To Thine Own Self Be True ...

I thought I saw a puddy cat....
Originally uploaded by law_keven

The subjects of worth and not worth worked in me and through me today, sometimes enlightening me and other times, twisting me from the inside-out. It felt like a quiet demolition crew, a shattering that didn't wreak havoc yet I could feel the aftermath in the noisy pieces that fell in my interior periodically throughout the day.

What I came to understand today is that the old message of "I am not worth it" was the principle operating system in my being for a very long time; in fact, it is presently working, just not at the volume or speed or intensity that it once was. I know where the "shut off" valve is now. This ancient piece of machinery was the motor that enabled "Woe is me" to run for as long as it did.

Bringing worth/not worth more deeply and fully into my awareness today also connected me to a place in my smallest self where this message was first given birth. And I would have flashes of memories all day, vivid images, of how unworthiness appeared and all the ways in which I disregarded my worth by shrinking, hiding, denying, masking, ignoring, lying, deceiving, disappearing. I let myself feel old places of shame, of giving myself away, of helplessness and powerlessness, of freezing up and of shutting down.

When it really came to a head was at tonight's AA meeting. A friend in the program was chairing and celebrating her 2 year AA anniversary. She passed her coin proudly around the room. As I held it in my hand, the words enscripted rung loudly: "To Thine Own Self Be True" . My sponsor had just said these very words to me in our discussion yesterday and I couldn't take them in. As I held that coin tonight, each word echoing and bringing the topic of worth/not worth right in my face, the tears came streaming down. And I raised my hand to share tonight so that I had a place to talk about and to hold these historic, painful feelings about my worth -- so that they could live and that I could really live -- more and more in my authentic, truest self. It was the first time with my AA community that I poured the contents of my tender heart out, no holds barred, tears and snot and vulnerability and honesty out in the open. It was incredibly healing and free-ing.

Tonight's "release" was the result of a 2 week culmination of feelings bubbling and coming to a surface from sitting with a trusted group of Kabbalistic classmates, my "circle of women" , who helped me to pry open a very heavy, rusty door previously bolting up this buried subject. Since then, it's been dusted off and given its due place out in the atmosphere and in my conscious awareness and among fellow travelers.

Our story is our story until it is no longer our story.

The tension in my shoulder that had been drilling into me is no longer there. The deep knot in my belly has come undone. There is a lightness in my chest where there had been a great weight. I am incredibly exhausted and yet I can't not write. Holding in is no longer an option for me these days. Robert Frost captures it best: "Something we were withholding made us weak, until we found out it was ourselves."

I will re-visit my worth mantras that I created this morning. And I will repeat them as often as necessary until they are credible and are my truth. And I will make it a point to carry my AA coin in my pocket, so that I can regularly look at those powerful, healing words: To Thine Own Self Be True.