I Struggle to Feel Valuable — Please Help Me

New siding is being installed on our house this week, and I sense my life falling to pieces. Technically, only my wedding cake topper fell to pieces, but the new siding process was to blame. Part of installing new siding is removing the old. This week, there are as many as four men at once banging on the walls of my house with hammers, and some of my books fell off the shelves.

One book landed on my wedding cake topper, breaking it in a way that — truthfully — ought to be fixed easily. But when I saw the damage, I cried and cried. I curled up on the ground until my wife was able to get me upstairs, where I laid in bed — my heart pounding, my breath shallow. I slept poorly that night.

I suspect I need to mourn something deeper, and the cake topper simply provided an excuse. In a not-completely-unrelated conversation, Robin Wilding 💎encouraged me to write an article about how I feel and what I need. I was hesitant — I’m still hesitant, as I will explain below. But I ask readers to indulge me as I work through yet another existential crisis.

I say “yet another crisis” because this is the fifth time I’ve written this article since January, each time understanding myself a bit more deeply. A low-level discomfort has permeated my life since about January — a discomfort I cannot quite put my finger on. The last iteration of this article concluded my problem is low self-worth.

While low self-worth is certainly an aspect, once again, I glimpsed a deeper meaning behind the discomfort.

How bad could my life be?

Every so often, I feel as if I’ve figured everything out. Accepting my transgender, completing social transition, becoming a successful content creator — I have it all down pat. Clearly, I’ve arrived. The only thing left is to live it. Don’t dream it, be it.

And then sometimes I feel like I do now. Which is to say: awful.

I’ve been told my job as a creator is just to let the Universe flow through me. Candidly, I thought that’s what I’ve been doing. I feel I’ve changed so profoundly in the past year and put so much into the Universe.

Before I began gender transition, my psychologist described me as guarded — as if I built a castle around myself, complete with moat and drawbridge. If I lowered the drawbridge, others might come in, others might see me. But I kept that drawbridge up, my castle closed tight.

In the past year, I feel I’ve opened my doors. I write, I talk to people, I build community. I feel so much interaction with the rest of the Universe. I let so much flow out of me.

But I was told my job is to let the Universe flow through me. Julia Cameron writes the Universe will help us if we connect with it. But everything I do goes out.

In the past, I worked unceasingly for failing companies; I fought like a cornered kitten for teams I managed. I believed loving my family meant ensuring we can buy peanut butter, no matter the hardship on myself. Even as a content creator, I wrote and recorded and published and asked for little in return.

In short, I don’t take energy back in. My psychologist is spot on — I focus on myself: on defending myself. People still can’t get into my castle.

My number one issue

My psychologist summed up my life perfectly: I struggle with feeling valuable.

The work I do? Sure, the work is decent; there’s some value. The result of work I’ve done? Maybe…I think I’ve done some good. But valuable as myself? No, not so much.

Instead, I burn myself from the inside and push my energy outward. When I finally break from the effort, I am forced to rest and recharge a bit. Recently, I’ve become better at prioritizing taking care of myself. But even as I demonstrate self-care helps me, I don’t fully believe I should have it when I could write one more article, record one more podcast, film one more video.

In the past six months, I received a lot of love. But the Universe doesn’t flow through me. The love didn’t come into me; it went around me like breakers around a barnacle-encrusted pier. The Universe has responded favorably — many people notice me. I realize — grudgingly — I have an energy.

I will destroy myself to show others how beautiful their energy is, yet I struggle to feel valuable. The Universe is trying to tell me. I cannot hear.

I think the low-level discomfort I feel is the dissonance between the Universe responding to me — coupled with my heightened ability to feel it — and my capacity to accept the Universe’s response.

My soul calls out for love, and my mind silences it. Obviously, I can’t silence it too well, because I feel terrible. I cannot allow the energy back in. And I hurt.

I believe All-Love surrounds everybody. I see a pure light within everybody. Everybody, that is…except myself.

Childhood programming

I began talking to my psychologist about the “programming” I received as a child, but stopped myself short. I told her as a software engineer, I dislike use of the word to describe childhood — software only does what we tell it to do, nothing more.

I rebel against the idea that humans can be “programmed.” I think of Victor Frankl and our power to choose in the gap between action and reaction. I think of Rollo May and our ability to accept ourselves, love ourselves, and feel better about the Universe.

Heck, isn’t this exactly what I write about — getting to know ourselves and being better for it?

But my psychologist countered me — it’s called “programming” because the word is accurate. Our subconscious isn’t thinking about what it is given, it’s only reacting. It’s running programs — healthy or not, loving or not. It just runs them and we must deal with the fallout.

I cannot escape the low-level drive to minimize the love and help I receive. I know this frustrates some people — I watch them scoff as I diminish and deny who I am and what I am doing.

I want to be better.

What I ask of you

So what do I do? I think my block is only to allow energy to flow out and not to allow it to flow in. Perhaps Robin was right (although not Robin Wright): perhaps I need to write an article essentially fishing for compliments. And this is why I am hesitant.

I cannot see how I have changed. I cannot see how I have changed the world around me. I am blind to my impact. I am deaf to the love sent my direction.

So — my psychologist reasons — I need to ask people to turn the volume up. I need to ask for energy back and ask that the givers not take no for an answer if I demur.

Please — if I have touched you in any way, given you reason to feel better, made you think, made you smile, changed your mind — please, tell me. Respond to this article, or — if you prefer not to tell your story in public — email me at asherrick@amethysta.io. But please — tell me.

I began writing seven months ago to make sense of myself, and only for myself. I have much more to say, much more to do, but I’m struggling tonight.

Remind me why I write.