Conditions of Worth

My mother instilled in me the ethic of good time keeping, like the manners which maketh the man, she promoted the belief that I would be judged negatively for poor time keeping and I have to this day lived by that tenet. However more recently I examined my own attitudes to time keeping, I am not harsh on poor time keeping in others, I do not judge them as less, though on occasion my voices insist that their lateness reflect their opinion and value of me. However I came to see that what my upbringing had created in me was an example of what some call a condition of worth. A convenient term for the power we give freely to those around us when our own sense of value depends on the views of another, whether they actually have an opinion or not! In other words one of the way others would see or value me is in my time keeping, this belief once adopted does not require the confirmation of another to be true for you, I came to see that it is simply my belief and as we believe so we create our reality....

 ...and so I came to challenge my extreme time keeping, or at least the 'extreme punctuality' style time keeping and somehow I found that a little understanding of the existence of these conditions of worth eased some of the pressure and stress I was literally creating for myself. I am still always early, but somehow the voice of my mother anxiously reminding me of all her conditions of worth, and there are many! disturb me less since I recognise it as what it is. I have also come to see how that same voice can impersonate others in my life, important people whose views are linked to my self worth, I have come to recognise the impostor within, and I acknowledge the paradoxical way this part of me seeks to keep me safe, safe from a scolding and that awful sense of being in trouble, with head bowed and neck bared.

  The challenge beyond this light bulb moment is to make our children aware of these types of unintended conditioning that we may ourselves imprint on them, whether educational, sporting or behavioural. I talk to my children as I learn about these things, schools as yet don’t seem to teach how to recognise thinking distortions and the terrible mental health challenges they can lead to.

...just let yourself be, without holding on to the constant reference points that mind manufactures 

From the book of Shambhala 

Image courtesy of Knowleswood Primary School and Nursery