Christmas 2025-A person’s self- worth is critical to their happiness in life. It has amazed me over the years when doing intakes with clients how many of them have feelings of worthlessness. This is very sad
when one realizes how critical it is for persons to believe in their ability to achieve in life and
have positive relationships with people. If someone has feelings of worthlessness about
themselves,they do not see themselves as worthy to be with persons of character and strong
self-worth. Instead, they often live on the edges of life and wait for psychological and even
physical abuse because of their belief they have no worth to themselves or anyone else.
Persons like this can have some successful relationships and also obtain employment. The
problem is in most relationships they tend to be with persons who direct them, bully them or
generally control the course for whatever they do with them. This happens in abusive
relationships where we see people beaten into the ground emotionally and sometimes
physically over and over again because they believe they are worthless and deserve such
treatment. Persons who see themselves as worthless do not have psychologically healthy
relationships because they do not see themselves as worthy of having them.
The sad thing is that many persons feel worthless because this belief is entrenched as part of
their personality. When someone is like this, they have little hope for happiness in life and the
only glimmer of happiness they get is from someone who may be taking advantage of them,
gives them a smile or tells them in spite of their worthlessness, they can get a few things done
right with appropriate direction. The question then becomes, what does one do when they have
genuine feelings of worthlessness and cannot muster the energy, desire, and will to be
successful because they believe they are worthless and it is not possible? To begin you need to
take a time out and come to the conclusion you are worthwhile, can advance in life, can be
loved and be happy. You must accept the fact you are not worthless and whatever flaws or
deficiencies you have, you have the ability to work on them and develop them as well as
acknowledging the strengths you have and develop them. You immediately need to be around
good people who are willing to be supportive to you, not take advantage of you and just accept
that you are a worthwhile person. This is much harder to do than one might think. When one
has ingrained views of themselves as worthless and have lived lives where they have lived up to
that low expectation, it is hard, even if you finally come to the conclusion you are not worthless,
to go forward and make the decisions that will make you feel like a worthwhile person who
deserves a positive life with friends and job opportunities consistent with your abilities.
Something called cognitive restructuring is also critical. This is when a person starts kicking out
negative thoughts and replacing them with positive thoughts. A basic one is if you keep telling
yourself you are worthless and do not deserve anything good in life, you have to come back and
say you are a worthwhile human being and you do deserve good things in life. You also need to
take an honest inventory of your skill sets and determine which ones can be developed now to
best advantage you in life. Make today the last day you will see yourself as worthless and the
beginning of a time you will see yourself as worthwhile and have a happy life where you will not
be taken advantage of by those who accepted your views of yourself as a worthless person. If it
is late at night that you hear or read this, take the night off and begin tomorrow morning on your
happy voyage in life as a worthwhile person! If you find you are not able to make this transition
from feeling worthless to worthwhile, you may find an experienced therapist working with such
situations can best help you on your voyage to being the worthwhile and happy person you
know you can become.