“Demanding what you deserve can feel like a radical act,” Shonda Rimes.  I never really knew what it meant to know my worth.  Every bit of my worth came from someone else’s opinion.  For most of my life I didn’t have a clue what I wanted let alone what I felt about myself—least of all what I deserved.  It’s easy to conceal fear with bravado or hurt with anger and both of those things imply a power, even if it’s false.  Portraying that power makes people assume you need nothing even if at your core you feel you need everything from them.  That’s when it gets messy.  The validation you seek disappears because people assume you need nothing, and you feel lost because you have lost the direction that outside validation gave you.

My whole purpose here is to help people find their way back to themselves.  What I’ve found is this is a journey.  There isn’t a moment when we are miraculously “found.”  Life changes rapidly, goals change too.  It’s a matter of finding our core purpose, understanding who we are at the deepest levels, and seeing how we can use our gifts in this world.  It’s understanding true power, knowing there isn’t an end goal in mind as far as “getting somewhere” or “finding who we are.”  We aren’t meant to sit around in our “found” state, we are meant to spread that light.  Power isn’t about power over people, it’s about mastering ourselves and our gifts and honing it into an actionable purpose.  As soon as we see what we are capable of, we start to learn our worth and find that worth expressed from inside.

The work on this journey is messy and it’s about progress.  It isn’t about a tidy package of perfection that we live every day.  In order to see what direction we need to flow in, we have to know who we are.  The act of knowing ourselves means we understand our worth, and THAT is when we understand what we deserve.  We’ve been trained to believe understanding and expressing our worth and not settling for anything less is selfish.  I don’t profess putting our needs above everything else, but I do encourage understanding and setting limits with others.  Regardless, when we know who we are we won’t settle for anything less.  When we are told this is selfish, it can be uncomfortable expressing those limits.  I agree with Ms. Rimes—it may feel radical—but it isn’t.  It’s the norm and we all deserve what we deserve.  There is no earning in this life—that was a system put in place by an old regime who sought power through control and acquisition.  Today we know our worth and we express it.  Value isn’t external, it’s ignited from within.  When we appreciate that magic, knowing we can’t take any less doesn’t seem so extreme.  So be radical.  Learn, heal, and grow, and take action.  It will feel natural soon.