A Date with My Self Worth

This post was supposed to be about a date that Nick and I had last Saturday. But it occurred to me that the date is a small slice of a much bigger change in my life. Our date was ordinary enough, we stayed in and painted really ugly pumpkins. But it was quality time with the person I love the most.  Quality time is not something there used to be much of around here. If you took a snap shot of my life last year at this time and compared it to the present day you'd see two different lifestyles. I think you'd also see two different people. Okay, maybe not two totally different people, but different nonetheless. 

A year ago I was working six to seven days a week. The plan was to keep my agency job while I built up a private practice. The private practice was part of a big picture plan to move my life into a calmer direction. But I was too scared to just take the leap. I wanted some kind of safety net. So I worked most of my waking moments. This unfortunately was a very poor plan. I was exhausted, crabby and reactive both at work and at home. Not awesome. 

In April of this year I finally made the jump full on into my business. Goodbye safety net, income security, colleague support system and a bit of my mind. The change has been hard. I mean really, really hard. Of course there is the financial stuff. It's difficult not knowing how busy I am going to be in a given month, but that was expected and we are managing. The unexpected hardship was that once I stopped working all the time I no longer knew what my worth was. If I was not contributing then what was I?  When I imagined quitting my agency job I thought that I would be bathing in the glory of my free time, soaking up the world and indulging in my interests. But instead I was miserable. Nick and my support system were shocked and saddened for me. But I don't think anyone was more surprised than I was. 

I always thought I knew myself better than most. But my self worth was slipperier than I expected. So, now I'm rebuilding. Dates like the one we had on Saturday are an amazing reminder of some of what I have to offer, my time and my love. I'm working hard at increasing my self care and I push myself to experience things even when all I want to do is hide in my room. Now all of this feels like it is supposed to be part of my journey.

I imagine that my brief crisis of identity is not that uncommon in this day and age. In our economy I see a variety of reasons why one might fall into a similar state of uncertainty. Often now people are changing jobs, are out of work, their socio-economic status fluctuates  and sometimes people move away from their families or friends for work. It seems so easy to loose yourself in a culture where we place so much of our worth on work, especially with such an unstable economy.  We all have worth outside our job or paycheck. Worth is inherent, it's something we are all born with. I want to remind myself of this but also the people around me. I truly value you all so much. 

XO, M

PS. The picture above  is a photo from that date night. I like how I can see the joy on my own (messy) face. And the two below are a couple of shots of our dogs, just because they make me happy.  

Asa, naughty. Always naughty. 

Alphie, my buddy.