What is your sense of self-worth in this moment? Before you dismiss the idea as irrelevant or impractical to your daily life, reiki practitioner Kelsey Patel argues that tuning into our inherent worthiness can majorly reduce stress and anxiety.
We all know that reducing stress one of the greatest wellness hacks ever. Even better, Kelsey’s helpful practice below is totally free and you can do it anywhere. Kelsey, an expert on burnout, is sharing these actionable tips from her new book, Burning Bright: Rituals, Reiki + Self-Care to Heal Burnout, Anxiety and Stress.
It’s not the easiest thing to take a break from one’s day-to-day life and routine to check-in and truly identify the meaning of self-value and self-worth. In many ways, we have all been taught that if we keep doing, keep creating, keep producing, keep giving, keep sharing and keep going that we will somehow then be able to feel a sense of worth and value in ourselves. Or that someday someone or something, like a job title or amount of money in a bank account or an award given to us by someone else will finally give us a sense of self-worth and a feeling of accomplishment and contribution in a more meaningful way then we could have ever done on our own.
Every day in our own way we each wake up, get ready, connect with the world and produce or create in some way that we hope contributes to the world and the life we are currently living in a meaningful way. But if we are getting up and going out into the world hoping for some outside force or person or experience to give us our internal sense of self-worth and self-value, then we will continue to exhaust, deplete and drain ourselves trying to validate our sense of self from an external force.
“The pursuit of outside approval is disempowering and can lead to incredibly unhealthy habits mentally, physically and emotionally if someone doesn’t know that they are intrinsically valuable and worthy as a human being.”
Each of us has goals, desires, dreams that exist beyond the current reality of our day-to-day lives and while some may seem further away than others, understanding your innate worthiness to receive your dream life and valuing your inherent talents and abilities as a unique soul is one of the easiest ways to aligning with your dream life.
One of the most important rituals that I love to both personally practice and share in my workshops is a Self-Evaluation Ritual, the emphasis on self-value and worthiness. So often, we want to place our value in the world on what we do, and the truth is, each of us is born with innate value and innate worth. There is nothing more we need to do or be in order to access this incredible feeling now, and the best way to get there is to start by recognizing what already is.
A Daily Ritual To Up Your Self-Worth
Take a few moments to practice this Self e-value-ation Ritual. You may want to record it first and then play it so you can experience the full ritual.
Start with a few deep breaths to really connect and open up your body.
Begin to focus the breath inside your heart space and feel it opening up.
Take a moment to really look at yourself. Take a break from the doing mindset and look at your life over the last several years and find things you feel very proud of about yourself.
Notice what comes up for you (perhaps it’s a surprise) and begin to connect to the word value.
Start to ask, inquire and identify qualities about yourself that you value. They may be things others have told you or things you intuitively feel. Let them in on a cellular level and allow them to each individually land inside of you as a beautiful and incredible truth.
Connect to the things you deeply desire, dream of and any purpose-filled goals you have for yourself in life. Both personally, as a human experiencing a full life, and professionally, as someone who wants to share and make a difference in your own, unique and divinely guided way.
Allow them to enter your heart space and body. Notice what it feels like to let them live and breathe inside of your being as if they are already manifested. No resistance, just opening up to your worthiness of receiving them.
Pause and take a few moments to just be in this place of connection.
Journal what you felt, heard, saw and experienced. Write out the things you value about yourself and what exactly worthiness feels like to you. On any given morning, see if you can briefly connect to this energy before you head into your day.
