I've been proving my worth for 40 years and I'm done

🔥

There's something I've never said out loud quite like this before.

For most of my life, I've been the giver. The one who shows up, takes on the extra thing, says yes when I'm already full, keeps going when I'm running on empty.

And for a long time I told myself it was just who I am. A generous person. Someone who cares.

But recently I've been sitting with something harder.

What if it wasn't generosity? What if, underneath all of it, I was scared?

Scared that if I stopped giving, stopped being useful, stopped taking on everyone else's stuff — they'd leave. Or they'd stop loving me. Or they'd realise I wasn't actually worth keeping around.

Not a conscious thought. Nothing that dramatic. Just a quiet hum underneath everything. A constant low-level proving. Look how much I do. Look how capable I am. Look how little I ask for.

Because if I ask for too much, I'm selfish. And selfish people get left.

I grew up in a house with a lot of noise. My dad was an alcoholic. There was domestic violence. And when things are that unstable, you learn to survive. You become useful. You become the capable one. The strong one. The one who holds it together so everyone else can fall apart.

I was a child and that was the role I took on

And then I grew up. And I kept doing it. Because it was the only way I knew how to feel like I was enough.

When I was living with my mum a few years ago, she was going through a hard time and leaning on me heavily. And I just kept taking it on. And taking it on. And taking it on. Not because she was forcing me.

Because somewhere in my nervous system, saying no felt like a threat to the relationship. If I'm not giving, what am I?

She's actually admitted since I moved out that she leaned on me because I was there. And I let her. Because I thought I was being selfless.

I wasn't. I was proving my worth. There's a difference.

The exhaustion I've been carrying recently — and it has been a lot — brought this into focus in a way it hasn't been before. Because I got to a point where I had nothing left. Not just tired. Empty. Not even being any version of myself, never mind the best version.

And I realised that the version of me running on empty wasn't actually helping anyone. My patience was gone. My warmth was gone. My presence was gone. I was going through the motions.

The cruel irony of putting yourself last is that you end up giving everyone the worst of you while trying to give them the best.

And there's a moment in that — a really uncomfortable moment — where you have to ask: why am I doing this? Is it love? Or is it fear?

For me, honestly, it's been both. And untangling them is the work I'm in the middle of right now.

Because real self-love — not spa days and sunrise journalling, but the actual thing — starts with believing you are worth taking care of. Not because of what you do for others. Not because of how useful you are. Just because you exist and your needs are real.

That's it. That's the whole thing.

And I know how hard that is to believe when you've spent decades learning the opposite.

So I'm starting small. Embarrassingly small. Asking myself what I need before I check my phone in the morning. Noticing when I'm hungry and actually eating. Choosing one need to meet deliberately each day — not as a byproduct of something else, but on purpose.

Not a 30-day programme. Not a transformation. Just the slow, quiet practice of taking myself seriously.

If you've ever been told you're selfish for having needs — I want to say something clearly.

Genuinely selfish people don't lie awake worrying about whether they're selfish. They just get on with it.

The fact that you're reading this, asking these questions, wondering if you give too much — that's not selfishness. That's someone who cares deeply and has just forgotten to include themselves in that care.

You are allowed to be on your own list.

Not at the bottom. Not as an afterthought. On it.

If this landed somewhere real for you, I'd love for you to come and find us inside The Sacred Reset — my free community where we talk honestly about all of this. The over-giving, the exhaustion, the slow work of coming back to yourself.

I've also created a free worksheet to go with this — it's called Back on Your Own List, and it'll help you start to see where your needs have been going and what one small act of taking yourself seriously could look like today.

Both are waiting for you.

https://www.skool.com/sacredself/about

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