21. Stop proving your worth to others
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Hey, my name is Patricia Ciavarello and I am obsessed with all things motherhood and helping you keep calm in the chaos of motherhood and life's unexpected moments. I am a mom of twins with a doctorate in business whose world fell apart and had to pick myself up piece by piece. I am not an expert, but I have totally been there, and I am so far from perfect, but definitely not afraid to get real and vulnerable.
I teach you the secrets to motherhood and life I wish someone told me, because as much as we wish there was, nobody hands you a mommy manual. So pull up a seat, get comfy and get ready for me to spill my secrets. This is Real Mom Truths Nobody Tells You.
I am so grateful that you are tuned into this episode of Real Mom Truths Nobody Tells You.
Hello. Hello. Hello. I hope today's episode finds you all well and really in a space where you can take a deep breath and enjoy the moment and kind of let go of whatever it is that may be on your mind today. And I really want to talk to you today about something that I think so many of us can get caught up in and a lot of times before we even know it, you don't even recognize that it's happening. And what I really want to talk about today is I want you to feel good about you. I want you to feel good about you without any caveats, without any, if I do this or when I do that. I just want you to feel good about you.
Not feel like you have to prove your worth to someone else. And that could be really anyone. It could be your parents, your siblings, your friends, your colleagues at work, your other mom friends, your school, your church. It could be anyone because a lot of times we feel that need to outperform maybe or overachieve, or maybe even obtain more, you know, whether that be materialistic, I going to get a bigger house or a second vacation home, or, my child's going to go to this school and it almost becomes like a competition. And sometimes you realize it and sometimes you don't, but at the end of the day, I want you to take a step back and think to yourself why am I trying to outperform here? Right.
Let's just take an example. And you know, maybe let's just take birthday parties as a general example, because we know that birthday parties have become like this huge orchestrated event. Right. And I'm not saying that the bad thing, if you want to go all out for your kids, go for it.
Right. But if it comes from a space of outperforming or out doing, or, you know, if you feel like if you don't create that elaborate of a party you feel less than as a parent or less than for your children and I'm here to tell you that is absolutely not true because at the end of the day, yes, it's amazing to be able to do everything you can for your family, for your friends, for your children, whoever that person is, for yourself.
Right. The bells and whistles are simply that right. They're just bells and whistles at the end of the day, the bond and the love and the care that you have towards one another, it trumps anything else, any birthday party you could do, any gifts you could ever give? None of that matters because if you, if you don't have the root in the relationship, if you don't have the connection and the love, a party, any materialistic item, it's just the exterior factor, right?
It's not really what's going to give that deep connection within that sense of wholeness, that, that sense of wow you know, like I, I feel like I'm really giving all of myself in a way that is impactful. Right. And yes, birthday parties are great. Right. And, anything that you can do for your kids are great.
And I'm not saying don't do that, but don't forget what's important first and foremost. Right. Because at the end of the day, if you're, if you're outperforming or over-achieving maybe to prove to others, right. Like, oh, wow, look, look at this huge party that I made. And I feel like mom of the year. Maybe it's the best party ever, right?
Maybe it's the best party anyone's ever been to. And maybe that's a party your child will remember forever, but at the end of the day, if you feel that need to get the approval of others, right? Like look at it this way, if you had a simple party at home with pizza and a cake, would you still feel like a rock star?
And that's exactly my point is that I want you to feel like a rock star mom, whether it's a pizza party or like one of those, like, remember those shows on, I think it was MTV where it was like my super sweet 16. Right. And I want you to feel like a rock star mom, whether it's a pizza or like a lavish event, because at the end of the day, that party, whether it's simple, whether it's lavish, it does not define your worth as a mom.
And if you go down that rabbit hole and you're always trying to be, or prove something to someone it's a never ending hamster wheel that you're going to be on for the rest of your life. And maybe right now it's a birthday party and maybe next that'll be, you know, what college they go to or what job they have or the relationships they hold, or, you know, maybe the way your children behave is defining you as a mother.
And you'll always value your worth in something exterior as opposed to just intrinsically knowing I am worthy. I am worthy Just as I am not by what I do, but just as I am. And none of these exterior things, you know, whatever that may be changes that. And I mean, you know, maybe you're still trying to prove your worth to your parents or show them that you succeeded or you know, that you're not failing at life or, or maybe you're, fighting for those friendships and trying to prove that you're the better friend or you're the best friend and, you know, the most invaluable friend or maybe at work, you're trying to prove that you're, the most productive employee or the one with the best ideas or maybe among other moms, it's, you know, a competition, for who planned the best birthday or who, who made the most elaborate cookies or meal or, you know, who has the best teaching techniques. Whatever it is, whatever that is for you, you know, whether it's being the best student, whether it's being the best, you know, community member at your church or whatever that may be. The root of it is what is setting you off track. Right? If you are just being the best that you can be, period, regardless of what your parents may think.
Right. If you're just living life on your terms to make you happy and to be present for your family and to make choices in a way that serves you, not what other people think of you, not what other people think you should do for you, but just you, then that sense of outperforming and overachieving and the materialisticness ends.
Right, because you're not doing it for those purposes, you're doing it for you. And you know, if you have to convince a friend that you're worth it, then that's not a friend that you want to maintain because a friend sees that worth in you, not by what you do for them and not by how successful you are or the connections you have, right.
A friend is there for you through thick and thin. Through good and bad, a friend will call you out and say, Hey, you can do better. Or you, you are better than this, right. But if a friend is a taker and always taking, or if you constantly talking to someone that is bringing you down, but you still feel that need to hold on to them then maybe your gut is telling you something about that friendship. Right? And if, and if you have to continue fighting for that friendship, right. And doing things to keep that friendship, then that's not a friendship because a friendship is regardless of what you bring to the table, you know, and I know at work, I mean, competition today is so fierce and you know, so many times you see people, you know, fighting for the accolades and fighting for the attention and, you know, afraid to lose their jobs and proving themselves to their boss or their colleagues. But at the end of the day, if you were truly confident in what you do and your skills and what you bring to the table, you wouldn't feel the need to outperform because you would know intuitively what you bring to the table and, you know, maybe the climate and the environment at your job as toxic, maybe, you know, just the nature of pitting people against people, you know, was driving your need to outperform because you feel like you're always playing catch-up right. But I want you to take a step back from that and think to yourself, you know, is that the environment that I want to be in to thrive, is that the environment that really serves me, because at the end of the day, we all need to pay the bills. We all need to survive. We all need to take care of ourselves and our family, but we also deserve to feel happy. We also deserve to find fulfillment in what we do. We also deserve to not constantly be pressured by that outperformance, overachieve mentality thats just going to drain us.
Then at the end of the day, you're going to have no energy for your loved ones that really deserve it the most. I know that we all know that, right. But sometimes after a long day of work and we come home and we're just spent and, you know, physically exhausted, emotionally exhausted and we don't even have the energy or the capacity to give any more of ourselves because we're always giving, right.
We're always giving to our children from the moment we wake up, you know, we go to work, we give, we come home, we give, you know, we're always needed. Right. And sometimes we can get lost in that giving, giving, giving that we don't give to ourselves what we need the most. And we don't have the confidence in our own worth to say, this is not serving me.
This is not how I want to live my life. This is not healthy for me. Right. And I will say, I mean, I'm pretty, pretty clear on this. I think you guys know me by now. . I personally have no tolerance for mom shame, none whatsoever. If you're a mom and you're shaming another mom and you know, so many times I see it, and they don't even realize it, right. They're not even aware of it, but you know, we're so quick to throw our judgments on other people and, and tell people how they should be doing things or shouldn't be doing things. And, and I think end of the day, I think what we all have to respect is each person's journey and each person's feelings and each person's experience of motherhood, right? What your journey is and what was right for you may not be right for someone else. And to put that on them and say, oh, you should do this. You should do that. You should do this first. That's an unnecessary pressure on a mom that doesn't need it. You can't really understand another mom's journey unless you're in her shoes.
And I'm not saying don't take advice, right. Because we all learn and we evolve and we grow. And part of that is listening to others and learning from them and growing from them. But a lot of times, the mom shaming that I see, it's just, you know, do it my way kind of thing. Or you should do it this way kind of thing.
And how could you not do it that way kind of thing. And my heart breaks a little bit inside because you don't know how much maybe that mom that you're talking to is already questioning herself and maybe she just needs to hear, you know what, you're doing a really good job. And whatever road, whatever journey, whatever path you take is the right one, because it's unique to you and your family.
And yes, you'll make mistakes and you'll learn and you'll pivot and you'll grow. And that's part of the process. Right. But have the confidence as a mom in your own conviction. In your own decisions and don't let the opinion of others sway you because at the end of the day, you ultimately know what's in your heart and what's best for you and your family.
And I want you to know that you don't have to prove anything to anyone. You don't have to be on the defense. You don't have to explain yourself to someone who's telling you you should do this, or you should that, or you shouldn't do this, or you shouldn't do that. You don't have to explain to anyone how you choose to live your life that makes you happy because by stopping the proving of your worth, whether it's by your productivity or what you wear. I want you to just stop looking externally, right? Stop looking at your productivity or what you do, or, you know, the external things that you are showing others. Right. Stop looking at that to prove your worth.
And I just want you to breathe and I want to step in to who you are without all of that. Strip it all away. Okay. Strip it all the way, strip all the materialistic things away, strip, you know, your career away, strip it all back. Right. And at the core of you at the core of you, know your intrinsic value and your worth and the amazing human being that you are and what you bring to the humanity of others and who you are as a person, and be confident in that. Be confident in that. Because you have everything you need already in you and all that external stuff, whether that be, you know, however you're proving your worth, whether that be materialistic things, whether that be productivity, whether that be the elaborate parties, you plan, you know, the materialistic things you buy, whatever it is.
And I'm not saying any of that is necessarily bad. Right. We all like nice things. Right. But at the end of the day, it should not determine your worth and it should not determine the opinions of others and it should not be needed to prove your worth to someone else. And when you can strip that away and get back to the essence of and the beauty of you and the beauty of what you bring to another human, who is blessed enough to be a friend to you or a family member to you or a colleague to you, right? Someone that truly appreciates who you are at your core, all that other stuff doesn't matter because they see you for you and they love you for you.
And at the end of the day, if any of those things were to disappear, it wouldn't matter because your worth lies within you and not what you did or what you own or what you have or what you bring. And I want you to really hear that wholeheartedly because at the end of the day, you simply you, with that huge heart of yours is amazing.
You are amazing. And anyone that doesn't recognize that or appreciate that, doesn't deserve you. And I want you to surround yourself with people that do, and I want you to surround yourself with those that appreciate and love you for you. And if you're thinking to yourself, oh, I know nobody liked that.
Everybody just takes, takes, takes, and I do for everybody and nobody sees me. Well, that ends today because I see you. I see you. And I appreciate you. And I want you to know that no matter what your circumstances look like, or who's in your circle or what your life looks like in this moment that I appreciate you.
And I see you, and I know that you don't have to prove your worth to anyone and that you, listening to this message right now, are beautifully and wonderfully made. And. Exactly perfect, imperfectly perfect. Right? Just the way you are and that's not by what you do and that's not by what you bring and that's not by what you have.
It's just because of that beautiful heart inside beating inside you that just makes you exactly who you are. That is exactly what makes you worthy of all the love. So today I want you to promise yourself something. I want you to stop looking externally for the love that you already have within you. The love that you intuitively know that you deserve and are worthy of, and I want you to stop looking externally, and I want you to deep down into your heart and tell yourself I am worthy of all the love and I no longer have to prove myself to others because I know deep within that, I am already deserving of that love, and no external thing that I do is needed to validate that.
Okay. So I want you to take a deep breath and know that right now, in this moment, you are worthy of the most greatest love of all. And that is the ultimate love that you have for yourself. And when that flows my friend, and when you really can come into a deep sense of knowing that that love that you have for yourself is strong and pure and unwavering, you will build ultimate connections and lasting friendships because of that, because you will radiate love for yourself and that will ultimately bring to you the love and the relationships and just the peace from within. No external factor, no proving yourself to others through all these, you know, overachieving and outperforming and materialistic things could ever bring because all that fades, all that fades.
But the one thing that always holds, tried and true is the love that you have for yourself.
As always, I promise to be here for you and serve you and cheer you on every step of the way and spill all the secrets of motherhood and life I wish someone told me. Thank you so much for listening to this episode of the Real Mom Truths Nobody Tells You podcast. Until next time, keep on celebrating you because you, my friend, are so worth it. I am literally doing my happy dance with you because you just finished another episode of Real Mom Truths Nobody Tells You. I felt like that episode flew by way too fast. Right? If you want more head over to www.realmomtruths.com for show notes, and if you're looking for a new mom group to uplift and encourage you, and for helpful tips, be sure to join me and my community on Facebook.
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