What
Are You Worth?
by Gail Carr Feldman, PhD
Do we wish
to consider our worth in terms of money? Should we be concerned
about how worthwhile we are in the eyes of others? Or might we reflect
upon and honor our intrinsic worth as human beings? In the historical
context, we recall that women have been devalued and seen as worth
less than men for the past several thousand years. As we greet the
next thousand years, might we at the same time reveal to ourselves
what our true worth is? Could we together create a magical millennium
wherein we elevate ourselves, along with our brothers and sisters
and children, by a transformation of consciousness?
From this
transformed perspective, we can become queen of our own hearts,
clear about our value, and unswerving in our focus on the gifts
we bring to the world. With the spell of limitation broken, we can
prepare to accept powerful possibilities for self-rule and to encourage
self-value in others. Marianne Williamson wrote in A Woman's
Worth: "When a woman has owned her passionate nature, allowing
love to flood her heart, her thoughts grow wild and fierce and beautiful.
Her juices flow. Her heart expands. She has thrown off crutch and
compromise. She has glimpsed the enchanted kingdom, the vast and
magical realms of the goddess within her... When a woman conceives
her true self, a miracle occurs and life around her begins again."
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"We don't choose
our passions. They choose us. We have to pay attention
to them so they can tell us who we are."
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When
we own our passionate nature, love not only floods the heart;
it spills over onto everyone we meet. The key to our worth lies
in opening to this true self, the authentic self, the outspoken
and possibly outrageous essence of our self-expression. When
we do this, we share our personal
brand of creativity. We live our passion. Novelist Jack Butler
wrote in Dreamer: "We don't choose our passions.
They choose us. We have to pay attention to them so they can
tell us who we are." Pay attention to where your heart
is drawn, and know that what captures your heart defines your
passion and your purpose.
Margaret
Sanger (1883-1966) single-handedly founded the birth control movement
in the U.S. and the world. She was the sixth of eleven children,
and during her nursing career on the Lower East Side of New York
City witnessed poverty and high rates of infant and maternal death
due to uncontrolled fertility. She devoted her life to removing
the legal barriers to the publication of facts about contraception.
She was indicted, served 30 in the work house, but went on to publish
numerous books, magazines and pamphlets on birth control. She organized
the first World Population Conference in Switzerland (1927), and
was the first president of the International Planned Parenthood
Federation. She lived her passionate dedication to a woman's right
to plan the size of her family and to protect her health, and in
so doing, affirmed the worth of all women.
When
we boldly and passionately live out our values, we declare our ultimate
worth. Marianne Williamson expressed it this way: "It is a
woman's function to mother the world by holding the idea of its
possible perfection within her heart." It seems to me that's
worth quite a lot.
Dr.
Gail Feldman is a clinical psychologist, award-winning author,
and enthusiastic public speaker. Her most recent book, Releasing
the Goddess Within, coauthored with Katherine Gleason,
is now available Her classic, From Crisis to Creativity:
Taking Advantage of Adversity, has been published
in an updated edition in London by TimeWarner. She is also trained
in hypnotherapy, regression therapy, and eye movement desensitization
and reporcessing (EDMR).
