I’ve been thinking a lot about what it means to be worthy of something… and how crippling it is to feel unworthy and undeserving.
See, I’ve always struggled with this. Secretly I have felt unworthy at everything I do, and every success is always tempered a little bit with that nasty little whisper of “but you could have done it better, you totally half assed this, you really are not good enough for this.”
Really, it amazes me how much I have done considering how powerful that little douchebag of a voice is for me – become a pretty great tribal fusion dancer, started a successful mermaid business, became a full time Priestess.
(Good job, Demi!)
But every step of the way is chased by this nasty little whisper, every goal and desire poisoned by it.
I’ve been reading lots of fiction recently, and in a lot of the stories I’ve been reading is a woman who decides that she is Not Worthy, and that internal decision that she is not worthy completely messes everything up.
In one story, a woman had to ask to be chosen as Queen by the faery people (there were a whole bunch of women who had to say “choose me as your queen”… also if a story doesn’t have witches or faeries or something in it I am not interested) and she decided she wasn’t worthy so she kept silent… and the faeries didn’t want any of the other potential queens and there was a huge battle and palaver until she accepted and said “choose me as your queen” and they did.
A whole mess that could have been avoided, murders and violence and a huge amount of conflict and healing that MAYBE could have been avoided if she just got out of her own way.
I’m reading Mists of Avalon, and Morgaine decides she wants to go back to Avalon, and she believes so much that she is unworthy and a bad priestess that she cannot perform the magic to summon the boat to take her home – now, maybe Avalon was judging her for straying and not being as perfect a priestess as she could have been, or, MAYBE she already decided she couldn’t summon the boat and literally it was only her belief in her unworthiness that stops her going home.
I read this stories and I am SO FRUSTRATED at these women… for gawds sakes, won’t they get out of their own way?
But I do it too.
All the time.
Reading these stories makes me see how pointless internal judgements are. They make me think that all these women had to do was Get Out Of The Damn Way and surrender their ego to chance… cos maybe she wouldn’t be chosen as Queen, but that’s not her place to decide so it doesn’t matter, or maybe Morgaine really was too far off the path to be able to summon the boat home, but again that’s not her place to decide so why does she take on the responsibility for that decision?
It’s not our place to decide our worth – our only job is to show up.
Essentially, from my priestess perspective, the only one who can decide on our worth the Goddess. We don’t need to do her job for her. She has it covered – and she is infinitely more generous with us than we are with ourselves.
All we are supposed to do is keep showing up and be open to what happens next.
This is a lesson I need to remind myself of time after time.
