Quotes About Self-worth

Haven't you learned anything, not even with the approach of death? Stop thinking all the time that you're in the way, that you're bothering the person next to you. If people don't like it, they can complain. And if they don't have the courage to complain, that's their problem

If you think you are only strong if you can lift a certain number, whatever that number is, you will feel pretty weak most of the time. Strength is not a data point; it's not a number. It's an attitude.

Loneliness is black coffee and late-night television; solitude is herb tea and soft music. Solitude, quality solitude, is an assertion of self-worth, because only in the stillness can we hear the truth of our own unique voices.

For no life disgraced is life.—

Novak was saying that the pope's message was in part: You are not nothing; you are a great deal. God made you in his image, and he calls you to be like him. And so you must walk forward in to the world each day with confidence and humility. This reminded me of what a woman in Bible study said once. "Walk with pride, for you are the daughter of a king.

the people in my life didn't destroy me. i destroyed myself with intense feelings of inadequacy.

How can I be sure it won't happen again?" she demanded. "By letting your heart heal and being careful not to rush into anything. By finding a man who will treat you with the love and respect you deserve.

Don't waste your love on stupid people. Anyone stupid enough to deny or reject it—in the midst of the Love Depression we're in—does not deserve it.

Realize the complicated specials of what we call the "inferiority complex." In other words, what, Miss Thing, is so damn special about you to make you feel so specially inferior to any other jerk?

I never thought I'd have a story worth telling, at least not one about me.

Redemption is overrated.

How many tasks had I dared not attempt because I accepted their reverberating jibes that I was "good for nothing?

Perfectionism also prevents us from letting in the love of others, no matter how abundant and genuine it is. When we are preoccupied with our deficiencies, we are often untouched by the nurturance others offer us. How tragic that so many of us are convinced we only deserve to be loved when we are happy or excelling.

Natural anger eventually arises when we really get how little and defenseless we were when our parents bullied us into hating ourselves.

Toxic shame can also be created by constant parental neglect and rejection.

MIRRORING Out of this will come a person who is going to have a good image of herself. Someone who will be able to walk into rooms without undue shyness, believe that other people like her, accept praise for her work as due, and smile at the nice reflection of herself in other people's eyes just as she smiles back at what she sees in the mirror. – Nancy Friday

The most essential of these are the deaths of our self-compassion and our self-esteem, as well as our abilities to protect ourselves and fully express ourselves.

When contempt replaces the milk of human kindness at an early age, the child feels humiliated and overwhelmed. Too helpless to protest or even understand the unfairness of being abused, the child eventually becomes convinced that she is defective and fatally flawed. Frequently she comes to believe that she deserves her parents' persecution.

continued failure at winning their regard forces her to conclude that she is fatally flawed. She is loveless not because of her mistakes, but because she is a mistake. She can only see what is wrong with or missing in her.

All too often, your decisions are based on the fear of getting in trouble or getting abandoned, rather than on the principles of having meaningful and equitable interactions with the world.

I am proud and right to see how they tried to murder my soul. I give them their shame back as disgust

Some survivors have confidence but not self-esteem.

My parents' twisted version of this boiled down to: "As f*cked up as we are, we're still way better than you".

my own flight response got channeled into acquiring academic skills for which the outside world rewarded me. But the benefit of these rewards never penetrated my toxic shame enough to allow me to feel that I was a worthwhile person.