter the Lord’s house and participate in temple ordinances?" The gentleman conducting my interview to renew my recommend for another 2 years pointed out that all the previous questions demonstrate to him how I am worthy so far as the Lord is concerned. That final question is about whether or not I intend to use my recommend to go to the Temple and feel the love that is offered to me by the Lord or not. If I have access to blessings and a place of peace and learning, then the only thing stopping me from enjoying it (whether I'm in that building or not) is me. We have a scripture in "The Book of Mormon" that is my personal favorite. 2nd Nephi 2:25, "Adam fell that man might be, men are that they might have joy." We have a purpose for life. A why for being born, dying and I believe somewhere to go afterwards. It's all part of a plan. "Joy" is the core factor. I think the way to feel joy is to feel worthy. Jesus loves me no matter what. My mom loves me no matter what. My wife loves me no matter what. But, I have to love me (not selfishly) to make the what matter. To make the joy "feel", I have to be mentally on board with the universe of my existence and I have to believe.
I couldn't agree with you more. Joy comes from a sense of worthiness, which is why joy transcends and includes other emotions. You can feel sad and worthy, and thus joyful. I love the phrase "to be mentally on board with the universe of my existence." That might describe most of the work of spiritual formation!
Thank you Dr. Kelly for these encouraging and healing words. New replacement thoughts for me as I often question my worthiness and contributions to my family and the world.
I recall being at the school bus stop in 8th grade "realizing" the world is like a ladder with people above and below you. Typical junior high mentality. As an adult in the work world, I strived to treat everyone with respect and friendliness, as I continue to do today.
I also revere my friends and compare. It's nice to be reminded I have unique gifts, I'm not better or worse than someone, I'm doing my best, and to stop comparing someone's best traits with my worst. I can easily celebrate their unique gifts.
Henri Nouwen's life changed when he retired from an Ivy league college to serve in a community of individuals with mental and physical handicaps. He saw that they were no more or less worthy than himself, with all of his books, and audiences, and accomplishments. Worthiness has nothing to do with our doing, and everything to do with our being. We're all learning to trust that's not too good to be true. 😊
Thanks for this reminder of worth. As I watch my elementary age grandchildren work through social hurts, it all comes back to me. If I can be helpful to them in learning their worthiness, that will be priceless to me.
Elementary aged grandchildren? Wasn't 2005 at Heartland just yesterday? And yes, helping them to learn their worthiness. I think grandparents are uniquely positioned to do this. Parents have too many stressors, too little experience, and too many other dogs in the race. But grandparents? Grandparents have a spaciousness and clarity that makes unconditional love more possible, and that's the delivery system for a sense of worthiness.
Ha - yes. 8 grandchildren, ages 8 yrs to 8 months.
Eight under eight! I my goodness! You’ll have your hands as full as you want them. 😂
I found so much comfort in your ability to put my feelings into words. I have struggled with this issue of worthiness for as long as I can remember.
I'm so glad this resonated, Kathleen. Next week's post is very different but may land with you in a similar way.
Living hermit-like, off-grid in the mountains, my exposure to hierarchies is primarily the pecking order of weather, bears, and keeping alive the chickens and garden. And yet my ego continues to make judgments about how I don't measure up in community, relationships, global citizenship and environmental stewardship. But what I've learned from living life on the slope is that my worthiness has never been a result of my performance.
Last year when I chose my mantra for 2024, "Grace instead of Judgment," my goal was to stop assessing others because that usually ended with me feeling less than worthy. I am beginning to realize that grace must first be extended to my ego, “this psychic matrix of self-protections,” as Kelly submits.
Many people think my isolated life in the forest is lonely. But the real loneliness has come from the internal hierarchy that “perpetuates the sadness of separation which the hierarchy was meant to solve.” In my days of public activism I believed hierarchies needed to be dismantled from the top down. What I'm beginning to understand from Kelly’s post is that my internal judgment-created model of worthiness will be irrelevant when I make peace with the separated elements of myself. With grace, unworthiness will no longer drive a need to find my place in the system.
As within, so without.
Deb, I've always felt "heard" by you, and it feels that way again. In the seven years since I published Loveable, learning to love my own ego has been my greatest source of spiritual formation. Other people are easy compared to it. I can leave other people when they get under my skin, then come back a while later with a smile on. I can't leave my ego. I need to learn to live with it, and who wants to live with something they don't love?
What a beautiful post Kelly. I too believe we are all worthy by the very fact that we were born. People’s choice of life style, and their actions might result in being shunned by one group or another, but nothing can take away their worthiness.
Thank you, Teyani. Indeed, the good news is that others don't get to decide our worthiness. That's an inside job.
thank you for this reminder, why don't we emphasize connection more and comparison less? i think in part because we don't believe this really gives us more happiness and we wont believe it till we personally experience it. practical examples of how to test it for ourselves would help perhaps… thank you for the keen manner of placing this truth…
That's such a great observation. And I think there's some truth to it: if we only value happiness, connection is probably a bad choice, because connection comes with happiness, sadness, fear, frustration, and so on. I often think of joy, though, as the experience that comes from being able to stay connected to yourself, others, and God in the midst of the full range of the human experience.
That’s keen insight ! Thanks for that- staying connected in the midst of the full range of experience - that’s challenging and takes effort - easier to avoid often - so I wonder how we take steps to test that this gives us joy …. How we believe that this could really be the case …. That we’d find joy by staying connected even when we’d rather run.
Thank you Kelly
I've been working on a book about that for a year and a half. 😊 Unveiling the first chapter of it during the June Human Hour!
Love this and thank you.
Quick fact: Darwin did NOT write ‘Survival of the fittest’, he wrote’Suvival of the fit’. This small difference has helped create a mindset of competition in our culture that in my opinion has been a contributing factor to this pervasive sense of unworthiness in individuals.
Reference:
https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/commentary/survival-fittest
Love that nugget! It's certainly a different mindset!
As always, I enjoy reading your perspective on life and the big issues. Worthiness is definitely a core struggle for all of us. I don’t know when I truly understood and believed that we are equal in God’s eyes, therefore that can be the only true way to encounter one another. Equals. I have believed for some time that if we meet it means you have a gift for me and I have a gift for you. I have had so many interesting and profound conversations with total strangers over the years.
I think the reason folks typically trust me quickly and even perfect strangers pour out their life stories within moments of our meeting is just that I truly believe I’m not above or below anyone in anyway. I think they believe I will understand their struggle because they sense my struggle is similar. The one consistent big challenge in my life that grows my faith the most is when I sit with my hospice patients during a televised (typically bed bound patient) Christian worship service. The Scripture, God’s promises and provisions, that are used to preach the message of God’s love for us has to apply not only to me but also, has to make sense for my actively dying/suffering patient. To be able to worship with my dying patients and see the hope that it brings to them and at the same time to me is a great equalizer. Our situations are so different outwardly but we are the same on the inside. ❤️
What a profound litmus test for any pastor as they compose a sermon: can your able-bodied congregant watch this with their dying companions and have it be equally relevant to both? I have a sense that almost everything worth saying would meet that criteria.
Growing up in a toxic family where I was not valued made it difficult to realize my worthiness. The hierarchies was part of the deception to create the need to prove your worthiness. The truth that we are loved by God sets us free from this twisted reality. I did not pity my abuser because that would make me look down on them. I looked at them as equal. The difference was in what they believed. They believed they were superior and I was just something to be (ab)used. I believe that God created us all equal with the will to choose whether we will love and believe the truth. The truth definitely sets you free!
George, thank you for sharing, and I admire the way you side-stepped the ego trap of looking down on the person who once treated you as below them. That's real freedom there. Well done, and thank you for breaking the cycle.
So beautiful! I love the excerpt from your book - just what I needed right now!
Glad to hear that, my friend!
Wonderful comments from Everyone as always. I recall being amazed when reading Victor Frankel's Mans Search for Meaning. He talks of how even in a concentration camp, there was jealousy of who got a better labor camp assignment, who was not beaten that day or sick, etc. and then little by little, they started remembering their purpose in life. That helped them offer up, to each other what they always had to give. The positive person inspired those that couldnt go on. The singer sung. I would become the therapist to those who needed support. They may have been killed, but they saved their souls by remembering who they were and that they mattered to themselves and to each other.
Beautiful reflection, Marilyn. When you think about how the ego is designed to keep us safe, then it makes some sense that it would be activated for the prisoners in the camps - the ultimate danger. It also makes it a beautiful example of stepping out of the ego and connecting soulfully with each other, because they did it at such a high degree of difficulty. May we all receive the lesson.