By Richard Kuhns -

It’s real easy for one’s self worth to be severely challenged with the recession. When there is a question as to whether you can stay in your home for another month it’s normal to experience uncomfortable feelings of fear, loss, uncertainty, confusion, and frustration. It’s like these feelings run from your brain through your stomach and just sit there feeling like your stomach has no bottom . Sometimes the feelings go on downward and make your legs wobbly.

You are at the poop end of a terrible recession and along with all the lousy feelings of low self worth there’s a strong sense of not living up to your own expectations. The Republicans are stuck on not raising taxes for those making a couple hundred thousand dollars a year. And you’re thinking, “I’d just like to be able to make $40,000. The guy earning over a hundred thousand dollars doesn’t think twice about spending $80 to go out to dinner, yet that same $80 would buy your family groceries for almost a week. In the grocery store, you choose the $1.99/lb plum tomatoes rather than the plump $2.49/lb tomatoes. There are many many decisions like this everyday that weren’t there when you were employed. And you wonder, “Why are the Republicans addicted to not raising taxes for the rich?

With all the confusions and uncertainties you question your sense of self worth. In your mind you run through all the choices and decisions you’ve made. If only you had taken the other job or position. If only you had not put any money in the stock market. If only you had stayed living in an apartment instead of buying a home. If only you had taken more initiative at your job or career. The if onlys are never ending. You lie awake at night and your days are boring and uneventful. No one is hiring. Jobs don’t exist. You either have too much experience or not enough. You’d like to start your own business but have no idea what to do, how to do it, or where to get the money to start a business.

You’re not even thinking of finding self worth as your self worth is down the toilet. You figure the only way you can get it back is to get a job so you can afford an apartment and not have to deal with handouts. You know that you are as good as the bastards making fortunes that laid you off. There’s just no fairness. They go on making their hundreds of thousands of dollars and you have to beg for work to feed your family.

This is life for thousands of folks while the Republicans protect the rich from picking up their fair share of the tab. But that’s not the real issue. The real issue is that the Republicans stale mate the government from moving forward which knocks the legs out from the confidence needed to grow the economy.

Nevertheless it’s kind of a challenge to give self worth advice to someone who is in crisis. Pep talking someone into finding self worth in crisis is almost impossible. This is because most of us have been taught to feel good about ourselves when we accomplish things. We feel good when we have a good job or career, when we are able to provide for our family, and have enough money to take our family out to dinner we can feel good about ourselves.

Our self worth is totally dependent on how we judge ourselves to be doing. When we are blindsided by the economy and lose our jobs we feel like we are in the “poor house”. But how else can one look at this failure? The fellow making $200,000 loses his job and he feels “broke,” as opposed to feeling “poor.” Does it affect his self worth? Answer: Somewhat but not nearly as much as the person who feels “poor.”

Actually we are in the midst of a self worth crisis. And the recession only makes the self worth crisis easy. Why is finding self worth so difficult? Answer: Because as youngsters were were programmed to for low self worth. For instance, we were asked by our parents and grown ups, “What do you want to be when you grow up?”

This provides a message to you, the youngster, that you are nothing right now and one day through what you accomplish or what you accumulate, or who you marry, or what degree of education you attain you will be somebody, but right now you are nothing. What more if you said you wanted to be a fireman or a policeman there was a chuckle and an insinuation that you’d make a great doctor or lawyer. The message was that blue collar workers are less than.

It’s these messages that set us up for self worth crisis and the recession only makes it easy to happen. But just how do you get a sense of self worth when everything is against you? Answer: Building self worth is a daily choice that you make. First it’s important to know, I mean truly know that each of us are a child of the universe. There is no one better than you and you are no better than anyone else. You are perfect the way you are. This subject alone deserves a chapter to fully get this point across.

Next is to realize that life has disappointments. In fact life is more often about the plans that fall through than it is about the plans we make. Loss of job, or making a mistake in the stock market, and so on are huge disappointments. The problem is that we become our lost jobs, poor decisions and identify with them. The goal is to feel and experience the emotions that go along with the disappointments and to choose to like you too. The problem is that we often avoid or resist feeling the emotions and stay stuck in them. The other benefit is also that when you choose to feel and experience the emotion the emotion disappears and creativity surfaces. With creativity comes answers to difficult problems.

In summary it’s to say, “I’m disappointed with the (situation) and that I feel frustrated, upset, depressed and so on and I still like me. I am a worthy and capable person and always profit from my mistakes”

Richard Kuhns. NGH certified has self help mp3 downloads for personal change and personal growth at http://www.DstressDoc.com find a sense of self worth at http://www.SelfEsteemCure.com

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