How to overcome deep self unworthiness?
– Asked by gal from Ukraine
I don’t think there’s a single answer to this question, but I can get you started with ways you might approach this. First, by clarifying the question. What are we talking about here?
Some people are naturally more confident than others. Some people have strong self esteem. Some inflate their own value to a degree that is mind-blowing.
Others are naturally humble. Could be tied to fear, but could just as easily be due to spiritual sophistication.
All of the things and all of the other ways people can be are fine. We need people to be different so they can complement each other. I describe the natural variety that occurs in nature to say this: I don’t think this is what you are talking about.
Your statement suggests you’re talking about a condition outside the normal distribution. I don’t think anyone is born feeling deeply unworthy. I’d suspect your condition was caused by an injury.
To be clear, you may have the propensity to feel this way, like I have the propensity not to feel this way. But deep? Feelings like this are almost always inflicted, rather than “natural”.
If I’m right about this, you can remedy the problem by identifying the cause and addressing it from the root. You’ll probably need to work with a therapist or some other person who can help you excavate the root of the problem and resolve it. A person who can guide you out of the swamp? Because what you feel is not true. You’re as worthy as every other person out there. You’re caught in a lie, see? You’re one of God’s children, just like everyone else.
Please look at the horizon, beyond where you are today. This is a way of opening yourself to possibilities. I’m trying to get Jupiter going here. You have a future. Switching from thinking about where you are, to thinking about where you are going, can be all you need to do to get on a path out of there. I’m not saying it will be quick and easy, though it may be.
The immediate key is to come to the point where feeling this way is no longer tolerable to you. It’s at that point, you’ll fight. If you fight, you’re bound prevail as you’re in an unnatural state, trying to return to a natural state. Try to see it that way. Muster your faith and courage and fix this.
Good luck!
I was forced to deal with my feelings od unworthiness 15 years ago when Pluto transited my Ascendant and have not looked back since.
Can you share more? It’s where am at now, just past pluto transit conjunct asc.
Pluto transit over the Ascendant experiences can vary greatly, so please take my experience as just one of many possible manifestations.
When the transit started, I was freshly married, with 5-month old daughter, looking forward to life in a home we just purchased, everything seemed perfect and I enjoyed my new role of a mum. Then, one day, I woke up to a feeling of unusually strong feeling of hatred towards myself and my body. I tried to brush it off, laugh it off, thinking it was just a fleeting emotion. But it did not go away; on the contrary, it kept intensifying, creeping into all corners of my mind and refusing to leave. The more I tried to expel it intellectually, the stronger it grew until it became a steady obsessive presence. There I was, having potentially the best time of my life, and I was slowly sinking into very dark mental place, with ugly feelings of self-revulsion plaguing me every waking minute. Over time, they grew physical, with me being almost paralyzed by the dark content of my mind. This had nothing to do with my motherhood or marriage … I found both very satisfying. But the increasingly thicker emotional cloud and the compulsive thoughts were stealing my happiness and bringing me to the verge of losing my mind as the voice of the Inner Critic grew ever louder. But … I´m Moon conjunct Saturn (both square to Pluto) so I´m extraordinarily good at hiding my feelings, so I did my best not to tell anyone, not even my husband. I tried to carry on as usual, suffering alone as Pluto was completing the final degrees of my 12th house. I cared for both my beloved kiddies (my second one was born in between) in this dark-night-of.the soul state, doing my best not to show to let anyone know what was going on inside me. My daughter has Pluto on her Ascendant, my son Mars-Saturn on the Ascendant, so I think they were, at least subcounsciously, somehow affected anyway. I never went to therapy and plodded on until a friend mentioned astrology and Pluto transits. I became interested and joined an astrology forum (now closed down). Then I started reading up on Buddhism, psychology, inner work, all the lot. Eckhart Tolle, Tara Brach, Jack Kornfield, Carl Jung, Course in Miracles …. Suddenly this learning channel opened and I started devouring all the knowledge I could get my hands on, trying to figure out what was wrong with me, seeking a way out of the mental and emotional prison. This led me to becoming aware of many unresolved childhood issues that were asking for attention, the lack of love and warmth in my original home and some of the harsh judgments that were passed, with me burying the shame deep in my psyche and totally repressing it for almost 30 years. I realized I didn´t know myself at all and operated in a mode of total inner suppression (Moon conjunct Saturn in Cancer). There was this underlying total fear of rejection that permeated everything … making me a people pleaser and expert at ignoring my needs. Long story short, I had to face my inner critic and basically re-write the negative stories it spun in my head since my childhood. It took a while and required lots of patience and practice. I had to learn to be completely honest yet compassionate with myself. It was like exploring a completely new territory. I needed to find who I wasn´t to realize who I was. Lots of purging and shadow work … but wow, so much clarity and feeling in my skin afterwards. It was a period of total self-discovery and, perhaps, initiation. The process was a mess but I do love the outcome!
I have quite a difficult chart, with a cardinal T-square and another mutable one, 9 squares and 6 oppositions in total, with Pluto squaring my Moon, Saturn, Ascendant and opposing my Jupiter, so my Pluto experiences have always been a bit on the harsh side (more came later, but now I was armed with the knowledge!). I have seen people with Pluto going over their Ascendant having a less bothersome experience … my cousin gave birth to her son under her transit and her life was transformed without the trauma!
But my advice would be … be completely honest with yourself, don´t brush anything under the carpet, have lots of compassion with yourself and trust in a greater power guiding your steps and giving you the right knowledge at the right time … and you´ll be fine!
Thank you so much for sharing. I will take your advice.
Oh there’s a whole Lotta people invested in trying to make me feel that way. Trying being the keyword there. Unfortunately for the masterminds behind it, though it might hurt all the things they’ve done and keep doing because it’s called abuse, abuse of power, evil deeds, whatever, it doesn’t change a thing inside of me. The bottom line is that what they do will catch up to them at some point. Oh yes it will.
This post had perfect timing for me Elsa. Thanks.
Something that’s been tough for me is actually acknowledging in the first place that I’m going through something tough and anyone would struggle. My chart makes me think i’m supposed to be a Superman, and I am at the end of the day just a human doing the best they can. This has been a lifelong lesson for me, i always feel I’m falling short if I am not standing strong all the time. Sometimes we need to wilt and cry to shed the skin. If we don’t have the space to do that, it can be very, very tough, and no one can take that indefinitely.
i like how you flip it on it’s head and suggest we stop allowing ourselves tot olerate it. so many things can work that way…
It’s a vicious cycle. You dont believe you even deserve your own love or attention so having faith in yourself or the future seems impossible or even wrong. Perspective and therapy therapy therapy. Having tools in the toolbox you can have faith in until you nuster some for yourself.
I also think unworthiness is backhandedly self-aggrandizing and self-absorbed (tho it tells you the opppsite). Like oh youre sooooo terrible more terrible than all the other people and deserve punishment and retribution and denial. Truth is youre no worse or better than anyone else and everyone is mostly doing their best to just get along. Whats the harm in dropping the narrative?
When Pluto crossed my Asc. it gave me the push for freedom from my abusive first husband. My asc is 6 degrees sag. How appropriate is that? Then I met my late husband when it came within 4 degrees of my venus !! He had an Aries sun with an aqua venus. Crazy how this works. Even though I am supposed to be Jupiterian I find that pluto and saturn play a bigger role in my transit charts. Saturn transit to my 4th is really heavy with my family now.
First things first, I agree with Elsa, this is not a natural state. I’d say there’s a faulty message here, either being given to you or being received (as in, you were taught to receive the faulty message in a negative way), doesn’t really matter which way, yet. First you’ve got to shut that sh*t down. Stop those messages from getting in. Next, ground, get yourself out into nature or a place that is comfortable for you and just be. Sit, relax, take a minute to just be you, to just breathe. Can you remember a time before you were given/taught this unworthiness? Yes, great, run with that, start to ‘unearth’ that person again. No? that’s ok too, just take some time to sit with yourself, be with yourself. If those old messages crop up, acknowledge, then move back to yourself/breathing. If you can find help, like Elsa suggested, that’d be for the best, but what if you can’t? What if you can’t afford it/can’t find someone to help/don’t trust enough to let someone help/etc? Then let’s start with Pluto, let’s take those old messages, that old programing and let’s cut it out, put it in it’s own little box. Kind of like when you have an ingrown hair, the body, surrounds it, cuts it off, forms it’s own little blister cell around it. Then slowly works to push it out (I know it’s a gross comparison, but it’s effective, you get the point). Work on putting all those faulty messages, thoughts, etc into their own little blister cell. Cut them off from the rest of you, if at all possible. Then slowly go about expelling that from who you are now/who you are choosing to be now. You can use Neptune if you’ve got it, to fog out those old ideas and work on a new Ideal you, who you are going to be now. If you’ve got Jupiter, run with that, it’ll take you far, God knows I’ve used that to my advantage most of my life! If you’ve got Uranus, that’s the master of change, so run with that, disconnect from those old thoughts and move into what’s possible next. Maybe you’ve got Saturn? Then use that to ground into who you are going to be NOW. You’ve done your time, per say, with those old messages, time to move on.
Again, definitely if at all possible, find someone to work with, that can help. You realize you’ve got something going on here, that’s a great first step! Now it’s time to figure a way to get to the bottom of it and remove those old messages/thoughts. Good Luck!