Remember that You’re Valuable Just Because You’re You
A few years back, I started playing a game with my girls, Samantha (our eight year old) and Rosie (our five year old). The game goes like this: I ask them, “How much does Daddy love you?” They respond by putting one or both of their arms up into the air as high as they can and say, “This much.”
I say, “That’s right!”
And then, I ask them a very important question, “And how come Daddy loves you so much?”
To which they say, “Because I’m me!”
I then say, “That’s right, just because you’re you!”
It’s a fun, sweet, and powerful game that I love playing with them, and it’s something I hope to continue for many years. I play this game as much for them as I do for myself. For the girls, I want them to know that my love and appreciation for them is not based on what they do, how they look, how well they listen, if they come in first place in the swim meet, if their teacher has good things to say about them in school, or any other conditions, expectations, and accomplishments.
For me, I do it for two main reasons. First of all, as a father, I find it challenging at times to keep my heart open and to stay connected to my love for my girls when they do or say things that upset me. This game serves as a reminder that my intention is to love them unconditionally—even in those moments when I don’t approve of what they’re doing. This is often easier said than done—especially when my girls do or say things that I deem disrespectful, ungrateful, or worst of all, mean. The challenge for me is to stay connected to my commitment of unconditional love and at the same time give them feedback, boundaries, and consequences that will serve them well. This is, by far, one of the greatest challenges of parenthood for me.
On another level, by saying this to my girls on a regular basis, I feel like I’m healing something deep within me that I’ve carried around for most of my life—the belief that my value as a human being is based on certain conditional, material, or external factors (accomplishments, appearance, approval of others, status, and so on). Even though I know better than to use these external factors as a basis for my self-worth and value, I find it challenging at times to let go of the conditioning and feedback I’ve received from the outside world.
How about you? How much of your own worth do you place in the hands of other people’s opinions, material success, or other outside factors? If you’re anything like me, and many of the people I know and work with, probably quite a bit—or at least more than is healthy. The belief that we have to do specific things, produce certain results, look a particular way, and so on, in order to be valuable or lovable causes a great deal of suffering in our lives. From an early age, most of us have been doing whatever we can to gain approval and love from those around us. It starts with our parents, siblings, and family members when we’re very young. As children and adolescents, it extends to our teachers, coaches, and especially our friends. As we move into adulthood, it continues to expand to include our colleagues, clients, and anyone we deem important to our success in life.
At the age of seven, I started playing baseball (well, T-ball, actually) and I loved it. Not only was it a fun game, but I was really good at it—which made it even more fun. For a young, sensitive boy who struggled with deep feelings of insecurity and whose father was not only absent, but also beginning what would become a six-year odyssey of mental hospitals, halfway houses, suicide attempts, noncommunication, and more as he struggled with serious bipolar disorder, baseball became a safe haven for me. It was a place where I received approval, recognition, and love—or at least what felt like love to me as a boy and adolescent. From the age of seven all the way until I decided to walk away from the game on my 25th birthday (after four surgeries on my pitching arm), I had a love–hate relationship with baseball. I loved the game itself and had enjoyed lots of wonderful experiences playing. However, since my identity was so wrapped up in it and the approval, recognition, and “love” I received from playing were so conditional, I got to a point where I resented this great game.
While there’s nothing inherently wrong with our desire to have the respect and admiration of those around us or to accomplish our most important goals, we often give away our power, consciously or unconsciously, to the people, circumstances, and results (or lack thereof) in our lives.
Our true value has nothing to do with any of these external factors. At the deepest level, we’re valuable as human beings just because we’re us—not because of what we do, how we look, what people think of us, or what we produce or accomplish.
In my very first session with my counselor Eleanor a few years ago, she explained to me that part of what caused the suffering and insecurity in my life was when I looked outside myself to fulfill my needs, which, by the way, she said was true for most human beings. She then explained a unique set of seven needs that was, as she described it, a modified version of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs:
Eleanor then taught me a simple but powerful meditative technique to use as a way of learning to fulfill my own needs.1
I have used this technique a lot over the last few years and it’s had an incredible impact on my life. It has been a great reminder and a practice for me to focus on fulfilling my own needs—not erroneously expecting people, accomplishments, circumstances, or situations outside of myself to do it for me. The bottom line is that we are safe, secure, valued, loved, known, beautiful, and spiritually connected—just because we are who we are. That’s it. We can’t earn or lose that which is inherently ours.
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1Specific instructions for how to do this meditative technique, as well as a link to the page on my website where you can download a free audio recording of me guiding you through it verbally, are listed in the appendix section of the book on page 203