Another revelation

[sabrinamari]

I just got another message that's been reverberating through every part of my life over the last few months: when people value you, that value is reflected primarily in the actions they take towards you. Words are important, but they pale beside actions.

1. Look primarily at actions, not words.

2. Do not remain where you are either not valued or undervalued.

3. You get what you settle for---and this is tricky: you don't necessarily get what you ask for---you get what you are actually willing to settle for ...in other words, what you really believe you deserve. To change your circumstances, you must first deeply and truly believe that you deserve something better.

4. Assuming that you can make that leap...go to where you are valued. This means go where you are well-treated, well-compensated, and non-expendable. It is very important to do what you love, choose what and who you love, and give yourself to the experience whole-heartedly. But if you are not adequately valued (which is predicated first on your ability to adequately value yourself), the positive experience will not last, no matter how good it initially feels.

Oh, and how I get here: hang out with the kind of people I want to be, people who have already internalized the things I want to internalize and can continuously model how to do this: people who love themselves, value themselves, and do not settle for less than what they actually deserve.

****

I've been trying to articulate this last piece to myself for some time, but I didn't have the whole picture of exactly why I needed it so much until now.

****

I just got this: comparing three different people and three different circumstances across my life, I now see that you can care for someone deeply, even love them, and not actually value them sufficiently. I did not realize this before.

Comments

[ingridsummers.livejournal.com]

Wow, this is very timely for me as I settle for less than I want or deserve most often than I care to admit. I am beginning to see the direction I will be traveling once my period of rest is over. To reach out and up!

[sabrinamari.livejournal.com]

I often get flashes of insight about this time of day and have to get them down quick so they're preserved for me. While I do this, I'll sometimes see other people around me who seem to need to hear whatever I'm trying to communicate to myself.

This morning, I saw you and almost reached out to you. I think in supposed to tell you some very specific insights.

[ingridsummers.livejournal.com]

I think you are giving them to me as I witness your journey into believing you are worthy and deserving. Our backgrounds are not the same, yet in my work environment I struggle with showing up in a way that demonstrates my expertise and competence. I let "large" personalities overshadow me. I retreat into the background. If my ultimate dream is to be a CEO of a hospital, I need to show up and be confident in myself.

Blessings to you!

[sabrinamari.livejournal.com]

There are also a couple of specific strategies you need. I posted them elsewhere, not here. I learned two of them yesterday and you will need them in the next couple of months. I just feel this.

[ingridsummers.livejournal.com]

I trust your feelings. And, in the next few months is when I will need to make conscious choices about where I go from here.

Thanks!

[sabrinamari.livejournal.com]

I will find a couple of moments to contact you and tell you.

[sabrinamari.livejournal.com]

Are you around later?

[sabrinamari.livejournal.com]

Beth, I forgot to say this: please find two people in the Minneapolis community who need to know this and tell them this story. I know you'll get a sense of who needs to hear it. Love you!

[shades-of-nyx.livejournal.com]

I'm not good at this yet. Working it.

[sabrinamari.livejournal.com]

It's challenging---REALLY challenging. Most of the people around me are struggling with it. I need some new people who aren't, to help me make the leap.

I am asking for them now.

[eoma-p.livejournal.com]

I agree with you and understand, but my personal insight here is that people who value themselves and won't settle sometimes look suspiciously like assholes. As always, be careful what you wish for.

[sabrinamari.livejournal.com]

I dunno, honey. I know a whole lot of folks who don't value themselves enough who sometimes look like assholes. Mostly, that behavior seems to come from a place other than feeling great about themselves and good about their lives.

Could just be me.

Shrugging here.

[eoma-p.livejournal.com]

I didn't mean it as discouragement. I'm just thinking of the people in my life who have taught me to value my own worth professionally, and they're very strong abrasive personalities. They've often challenged me and I've had to stand up and communicate clearly when I wanted to curl up in a ball instead. I don't think they're assholes, but gentler souls around me have expressed that opinion. Of course the universe may send what I need instead of what I think would help. In terms of actions, these are the people who doubled my salary and went to bat for me. In terms of words, they're a little hard to take.

[sabrinamari.livejournal.com]

I see what you mean.

I think these folks are very necessary in helping others to build up their own assertiveness and self-worth. Why ever bother to learn to stand up for yourself if you never need to do it?

But yes, I agree that it is often difficult to take the abrasive words of people around me. That's a *big* challenge.

[treesong.livejournal.com]

This thread seems to connect to David Schnarch's idea of differentiation.

I just finished reading it on your recommendation, Sabrina.

Thank you for being so willing to share your knowledge and experiences. Your writing always inspires me to action and I am finally de-lurking to tell you so...

[sabrinamari.livejournal.com]

Yes, I think it is, actually. Thank you for pointing this out.

Right now, I think I'm "further differentiating."

It's smart of you to see this, treesong. I didn't quite have that piece yet.

Thank you---I appreciate the way you took the time to tell me this.

Also, you're most welcome.

[deboranter.livejournal.com]

I agree with all of this. And some of it my mom taught me long ago -- looking at actions rather than words specifically.

However let me say that being loved and cared about deeply without being valued isn't BAD, per se, its just not the same as being valued. And there's a corollary to this -- you can be valued without being loved or cared about. So your workplace -- they more than likely value you but except for a very few of us I don't think our offices love us. Our employer as an abstract and not the coworkers we grow close to.

Also there's degrees of value just as there are degrees of love and caring.

However I would question the love and caring of anyone who also didn't value you. Or I would question the degree of that love and caring.

[sabrinamari.livejournal.com]

Right there with you.

Hadn't thought, yet, about being valued but not loved and cared for. My employer actually does care for me a great deal.

However, this is an important point. For me, the two often go together, and it is rare that I spend any time on anyone I don't really care for. On the other hand, I care for a lot of people.

Now I want to look for examples of being valued but not cared for so I can get a close-up understanding of that situation.

And I do agree that it is important to question how much one is cared for if one isn't much valued.

On the other hand, I grew up with a parent who loved me but simply wasn't able to value me properly until I became an adult. She simply did not know how to do that properly.

[citabria]

Thank you for sharing this. I think I'm needing this message very much right now, too.

Of course, there's also the more complex question of what to do when some people value you, while others don't -- all for you doing the same things. Do you stay because you're partially valued? Or leave because you're not valued by all? There, there is where I get hung up. I think taking the compensation bit into account I'm less hung up, but it can still get messy.

[sabrinamari.livejournal.com]

Hmmm, this is a good question.

I think the start of the answer is this: look at your life long patterns, the ones that have held you back repeatedly.

How do your current choices play into them and reinforce them?

How can you choose differently, right now, in ways that help you begin to free yourself from those patterns?

That's what I've been doing lately. As I look for my freedom, I ask myself, "How have my recent choices been subtle repetitions of old, chronic choices that have held me back in the past? How can I choose differently, right now, in a new way that isn't simply a knee-jerk reaction to my old pattern?'

THIS IS VERY TRICKY.

I am only now, slowly, figuring this out.

But I think that this line of reasoning will eventually get me where I actually want to go.

[spiffnolee.livejournal.com]

It occurred to me on first reading of your original post that "what you're willing to settle for" makes it sound like it's wrong to be satisfied. If you find yourself in a situation where (like citabria above) you're partially valued, then the first question is, "Are you happy?"
Only if you are discontented should you take action for change.

[sabrinamari.livejournal.com]

I think this depends on each individual. Everyone gets to choose what satisfies them and what they think works for them.

[spiffnolee.livejournal.com]

Exactly.
"Satisfies" is a nicer way of saying "settle for."
Maybe there's a very narrow line between "Yeah, that's good," and "Yeah, that'll do."

[sabrinamari.livejournal.com]

I'm just exploring this stuff consciously, so I am figuring out what I want it to mean for me.

I don't believe on telling other people what to do or think. If they invite me to share, cool, but I have plenty to do working everything out on my own life.

But my journal is my way of creating peace, wisdom and sanity for myself, so if you come here, you've asked what I am thinking. All I have to give is what I currently have. And love, along with good wishes for all.

[sabrinamari.livejournal.com]

Also, 135 posts, 300+ pages. Cleaning them up now to shorten.

[spiffnolee.livejournal.com]

OK, cool! And wow!

[sabrinamari.livejournal.com]

Thank you for your patience.

(Hmmmm, I always seem to be saying that to people I respect. Maybe I am overcommitted?)

Michael has spontaneously jumped on board and is helping me clean the files. He feels pain watching my s-l-o-w manner on the computer.

Two days ago he said, "Why don't you learn to type? If you did, you could write at the speed you think.". Then yesterday, when I was despairing over copying all those entries, he looked up my monthly posts in just *this* journal and found it came out to about five a day.

Then he looked at me and said, "You don't need to learn to type."

[sligoe.livejournal.com]

I am learning, slowly, that I am valued and cared for by the people I work with. My bmanager told HUIS manager that if I were to leave the Service, he would definitely retire. I told his manager that if my manager retired, I would want to go somewhere else, because i Have the best manager in the Service. It's true.

Today, my manager came to me and laughingly handed me a panphlet that advertised an assertiveness training class for women---he toldc me that I really needed the class as he laughed at me. I took one look at it and laughed right back at him. Tonight, I told a group of people that I deserved to have a finished floor to walk on in the balcony of their church. The new church I am playing for has the organ and piano in the upstairs balcony---and the floor is bare plywood. I told them that I needed to have that floor covered, because I didn't care to get splinters in my feet, or in case I fell, in my hads, knees, elbows, etc. They're going to talk to the property committee to get this done.

I am learning more and more to value myself for who I am, what I can do, and how I live in the world. This reflects back onto other people---when they see that I value ME, they tend to value me as well---and that's a good thing.

My exes didn't value me as a person so much, even though they said they loved me and cared for me---their actions told me that they felt that I was less than valuable aqnd I accepted it because I agreed with them, at least a little bit. I let them walk all over me and hurt me because I didn't feel as if I was worth all that much. I've since learned better, and now I can adequately express that to others as well. With Dave, I feel like I have value beyond what I can do for him, and I know that I am loved and cared for. It's the best of all possible worlds.

[showingup.livejournal.com]

I tend to worry that my ME makes me someone who can't consistently provide support for others, which means I'm a bad person for not properly valuing them - after all, if I really cherished others, I'd be consistently there for them, whenever they needed me, not just when I was able to do it. Right? And that this meant that I couldn't expect to be really valued by others, because someone as inconsistent and rubbish a friend and/or colleague as me isn't someone you'd miss if they weren't around. And so I've let potential friendships drift off because of my assumption that I'm not someone who enriches others' lives.

Yet, it's the quality of others' interactions with me that I value. And if I'm valuing them for their kind interactions with me, maybe they're not just making allowances for me, maybe they actually like my company and value me?

Huh. In my case, I'm surrounded by kindly, interesting, cool people who I don't get close to, so depriving myself of enrichment because I've been prepared to settle for a certain level of isolation rather than the closeness I yearn for.

Honestly, I am such a dork. Mind you, I have done exceedingly well in the Best Friend and Spouse stakes, so I've got some bits right!