“Am I Enough?” The Impact of Self-Worth on Sex, Love, Relationships and Life

It’s late November and as the sun begins to dip toward the horizon of another year, I can feel the warmth of nostalgia enveloping my brain. Swearing a little under my breath, I shove the top section of my artificial Christmas tree into the plastic trunk, ignoring the glances of my neighbour through the front-facing window because I know he’s judging me for putting the decorations up before December. I casually acknowledge to myself that I’d much prefer a real Norway spruce, but my late Mum bought this tree for me just before her last Christmas and so it’s special…even though the branches look like broken Grinch fingers. I also remind myself of that time we excitedly went to a tree farm, bought the most extravagant one with our toddler son in tow; a specimen worthy of the smuggest Instagram pic, and then the tree met an untimely death within a week.

What is the point of these festive ramblings, you ask?

Well…it’s analogous to the concept that an object’s worth is attributed to far more than what the eye can see. And taken one step further; one step deeper…self-worth is even more complicated than that. Yet we size ourselves up, spend our lives shaping ourselves into something presentable and valuable (according to external perceptions mostly), and wonder why we end up irritable, angry, anxious or depressed. We plant ourselves firmly in front of others, hoping to be beautiful enough; strong enough; happy enough; good enough…

…but if we just looked down at the web of our own roots, we’d recognise that the soil in which we are planted is unstable, and we haven’t been watering it.

Self-confidence, self-esteem and self-worth: What’s the difference?

Self-confidence relates to how we feel in terms of our competence in specific areas of our life, rather than a holistic evaluation of self. An example might be that perhaps you have a generally high sense of self-worth, but you have much lower levels of self-confidence in areas such as sports. Or…(since I dabble in the realms of ENM, sex and relationships for this blog)…perhaps you struggle to believe you are an inherently good person, and your relationship is going a bit tits up, but you can still acknowledge you are at least pretty decent in the bedroom! That’s a slice of self-confidence.

With regards to self-esteem and self-worth, I think Dr. Christina Hibbert says it best with this:

“Self-esteem is what we think and feel and believe about ourselves. Self-worth is recognising ‘I am greater than all of those things.’ It is a deep knowing that I am of value, that I am lovable, necessary to this life, and of incomprehensible worth.” (2013).

Importantly, self-esteem relies on external factors, such as appearance, performance, successes and achievements, whereas self-worth is the internal sense of being worthy of love and belonging from others.

The Psychology of Self-Worth

Back in 1976, Covington and Beery put forward a theory that self-worth is all about the human tendency to spend our lives seeking self-acceptance…and to do that, we try to find it through achievements, which are found by being in competition with others. Competing successfully with others leads to pride, which enhances acceptance. Within this model, the theory posits that our ability, effort and performance levels each interact to determine the level of self-worth we feel.

The apparent mistake we make, is the disproportionate emphasis we put on achievements to determine how worthy we are, when it’s about so much more. After all, what happens to your self-worth if one day you aren’t ‘achieving’ what you thought you would, or should?

So what might this look like in the modern world?

Measuring self-worth by:

• your social circle- who you know/ contacts/ networking.
• your job- hours worked/ promotions.
• social media- your following/ number of ‘likes’/ comments you receive; trying to recreate the ‘perfect’ representation of your life, and comparing it to others
• academic grades and accolades
• your to-do list
• how much money you have
• your relationship status
• your age
• your likes and dislikes

Now, none of these things are inherently problematic.

Maybe you do feel a bit better when drinking champagne at your pal’s posh country house, than when you’re offered a custard cream at your unemployed cousin’s flat. And perhaps you are OK with an 80 hour working week so long as you get to have your name engraved on a fancy CEO’s plaque!

It’s OK to strive for things; to achieve things; to build your life in a fulfilling way. Problems arise when you determine your worth solely on measures of these.

The same goes for:

Examples linked to the Ethically Non-Monogamous lifestyle

Measuring self-worth by:

• Appearance/ body image- how attractive you are/ how toned you are/ what size you wear/ how big or small your parts
• Social skills- how comfortable you find it to meet new people and talk with ease
• Emotions- whether you feel jealousy/ envy/ secure/ insecure etc.
• Sexual performance
• Kinks- how ‘accepted’ they are/ how they are perceived
• Comparisons- who is better/ who is worse/ who feels more loved/ who feels neglected etc.

I know that for me, I don’t feel jealous when I am watching my husband flirt, interact and have sex with other women. I feel the opposite of that: compersion. On reflection, I know that this is because I am 100% secure in our relationship. We have a rich history. A family. We owe each other a mutual something. I don’t believe in ownership of another person but in a way I can’t quite articulate, he is mine and I am his.

However, there have been occasions when I have felt envy about other ‘lifestyle lover friends’ having sex or enjoying intimacy with somebody other than me! And I recognise that as uncomfortable as that is, it’s not about me wanting them for myself. We are non-monogamous for a reason. It’s rooted in insecurity. Me not feeling beautiful enough in that moment; funny enough; confident enough; good enough. I’m comparing myself unfavourably and at the height of it, I’ve beat myself up over those feelings. I’ve had to learn to reassure myself independently of them. And that’s alright. It just takes self-compassion and a bit of pulling myself up by the bootstraps occasionally!

Overall, each of these things are considerations worthy of our time when seeking happy, healthy and fulfilled sex, relationships and general lives (particularly in the ENM lifestyle)….

BUT our actual self-worth should be based on internal factors.

YOU determine your self worth. It comes from within.

And this is where we often encounter a stumbling block…within. Our internal world is first built upon the ground from which we were planted (remember my analogy earlier?). Our childhood; our formative years.

It is here that we first develop what psychologist Carl Rogers termed Conditions of Worth (hyperlinked- happy researching), which are conditions we feel we need to meet as a child, in order to feel worthy, or of value. These conditions of worth are often placed upon us (often not even consciously) by our primary care givers, such as:

• work hard to be successful
• please others before yourself
• men do not cry
• do not get angry
• do not show any weakness
• be quiet and do as you are told

I grew up in a family with three children. My much older sister was volatile, aggressive and suffered with a myriad of mental health issues, which led to fast and severe weight gain. I regularly overheard arguments between her and my parents about her eating habits and her size, and because my parents were scared that I would go the same way, they often told me not to finish the food on my plate.

As an adult, I can see that my parents were frightened for her and probably felt that they had failed my sister in some way. They did their best with the resources available to them at the time. However, as an impressionable child, I internalised this to mean that you are only worthy of love and acceptance if you are slim. Growing up, I was involved in regular dance practice and national competitions, so this intensified the value of being thin, in order to be worthy. When I left home for University and stopped dancing to focus on my degree, I naturally put on weight (buying 10 Easter eggs for 50p each one Spring didn’t help)… and when I gave birth to a huge baby a few years later, my body was impacted again.

Because of that condition of worth (that I had to look a certain way to be accepted), I have struggled throughout my entire adulthood with actively hating the way my body looks. This has impacted my confidence; my relationships; my marriage; and the ENM lifestyle I am currently living. Does it mean I haven’t been able to slowly embrace my body and enjoy some truly joyful moments? No. But I am still undoing the formative effects of conditioning, and despite me having been successful in undoing some other conditions of worth such as having to be academically ‘perfect’ to be of value, my sense of not feeling worthy of my partners’ affection and physical intimacy remains an underlying thread on most occasions. Some of these bad boys stick!

My aim of sharing this is to give an example of the impact that just one active condition of worth can have on your life. Most of us have more than one, and many of us have lots! But there is so much hope in being aware of them, so we can begin to unpick them, re-frame them, and establish internal measures of worth.

How to Build Self-Worth

Self- Awareness:

I encourage you to take a little look at the information above and ask yourself some reflective questions:

• How do I feel about myself?
• Is this voice really mine, or might it have come from a critical parent/ carer/partner/ teacher, etc?
• In what situations do I feel my self-worth increases/ decreases?
• When do I feel most secure/ insecure?
• What messages did I receive as a child about what makes me worthy of love and acceptance?
• Are these messages true, now that I can look through the lens of an adult?
• What conditions of worth might I have developed?
• Am I happy with my sense of self-worth? Am I ready to try to change it?

What did you discover?

Self awareness is key to recognising the changes you’d like to make (if any). And if you’re not quite ready yet, that’s OK too. You’re safe here to dwell in the exploratory phase for a while longer.

Connection:

The way we think about ourselves as people is quite skewed, in my opinion. I notice it especially when meeting new people, which is something that happens with more frequency and intensity when you’re looking to make new connections in the ENM lifestyle. However, it also occurs in normal, vanilla life too. For instance, how many times do we approach others and ask:

“So what do you do?”

When I’m asked this question, I’m often tempted to be facetious and say something annoying like: “lay around on the sofa and think about how to carry out a swift murder on my childhood bully without getting caught. I’d use a thick shard of ice so the evidence melted. You?” But what usually ensues is a surface level conversation about our job/career/vocation/daily life, which feels socially appropriate…especially if you’re staunchly British, and the idea of dropping your guard to tell a relative stranger what you’re really about, feels akin to stabbing yourself in the eye.

Some people might delve a little deeper if they’re slightly more engaged (or you’re at an interview), and invite you to “tell me about yourself”, and you’ll probably start panic-listing your historical achievements, and maybe tell an anecdote that you’ll cringe about later.

Never are we asked the important, real stuff, like “Hey, what makes you, you?”

It would feel strange, alien, intrusive even.

Would we even be able to answer it?

Social fantasies of human connection aside, what we should be doing perhaps, is thinking about our self worth in terms of :

who we are, not what we do.

And the first step towards that is to practice it with others first, so that we can then learn how to extend the same compassion and acceptance towards ourselves.

So, whilst I don’t encourage you to repel people you meet, with immediate personal questions about who they are as a person, I do urge you to try to gently connect with who they are, even when they’re telling you about what they do:

• Practice active listening. This means truly hearing what they have to say about themselves instead of just rehearsing in your mind, what you want to say in response!
• Give empathic responses and ask genuine follow-up questions, e.g: “I can really hear how passionate you are about your role, and I admire that! How does it feel to work with…?”
• Model healthy expressions of self-worth for that person, with genuine compliments about their character or personality, rather than focusing on appearance or superficiality, e.g: “I noticed how confident and free you looked on the dance floor earlier, it was super lovely to see!”

Likewise, when others are trying to connect with you, try to move towards modelling self-worth for yourself. After all, as adults it is often left to us to parent our own inner child…and doing that can be challenging (and sometimes feels unfair), but we owe it to ourselves, and it can be very healing over time.

Share, Embrace, Accept:

Share that you’re a good listener;

that you love the beginning of Autumn;

that you’re at your best in the evening after everybody has gone to sleep;

that you enjoy being silly and playful in the kitchen when you’re all alone.

Embrace that you’re crap at Maths;

that you eat chocolate in secret so you don’t have to share;

that you get in a chaotic flap every time you need to organise;

that you’re a little awkward at times;

that you’re not a size 8.

Accept that you’ve made mistakes and that others have made mistakes which have hurt you.

And Remember that because of, and despite it all…

You. Are. Enough.