Deciding you’re worthy

Never once did my dogs (now in heaven) doubt their worthiness! When they stole my dinner off the counter, they knew they deserved it! When I was upset, they wondered what got in to me! When someone ignored them, they went to the next until they got the attention they knew they wanted – and deserved! They taught me a lot about worthiness and unconditional love. Those of you with animals or young kids know exactly what I’m talking about. They know they’re worthy of love, and when we don’t, they wonder what’s up with us!

It took me decades to truly learn to accept myself no matter what. Like most of us, I used to judge my looks. Now I prefer to look good, but so be it when I don’t. I’m still me. I used to judge myself by how “right” I got things. If I felt stupid, I used to beat myself up without mercy. Now being ignorant is fun. I get to learn something new. I used to beat myself up for not being “enough” to satisfy anyone and everyone, whether it was reasonable or not. Now I do what I’m guided to do and let everyone figure out if they’re satisfied with me or not. I have finally grasped that the opinions of others are just their perception, their truth, and formed through their filters. Often, they have very little to do with who I truly am.

We were all born, brewed, and steeped in cultural, family, religious, and societal messages about what made us lovable. It is almost comical looking back. One person is lovable in one culture if they come with a lot of goats. Another person would be disdained if they brought goats to their wedding. In one era, women were worshiped for their voluptuous curves. Then you were supposed to be rail thin to be lovable. Next up, “we like big butts, and we cannot lie…” Really? The superficial standards of beauty have always been just that. Some learned they were lovable when they put up and shut up, while others were prodded to “get over their shyness.” Some were loved for their creativity, while others were told to “stop wasting their time.” I could go on, and I’m sure you could go on too, but really, the criteria for being lovable are highly individual and have nothing whatsoever to do with your true “lovabiliy.” These “standards” just tell you who resonates with you and who doesn’t.

I’ll never forget one totally humorous incident in my infamous thirties when I was looking for love in all the wrong places! I told God that morning I wanted a “sighting” meaning I wanted to run into a cute guy and have a friendly conversation. It was a joke between some friends and me. So lo and behold, I went to Costco to pick up some photos and sat on a chair in the waiting area to look at the pictures when a very handsome and friendly man sat next to me. He looked at my photos, made kind comments, and struck up a delightful conversation. However, having been intuitive for a few years, I knew what would ultimately come. “So what do you do for a living?” he asked. “Here we go,” I thought. I was not ashamed of what I did. “I talk to angels and dead people. I’m an angel communicator and a psychic medium.” He laughed uncomfortably. “No, really…” “Really. I used to be an avionics engineer, but a few years ago, my entire life changed. Now I help people for a living this way.” “Oh, um, er, well, It was nice meeting you,” and so he ran! I laughed inside – uproariously so. Happily, times have changed, and most people are interested in what I do now, but back then, I was weird. It was great. I learned to hold my head up high and love what I was doing.

The hair was another issue. It wasn’t quite socially acceptable, growing up when I did, to have “wild” hair. It was supposed to be tamed, trimmed, and kept in line, kind of like we women were supposed to be! Neither my hair nor myself was easily tamed! I never quite felt like one of the “pretty girls” in high school, but I made peace with it. I remember a day at age 17 when I just decided that I was beautiful inside and if people didn’t care for that, too bad. I remember another day years later when I chose to love my hair as it was. That night someone stopped me in a bookstore and commented on my “gorgeous hair.” I nearly passed out. Talk about how our vibes affect the world around us!

More seriously, many of us learned that we had to earn love or worthiness and, worse, that we could mess it up. After my divorce, I spent nearly seven months feeling like an unworthy failure. It was not fun to feel this way and would have been useless, except that the “guilt, shame, and blame game” gave me a lot of incentive and motivation to grow and become the person I am now. So not even our so-called unworthy moments are wasted. We can learn from them, and reach for more. We’re worthy of love the whole time –  no matter what we’re feeling or believing.

The angels have worked with me to stop beating up on myself throughout the years. “Go to the mirror and apologize to yourself,” they used to say!I went through the motions. “Sorry,” I’d say to my reflection. Archangel Michael sounded like a mom, “Mean it.” I could feel his love and humor and their desire to love me as they did, so I improved my attitude, “I’m sorry, Ann. I didn’t mean to beat you up,” I would say to my reflection. My reflection burst into tears at the notion of being worthy of love, no matter what. Best of all, that acknowledgment of worthiness opened me to the incredible and constant flow of the angels’ love at a precise moment when I had not previously felt worthy of it.

Collectively, we as a planet are trying to learn we’re worthy of love. Stuffed feelings are flying up and out; if you feel worthy of love, you can feel them and let them flow through. If you don’t, they tend to come out sideways, with heaping doses of guilt, blame, and shame attached.

As we embrace our worthiness of love, we let ourselves feel, allow ourselves to be real, and let others come or go without the need for them to validate us. It is a much happier and freer way to live.

Here are a few tips to help you embrace your worthiness no matter what…

1. Bring Your Beliefs into the light

Write a list of ten to twenty things you learned “made you lovable.” For example, I am lovable when I please people. I am lovable when I eat my dinner. I am lovable when I put myself last. I am lovable when I look a certain way. I am lovable when I agree with people. I am lovable when I do things “right.” I am lovable when I am neat and organized. I am lovable when I save my money, etc. You get the idea. Go as fast as you can and bring those beliefs into the light.

2. Rewrite the list as If God were writing it

For every item, write a new belief:

I am lovable even when I am not… For example, I am lovable when I am not pleasing people / looking right / behaving / feeling positive / etc.

Do this for every item. Read it every day. Put it where you can see it. Keep reinforcing it. I am lovable even when I’m not feeling fabulous. I am lovable even when I make a “mistake.” I am lovable even when others are displeased with me. I am lovable even if I am fifty pounds “over”weight. I am lovable even if I’m not as far in life as I think I should be. I am lovable even if my ex hated me. I am lovable even if I just temporarily screwed up my life. I am lovable even if I make a stupid decision.

As you go throughout your days, remind yourself that you are lovable… no matter what.

You WILL argue at times with this. Old programs are often hard-wired! If SIRI on your phone were programmed to say it, she’d tell you you were not lovable if you didn’t ask the questions right! If she were programmed to evaluate worthiness as a human, she might refuse to tell you anything good if you didn’t have enough in your bank account. Although that sounds ridiculous, we were programmed, and sometimes these programmed beliefs feel so darn real that we’ll argue that we aren’t lovable. We disagree with God and our soul at those times, which never feels good. Better to surrender to the simple statement, 

I am lovable even if….” 

3. Remind yourself often that you are worthy

In my “Magical Self Love” class, we have an exercise where people have to admit a secret desire they have – one they feel comfortable disclosing, of course! Then they walk around the room confessing this desire to one person after the next, and each time the other person says only one thing, “YOU DESERVE IT!” The energy in the room goes off the charts by the end of this exercise as people start to believe in their own worthiness for one straightforward reason. Others tell them! Over and over and over. One woman confessed she wanted a second home. Over and over, she heard her worthiness, “You Deserve it!” Within months she found one that serves as a lovely vacation gathering place for her family. She had never looked or even thought it was affordable before that day.

Worthiness = openness. Worthiness opens you to the love, guidance, grace, and resources always being offered by the universe. The universe – the Divine, the angels, you folks in heaven, your kids in heaven, and your animals – all know your worth and worthiness. In their space of constant openness to Divine love, they want to flow it and offer all the help you need for all you want. However, if we decide we’re not worthy for any reason – guilt, shame, blame, you name it – we block that love.

So remind yourself often, “I am worthy.” If you want a better job, remind yourself that you are worthy. You want a relationship. Remind yourself that you’re worthy. Do you want something you don’t need? Remind yourself that you’re worthy. Then go the extra mile and ask yourself, “What would a worthy person think? How would they act? Would I be more gracious? Would I explore my interest more? Would I expect help from the universe, or would I demand it from the only person I feel safe with?” You can go on here. “How would I think or act if I knew I was worthy of all I desire?” These are powerful questions

I threw away the book of guilt, shame, and blame a long time ago. In the past few years, I learned to embrace my light and worthiness even when I was getting hated on by a few unpleasable individuals. I have learned that wild hair and all, the light inside is the beauty I keep. It has freed me. It has freed me to give more, to enjoy more, and to decide what feels right and when. It has freed me to expect help from the universe the minute I want something. It has freed me to stop trying to please others and to just be me.

I made the decision to embrace God’s idea of my worthiness and throw out the one I learned. I made the decision to accept heaven’s opinion rather than the opnions of othres.

Here and now, you can decide that you are worthy because you can decide that God’s and your angels’ opinions are more important than those who didn’t know their own worthiness and lovability. It may not be easy, and it may be a decision that has to be made a thousand times before it wires into a new belief, but why not? After all, you are worthy of feeling even your own worthiness 🙂

Have a blessed and beautiful week 🙂 You deserve it 🙂