For a long time I felt my self-worth was outside of me, in all that I did and received back in the process, as a form of recognition or a reward:
- It was all about others and keeping them happy with NO time for me
- It was in multi-tasking, in working hard towards being the best I could be in all aspects of life
- It was all about things that I would achieve on my TO DO list in all my roles – as a child, sister, daughter, friend, mother, wife, employee…
That’s what I thought was the way to live: a life driven by doing/achieving and being recognised constantly in all that I did!
As a child and a student growing up:
From a young age, it was in achieving that I would be recognised most/seen. From the time when we are young we are encouraged and recognised for all that we achieve on the outside and that felt good.
Each year I would set myself to do better in all aspects of my education, sports, music, drama and whatever I could get myself involved in, so I could be seen by my teachers, parents and friends to be unique or talented or clever by my achievements. I did it from such a young age…
I used to think that once I finished a year in school/high school/university etc. I wouldn’t feel the pressure to perform and work soo hard and push way beyond my capacity, just to see myself doing it again the following year. After all, I was so good at so many things! The thing is that I would then need to keep up with my performance year after year. If I didn’t, I would not only let others down, but mainly let myself down. I was my hardest critique.
One can imagine how to maintain the ‘have it all’ facade would get more challenging from primary school to high school and then to University. At university, the workload was enormous and I was also involved in a few clubs to organise social events. I did it at the stake of my body with not much sleep as that felt like the only way at the time. All this for what? To be seen as a good student…
As a sister:
I was the eldest – a ‘good older sister’ and I would ignore my feeling of being tired, sleepy and stay up at night listening to my sisters or brothers and sisters. I would feel guilty if I feel asleep accidentally! All for what?? To be seen as a good and supportive sister…
As a daughter:
I chose to be the ‘good girl’. For me, this meant not speaking against parents/adults even if it meant expressing truth (which I would and used to get into trouble for), always help out (whether you want to or not) and listen to your parents, as they are always right! Since you are the eldest, it’s your responsibility to be the role model! Wow! So much pressure to live up to!
As a friend:
I always used to magically appear in times of disputes between friends or partners. Such a good friend and a peacemaker! Never had many conflicts of my own! Did I allow time to feel me or know me, I wonder?
As an employee:
It’s been about hard work, finishing and meeting deadlines (no matter what) – produce work in shorter timeframes and put in extra hours, staying late, giving up social events and yeah, I was recognised. All this was at the expense of my health, my social and family life. Living a ‘work hard and play hard’ kind of attitude – you can have it all! All for what?? To be tagged as a good employee…
As a wife:
I adopted what I felt society would consider a good wife would do: put meals on the table every day, groom myself, keep the house tidy, entertaining etc. I would support my partner in all his adventures and the things he wanted to achieve, but would not have the same support for myself and for something that I might want to do as well. All for what??? To be seen as a good wife…
As a mother:
I was the so called ‘soccer mum’, always running around everywhere for kids’ activities, thinking that was good for them and all the multitasking would make me a really good mother. We were always rushing around, stressed for time to make it to places (getting to classes, come home, do homework, dinner, bath, read, bed… it was all very tightly scheduled). These activities seemed all enjoyable, but my To-Do-and-Achieve list for kids did not fill me, or the kids up. It actually left me feeling drained, tired, resentful and not at all happy and of course, the kids felt the stress too. All for what??? To be seen as a good mum, a super mum…
I was so entrenched in doing all my roles in life. On the outside, I was this Super woman who could do it all, but inside I was feeling exhausted, stressed and resentful for all I had to do and always running from one role to another. I had lost sight of the actual ME.
The recognition I was receiving from the roles I was performing made me do it even more, with more force at the cost of my health and well-being.
Sometimes you get seen and recognised and sometimes you don’t. When you are seen for all these things that you have done/performed, you forget how much you had to push yourself and work hard to get there. All this for what?
I was trying to fill the emptiness I was feeling inside with the things I did and had to keep doing, looking for recognition on things outside of me. Any happiness I would feel was always momentary as the excitement of an achievement would pass in a day and I would be left with my emptiness to do/achieve/get recognised again. The cycle was never ending…
… Until I was forced to stop. And I did… And I have changed so much since then to now. From a Super Doing woman to a Super Loving woman, from looking outside of myself for recognition to finding my self worth in the growing appreciation of myself. I’ll tell you the details in my next blog. Watch this space!
by: Pinky, Software Engineer, Brisbane, Australia
You may also like Part 2 of this Blog: Finding my self-worth: Is there more to me than all that I do?
Women in Livingness Blog 
If we were taught this from an early age, imagine how transformed our world would be. Sadly this is not the case as yet, as many adults don’t recognise this wisdom.
Like you, I felt my self-worth was connected to what I ‘did’, not who I was. I would accommodate myself to fall in with what people expected of me, rather than being true to myself. No wonder i didn’t feel fulfilled or felt I was worth very much. Attending Universal Medicine presentations and seeing Esoteric practitioners changed all that.
“working hard towards being the best I could be in all aspects of life” All that striving and trying that keeps us away from the most precious aspect of life – appreciating that we are amazing just as we are.
The emptiness of constantly searching for recognition is debilitating and it is only when we are willing to focus on being more loving with ourselves that we can begin to deepen our self-worth and reflect that to others.
Beautifully said Helen. Opening our hearts to love ourselves, rather than try to prove ourselves. makes a huge difference,
Unfortunately that has been the case for many of us, ‘That’s what I thought was the way to live: a life driven by doing/achieving and being recognised constantly in all that I did!’
‘When you are seen for all these things that you have done/performed, you forget how much you had to push yourself and work hard to get there.’ Where are we choosing to focus: the high of the reward, or the push that it took to get us there or get the thing done? Building a connection with my body so I can actually feel what I’m doing to it has meant that I’m much less likely to push on through to get something done. It’s not about working or doing less necessarily, but how I’m doing it, and the quality I’m doing it in – am I rushing, pushing, and trying to complete it (and everything else on the to-do list) perfectly, or working consistently and steadily, paying attention to what’s going on in my body as I work? The more I pay attention to my body, the more the self-abusive ways of working stand out, and the less I want to choose working like that.
Quality is key, as you say Bryony – and also building the connection with our body, so that we become aware when we are trying to overdo it. Interestingly when we have settlement in our body we can actually get more done without losing the quality.
When we connect to who we truly are no recognition is needed because we know who we are!
It does sound incredible to live in a way without any need for recognition. We are bought up and taught to seek recognition so it’s a pretty engrained way of living. Definitely worth investing in a different way of living recognition free.
Maybe we don’t need to exactly be recognition free in that if we recognise who we truly are and confirm ourselves then we don’t need it from others. Of course in knowing who we are we also recognise that same essence in others so start to dismantle the whole false recognition thing ie how the world currently seeks recognition for what we are not!
I am sure most can relate to looking for recognition, but no matter how well we do or how much recognition we get it never satisfies as it is only recognising who we are not and living that way is unsustainable.
“On the outside, I was this Super woman who could do it all, but inside I was feeling exhausted, stressed and resentful for all I had to do and always running from one role to another. I had lost sight of the actual ME.” So many women live lives like this – and feel ‘selfish’ at taking time for themselves. How has society got it so wrong? When we take loving care of ourselves we have so much more to offer others.
We have all of these roles that we think we have to live up to and push to be perfect at and yet they have us running around in circles constantly worrying about getting it right.
The thing about the roles we hook ourselves onto for acceptance and appreciation is not only is it exhausting to have so many but also that we need to keep up the performance, otherwise we lose all attention in an instant, and we are left at a loss as to who we are. I know how this feels as I lived driven by the need to be recognised through what I did for years and years. Yet I have now discovered that all along within me, and all of us equally so, resides the greatest confirmation of who I am, my essence, my Soul and living in connection to this quality is all I need to be, to know and feel everything that I am… which may I tell you is already quite spectacularly amazing.
I have found it’s the relationship we have with our bodies and our presence and the quality that comes from moving in that connection that will determine our sense of worth. This is where our true power is, never has this come from a mind driven perspective totally focussed on physical and mental outplay with no loving internal radar to guide us.
Our true worth as women can’t be achieved or measured by anything we do. We all are precious and very valuable by nature, so giving ourselves a hard time in order to be ‘good’ just doesn’t make sense.
Having pictures about how to be a good … does not allow space for us to just be in our essence.
Pinky your honest sharing invites me to deepen in my relationship with myself and the responsibility that I carry in not allowing less than love, even if it’s a tiny self-critical thought. Thanks to your experience you are showing to the world that we are not what we do but the super loving women that we already are. Looking forward to read the part 2 of this blog.
Nothing what we do has true value when we work and live from the emptiness within. Everything leaves an imprint, a message behind…imagine how devastating is simply walking in a lack of self-worth energy. We are expressing to young girls and other women that they are not as valuable as they really are. So, from this awareness we can change the quality of our movements, to let our light shine out and reflect all the beauty in all of us.
This list sounds exhausting but also one many can probably relate too just the pictures might change a bit. You can feel in this how playing all these roles, you lose a sense of yourself, what you enjoy, who you are etc.
It’s easy to build a whole persona from the things we’re good at or get recognised for, but that’s knowing ourselves from the outside in. I think it’s worth putting the time and commitment in to know who we are from the inside out. I remember someone once saying to me that I needed to get to know myself more and I didn’t know where to start, but it wasn’t so much about what I like or don’t like but knowing there’s a quality within me and learning to hold myself and that quality with the greatest amount of regard.
I understand this jumping from one role to the next, trying to achieve a state of perfection in each one, only to discover that I was actually tumbling from one task to the next without giving my all and feeling desperately tired and sad underneath. But I also understand that Letting go of this lifestyle can seem like a big ask, and so perhaps the best way is to feel the impact that these movements are having on your body and from there make the changes, otherwise change is merely an intellectual pursuit with no real livingness behind it that can ensure the sustainability of the quality of life that you actually deserve for being such a powerhouse person.
This is such a great point.. that true change can only come when we get so fed up with feeling a certain way – i.e. stressed, rushed, or whatever – that we decide to make some changes to feel differently – i.e. more of who we are and not distracted by all the surface level ‘stuff’.
How inspiring this is Pinky – to have exposed and cut the abusive cycle of recognition earned through the various roles that we take on in life to be good and nice etc. A great healing in the changes you have chosen.
“The recognition I was receiving from the roles I was performing made me do it even more, with more force at the cost of my health and well-being”.
Attaching a false sense of self worth to what we do rather who we are in essence, is a a choice that has shallow foundations, what happens when the role, the thing we are doing comes to and end…who are we…we all have qualities deep within which have nothing to do with what we do, and when we connect with that and nurture it then we have a foundation that is sustainable.
There is a vast difference between sensing the impulse to move in a way that is in alignment with the universe and pushing ourselves. The latter comes with a force, a drive to get somewhere. It comes from self and my own needs where as listening to my body and feeling into what supports me and another comes from purpose where I am connected to the all and in rhythm with what there is to be done.
Wow Pinky a brilliant blog exposing all the roles and pictures we take on that keep us in a constant spin and end up making us feel really exhausted. Knowing we are enough for just being who we truly are puts an end to the constant searching for recognition and trying to fill any emptiness – learning to appreciate and accept myself has been key to letting go of all the roles and pictures that once used to control me.
“All for what??” A way to avoid feeling and appreciating the beautiful being you already are – without trying.
‘from looking outside of myself for recognition to finding my self worth in the growing appreciation of myself’ By appreciating our innate qualities we begin to realise how great we are regardless of our so called accomplishments and the accolades the world bestows upon us.
Accomplishing many tasks without any sense of joy, care or quality – it’s so common. What if a Superwoman was not the woman could do the most, but the woman who could fully engage with life and everything that needs to be done but while not loosing her innate quality and sense of who she is?
She is just a super doing woman, no fun in that. What about a woman who is engaged in the wonders of woman.
Wow so much effort for that momentary recognition and sense of achievement that soon passes and then the cycle starts all over again. No wonder there is an epidemic of exhaustion as so many are rushing around just as you have described which I can certainly relate to until I too got completely burnt out and forced to reevaluate my life.
Yes, the constant trying to get recognition and acceptance from what we do, is similar to a hamster running in circles on its wheel, going no where and exhausting ourselves in the process.
When it comes to activity I have found it extremely important to make the effort to really understand the purpose of each activity as often this can lead to major changes to that activity and makes me much more effective.
The search for recognition is very deep in my experience. Once we become aware of that search we can deal with the outward parts of it but then it becomes an investigation of the more subtle aspects of looking for recognition. Each aspect we become aware of releases a lot of energy that was caught up in that particular search.
Thank you Pinky. You have reminded me today that it is possible to not push and strive for recognition, but to live instead with a great sense of self-love, self-respect, and self-honouring.
It is interesting to watch the dynamic of when a parent does everything at the expense of themselves for their kids. A friend was talking to me about this recently and saying that she had done this and now her kids just walked all over her and didn’t treat her well. You could see the outplay of what she had allowed and her need to be liked by her kids which had allowed it. This then bred resentment on both sides.
The ‘to do’ lists are endless and for a very long time, women have been masters of doing everything in the so called ‘tireless’ role of superwoman, seeking recognition or reward from others from our own self worth being almost non-existent .
“From a Super Doing woman to a Super Loving woman, from looking outside of myself for recognition to finding my self worth in the growing appreciation of myself”.
So many of us get tainted by ideals and beliefs about where our worth comes from… losing sight of the truth as we grow up, so it is truly beautiful to reawaken to a knowing that you need not seek anything from the outside to confirm your worth but rather can develop it through a connection to and appreciation of who you are, as you are, ideal and belief free.
If our self-worth is tied to what we do, then it is dependent on the outside, which is ironic as we are Divine on the inside, which we then can express outside, provided we are aware of this.
Pinky you said it all in these words “From a Super Doing woman to a Super Loving woman”. Living life from the love within and honouring the body is so different to the beliefs, ideals, pictures and expectations we aspire to live up to.
I think this describes my former life perfectly, “Any happiness I would feel was always momentary as the excitement of an achievement would pass in a day and I would be left with my emptiness to do/achieve/get recognised again. The cycle was never ending…” There are still parts where this is true but it is more subtle now, I am aware that the constant doing of things in this way only recreates itself again and again until you are exhausted. Many of us speak of the never ending list to do and it’s always there, at times getting longer and longer. So it would make sense to stop the doing of the list and yes recognise the list still needs doing but make a choice or become more aware that the only thing that needs our dedication is the quality we are in when ‘doing’ anything. We put so much pressure and focus on the doing, only to keep having to do to maintain the picture. I remember the up’s and downs of life this bought me and now when you do things from inside out life is more consistently equal.
This is an awesome blog, I love what you have shared and the way you have shared it. When a woman puts herself out there, like you have with this article, it almost invites all women to come clean, weather that be in their over achieving or self abusing – not to mention the long list of other things we can choose to do to ourselves when we are running from who we truly are. What you are exposing is important.
Achieving the to do lists with getting kids to every event, being able to cram it all in has become the norm. And yet the result seems to be the same for all women, stress, feeling drained and eventually resentful. This cant be the way we are supposed to be as women if this is how we are left feeling. Kids actually love it when we stop and are with them.
“I was so entrenched in doing all my roles in life. On the outside, I was this Super woman who could do it all, but inside I was feeling exhausted, stressed and resentful for all I had to do and always running from one role to another. I had lost sight of the actual ME.” That is the word “entrenched”. And then there is a momentum from living this way that becomes a cruel master, controlling us to move in movements that are not our true selves, expressing. Hence, the roles. It becomes a vicious circle. This has only been broken for me by exploring the healing support of Esoteric modalities. They have been a game-changer and most effective in stopping the debilitating momentum’s I have put myself through.
In my experience too building a knowing of our worth comes from inside of us, not from recognition for our achievements or roles that we may fulfil. I am blessed to know people who have supported me to know my real worth, to re-connect with it, but that has not come from recognising what I do but who I already am in my essence and genuinely appreciating that.
I understood the theory of self-worth, did countless workshops, Munson residential pursuits of unraveling the dysfunction the disconnection and the hurts, but it truly was not until I met Serge Benhayon that I had a living model of truth upon which I could recalibrate my own totally warped inner guidance system, and then to be able to start to heal, and finally to feel the spark of self-worth, which is still being fanned into a living fire.
Thank you Pinky, a great reminder of how we can lose ourselves when we get caught up in performing the roles we have in life, rather than living from who we truly are, living from the inside out, and therefore taking all that we are to the roles we perform, rather than the other way around.
Thank you Pinky for bringing attention to how easily we get caught up in playing many and various roles in life, instead of simply being ourselves.
i can so relate to the constant search for the world to offer us our worthiness, only to find it leaves us dependent on this external recognition long term. It is far more worthwhile that we consider ourselves as worthy of our own love every single day, and that this love offers the true fulfilment we are so held by.
As women we hold a deep inner stillness that our world is desperately in need of. Is it any wonder that we loose ourself in roles and business? As the stillness lived becomes a beacon and all the attention we thought we ever wanted comes our way, but not necessarially how we wanted it to. Our presence is noted and many fight against the quality of stillness we present as it very gracefully offers the reality that it is inside us all, a wake up call that an exhausted society does not want to see for the responsibility it presents.
‘Did I allow time to feel me or know me, I wonder?’ Great question Pinky, pondering on this, as I recognise everything in your blog including the extreme exhaustion of constantly pleasing, keeping up with everything etc. I did not allow myself to truly feel me, I knew me but did not listen, others were more important than me always and doing a lot was part of making myself irreplaceably and getting my worth out of this endless doing. It has never worked, starting to be honest about how my body felt was the beginning of a new life, a life that starts with me first!
I have a great partner who often asks when I feel bad when I come home from my study or something happens at the clinic “have you hung your worth on …?” this made me realise that I did hang my worth on so many things and as you say when we are living like that we are at the mercy of the world, our friends moods, the people we meet… and so on. It is one big game because we can not influence the people around us and they often have loads of things going on so if they ‘reject’ us they often don’t even do this consciously or on purpose. Seeing this makes it clear that if we hang our worth on all that we do we will never be consistently content with ourselves. Yet when we feel we are amazing inside no matter what happens, things start to change and get more consistent and joyful.
This sure does expose all the many roles we take on in life and I can certainly tick off a few of these! We tend to adapt how we are around people depending on their relationship to us, but this leaves us with no sense of our true self underneath all the changes. And this means everyone, including ourselves, misses out on who we really are. One amazing thing I’ve done is present who I am without the roles. And at first I didn’t know what that was, but it gave me a starting place to begin deepening who I am before what I do, and from here I can start to appreciate the qualities I have as a woman who is working on expressing in full and bringing simplicity to all things.
We can spend our whole lives chasing round trying to fulfil the roles we have subscribed to. How awesome when we see those roles for being just that and can begin to celebrate ourselves for just being and can feel fulfilled in that ” From a Super Doing woman to a Super Loving woman, from looking outside of myself for recognition to finding my self worth in the growing appreciation of myself “
Beautifully shared Pinky. So much of what you wrote has been my experience too. All this drive for what? For me drive is all about avoiding my hurts – every ounce of recognition is an attempt to stay safe. I tell myself I’m sacrificing for others but really my drive is all about me me me and what I need to ‘do’ to be secure.
Wow Pinky I felt tired reading all the roles you played – but it only reflected to me how I have tried to do the same – be fabulous at everything so no one can question me. But this comes as the expense of my body, and as we know, the body shows all – so if we are living in exhaustion it won’t be long until this is pretty obvious! But how beautiful that you are now super loving and you have brought it back to truth.
Great way to describe your transformation ‘From a Super Doing woman to a Super Loving woman’. I can really relate to the overdrive in search of outer recognition but once we allow ourselves to recognise and stop and appreciate what we bring just by being ourselves the consequent shift in our perspective is huge and much needed.
I find it interesting how exhausted, stressed and resentful etc continuing day in day out the same thing and everyone around you knows how your feeling but does not say anything – they accept it however, it is you that is feeding them through the protection of your ways. Your not allowing anyone to say anything to you but to recognize (or not) what you do. Even if they don’t it is your own identification of what is your doing. As Pinky describes appreciation is the medicine to change these ways.
When we exist by the roles we take on we lose sight of who we truly are – a woman.
Thank you for this beautiful wisdom Mary. A woman that honours herself truly serves all.
Thanks Pinky, I felt quite exhausted reading of your exploits! And, it showed me again how I still seek recognition and how this plays out in relationships and exhausts my body.
Working hard and, pushing through to get things done, staying late and working long hours, was in my mind, what success looked like. I certainly ticked the box of good employee at the expense of myself..
I used to live my life by how much I crossed off my list, I was content at the end of the day if my list had been reduced and I’d been busy crossing things off. Never did I consider that what was far more important was not what I did but the way that I did it.
Exhausting! And yet this is the way so many of us live. Anyone would think we were trying to run away from something. Could it be we don’t want to feel that what we’re invested in is just one big fat illusion, and that true responsibility comes from stopping and connecting to our essence within?
I can relate to this painful experience of running around desperately seeking recognition for what we do as an attempt to find who we are. Every day I peel back layers of what is not me that I thought was me as coming back to who I truly am is an unfolding process that requires constant connection and self love and a discipline to honour our body.
Pinky I love following sentences: “From a Super Doing woman to a Super Loving woman” as it is a wonderful refection and also invitation for many women to have a look how they are living.
I would rather be a Super Loving Woman than a Super Woman any day… A woman in true love with herself is so much more inspiring than a woman who has accomplished more than any other.
One of the fundamental messages that Serge Benhayon has continually presented is that we are NOT what we do … for musicians this is liberating as we are so used to being totally identified with what we do , and loose who we truly are, with the resultant train wreck lives that we read about so often
Just reading your blog on the way you, I and so many women live is exhausting Pinky and you can see quite easily how living and measuring our worth in this way leaves no space to really feel who and how we are. It’s such a reflection of how unloving these choices can be and how living up to the expectation of what we think a role should be ends up draining us. I so look forward to reading part 2!
Nodding all the way through this inspirational sharing Pinky. Those old habits/roles were so deeply ingrained and can still pop up at times especially if I go into ‘doing’ mode. I call it the ‘hamster on a wheel’ effect, so exhausting and depleting of energy. Our bodies speak loud and clear and those stop moments always come when least expected. To go about my day in my bodies gentle rhythm I actually get more done, no pushing or trying to be anything but true to me. No performance or applause required.
What a fantastic blog Pinky and very relevant to me with regards my lifestyle. It has been these long ingrained habits that you have spoken about that resonate closely to my experiences. It has been a steady and challenging climb back to making space for me but underneath everything I know that I am always making choices. These choices can either allow the same patterns of behaviour to continue or to create something completely different.
What a trick we fell for as women and as human beings. As women we are here to express our divine nature, share our stillness and sacredness. All we have to do is surrender to this innate way of being. Of course this also means committing to life and getting things done, but in the flow our body tells us.
That is beautiful Monika. I loved reading your comment as I can feel the difference in your words as to how I sometimes get caught up in getting everything done without considering my body OR as you shared here living in the flow that my body tells me and surrendering to that.
Your story… incessantly performing, juggling different roles with relative ease is one that many can relate to, the difference however is that you questioned the drive you were in and the recognition behind it and as such have come to the awareness that it is not about what you do but how loving you are in what you do that matters – this is profoundly healing for people to read and recognise that there is another way to be… with love and appreciation of self as the key.
Questioning life is one of the first steps in breaking the mould and yet it is just that, a step and not the answer to everything. Questioning it then exploring the possibly that there may be something more to life that the way it is currently run exposes how tightly held life has been constructed all around us and from ourselves to keep it this way. And as Pinky states – what is this all for? From my experience it’s been a case of keeping myself small to avoid the fact that I can and have had the choice to not be small, frustrated, emotional this whole time. It’s not pleasant to be faced with the face of my own creation (my life through my choices) but reacting to it doesn’t make the truth ago away, I only have to face it again at a later date! all the while suffering while fooling myself that the truth isn’t the truth. Our love that we are seeking on the outside only comes from within us and no amount of outer situation will ever deliver.
Sometimes its great to look back and appreciate all the choices we have made that are lovely, and that really confirm all that we are.
Totally – the most massive life-changing realisations and changes comes from simply questioning if there is another way, or even if this really is the way.
That what we seek is already within us, it is the love that we are. But only we are not aware of it, but when we truly become aware there is actually almost no turning back.
Self worth is an absolutely essential key to our healing the age old crippling disconnection with our true selves
I agree cjames, self worth through confirmation.
What defines us is the ability to feel our quality in each and every footstep.
Very beautiful Luke, I agree wholeheartedly.
This blog is awesome, in that it truly shows how most of us in life seek recognition from everything and everyone, outside of ourselves. When actually, what we are all truly missing is inside of us all. Through Universal Medicine and Esoteric Women’s Health, I am learning the tools that are most needed in life. How to truly connect with and honour my body, as a person and a woman, how to self-nurture and truly deepen that connection, so that I may love myself and others equally so. It’s such an amazing journey, we should all be on it! Thank you for your inspiration!
“From a Super Doing woman to a Super Loving woman” … now that is something worth changing how I live and what I live for. Thanks Pinky!
I can relate to your blog Pinky trying to be everything for everyone, never stopping to feel the exhausting affects living this way has on my body. Reading your story and reflecting I can feel and appreciate how far I have come in letting go of trying to live up to ideals and believes and pictures of how I grew up thinking life had to be. By choosing to learning to love and respect myself and deal with my self-loathing I have learnt to appreciate and respect myself as a woman.
Thankyou so much for this Pinky and these words stood out for me today, “I was trying to fill the emptiness I was feeling inside with the things I did and had to keep doing, looking for recognition on things outside of me.” I can so see myself in this, always doing from a restlessness inside that can never be fulfilled by outside activity or acceptance from others, because then we have to go on looking for the next fix. Even when cutting away much of the ‘to-do’ list, the roots of wanting ‘to do’ and achieve are so subtle. The body finally brings us to a stop, but why do we have to wait until that point?
Well, I’m hooked on knowing how you changed, Pinky and straight off to read part 2! I went to a school full of girls all on the same ‘being good’ bandwagon, including me. It was a bloodbath of competition and disappointment, constantly looking to outside accolades as a way of confirming our self-worth. Exhausting? Absolutely. But more troublingly, it was incredibly formative, setting us up for life with a pattern of behaviour that has unrelentingly recycled us through the process of trying to feed the emptiness with busyness in pursuit of external recognition, whilst attempting to hide a too regularly resurgent lack of self worth.
Ah Pinky – this is such a wonderful depiction of what it is like for so many women in the world. It was my world, and still is in pockets. Seeking recognition, believing she is a role, a function, someone there for everyone – but who is there for her? Thank you so much for bringing this awareness to so many to stop and reflect on honouring and connecting and caring for ourselves. And how living in this way supports the world and all around is in a far more powerful way.
With all the roles we play, and I have been a big player of this game, yes, we may get recognised and acknowledge and even labelled as being ‘great’ at something which make us feel good, but we are never truly met for who we are. And it this illusion of achieving something that keep us driving ourselves to seek more and more recognition. When we realise that who we truly are comes from within, we realise that we are All that is needed, and this is bigger that any role we play we and our need to seek recognition diminishes. For in truth a seeker is only a seeker by due to the fact that there is something lost; our connection to the grandness of our Love within.
Beautifully expressed Carola, just one thing I have to wonder that I have been feeling into of late is how we always seem to dull down our expression with the need to confess our wrongdoings of the past. I understand honesty is very important in our evolution. But I have to wonder how long we need to keep expressing this, rather than simply raising our vibration to what is true, and completely letting go of the past.
Great blog Pinky, I can very much relate feeling good about myself through what I achieved in the day, and not feeling bad when I don’t achieve much. Even when I do finish lots on my to do lists, I’m still left feeling empty and un-fulfilled at the end of the day. What really makes the difference is how connected I am to myself when I carry out my chores and work for the day, this quality of presence and tenderness leaves me feeling complete.
In any activity that we do it is an extension of a fullness that we already have. When we extend ourselves into activities without a ‘sense of self’ we are at the mercy of the recognition we recieve back.
Therefore anyone who is hungry to be filled by recognition will never be filled as their appetite will never be satisfied. The absence of the fullness of one’s self needs constant situmlation and feeding. Thus the crushing of feeling inadequate when recognition isn’t recieved. Instead of knowing you are everything you are meant to be before I single muscle is moved.
Reading this blog really hit a spot within me and I wonder why oh why do we have these ideals of how to be, whether that is as a brother, sister, mother and so on? We spend our entire lives running around trying to make people happy instead of just being free to be ourselves. Its a very confused world and the more truth, like this blog, which is available for us to read and consider, the better.
It is totally true that we can spend our life doing things to be recognised. As I read recently in another blog, doing this is an addiction. As such, it is a ‘natural’ drive to go there. What you call you includes this feature in the package. But in truth, that feature is an add-on one. The feature gives us a way of doing life, permanent motion to fill our time, actions that please another one, creating dependency chains where we are the key actor (which ‘demonstrates’ the world and ourselves how truly important and irreplaceable we are). Dis-arming such a way is not easy but it is totally worth it.
Yes Eduardo, we create that dependency chain, with us as the lynchpin in the middle of our very own drama, and in that we want to be recognised and applauded, but it’s a trap, there is always more, we never get enough recognition and worst of all we loose sight of who we are. You’re right it takes time to unravel but it is worth it, as we do we come back to being the natural us, and all the effort and exhaustion falls away.
wow Pinky reading the blog of how you were so busy left me exhausted just trying to imagine it all! Truly inspiring that you have found you and come to the realisation that none of the doing is actually true, being you is all we ever want since if you are you I can feel it and be reminded of who I am, everyone wins.
Yes I agree Pinky to seek everything outside of us can be very exhausting. I love it that you describe all the rolls we can be trapped in only to be seen and recognized.
Pinky you have penned what so many woman feel and do. Fitting into roles and expectations in order to be great in everything not stopping to feel the effect it has on us. Being an even greater mother, daughter, sister, worker comes with the quality of care we take with ourselves and the honesty we are willing to go to with what supports or exhausts us.
Pinky, yes we do all these things and leave the most important ingredient out us, taking care of us otherwise all those things we do just tick boxes and as you say we end up exhausted and unfulfilled and everyone feels it.
I agree Monica, exhaustion is the end result.
I agree – finding a sense of worth in all the roles and jobs and things we do is quite easy for a moment, but ultimately it’s unsustainable unless the sense of worth comes from simply being who we are.
Even just reading all these doings I could feel how heavy they are and yet I know I have done many of them myself. That constant trying to be something makes me feel like a hamster on a wheel, running super fast but going nowhere. Through asking myself how I feel to be in what I am doing I am finding much less of that racing and less of that emptiness. Looking for myself in what I do or pretending that I am not here (that the ‘me’ I am looking for is elsewhere) completely ignores the fact that I am already here and that the real me can actually be in the moment that is before me.
Thanks for your sharing Pinky, I think many women can relate to this. The thought that it is their job to put others before themselves and do all these things. Its not about not doing these things but recognising that you matter in the process and that its important to take care of you along the way.
So beautifully said Kristy. I can feel how much I still do this in my own life. Self neglect, helping others first and putting me last. It has been a vicious cycle in my life. One I feel ready to drop for good. As my serving is only self-serving and empty if my cup is not filled first, to full.
A powerful reminder Irena – if we constantly choose to run on empty, all we can offer in service is emptiness and lack of true connection.
‘As my serving is only self-serving and empty if my cup is not filled first, to full’.
It is so easy to lose ourselves in being who we think we should be, rather than in feeling who we truly are.
Re-reading this blog it reminded me of how I would set myself a goal every year to learn something new – one more thing I would have knowledge of in the vain hope that I would feel fulfilled and get more recognition. This is how I judged myself to not being enough – I figured the more knowledge I acquired the better person I became and more interesting. What I would find is that I would acquire the knowledge for a short while and then when the interest had wained I could hardly remember any of it.
It just goes to show that by seeking knowledge to make ourselves feel important only lasts for a short while and then we are back to feeling the emptiness.
Appreciating that we are enough without having to find something or someone to validate us, is I find a far more healthier way to live.
What you’ve written here has struck a chord with me Julie and made me realise that I’ve had a similar pattern and I agree: “Appreciating that we are enough without having to find something or someone to validate us, is I find a far more healthier way to live.”
Seeking everything outside doesn’t add up to what we think we will receive, why are we constantly trying this, I can feel that when I lost the sense of who I truly am I only will look at the outside. But when I reconnect I can see the glorious man I am with all my amazing qualities that I don’t need recognition for.
Thank you Pinky for the way that this blog is written as it is because of the way you have laid out the details of how you played each role that I can really feel how tiring playing out all these ‘scripts’ is. It is a tireless and empty game yet we can fall for it again and again until we value all we are and feel our worth just as we are and the beautiful quality we offer.
How much do we make life a sacrifice. All for the ‘good’ of others when in truth it is for the service of oneself. How can we truly support another (and ourselves) when we are always retarding our own true quality of living while doing it? To me this makes no sense at all as I have come to understand that true service comes first from the quality of how we live.
I can recognise myself in what you have written and what comes across is how much we as women have built up a picture of what it means to be a women in this day and age, and the belief that we can have it all and do it all, but ultimately it is at our own expense.
Pinky, like you I was so entrenched in doing all my roles in life. On the outside, I was this Super woman who could do it all, but inside I was feeling exhausted, stressed and resentful for all I had to do and always running from one role to another. I had lost sight of the actual ME. This sentence so describes my life to a Tee – gaining identification for performing but losing my self worth in the process. The recognition I was receiving from the roles I was performing made me do it even more, with more force at the cost of my health and well-being. It has taken the past 8 years to heal the harm and remove the layers that I have placed over the real ME through the wonderful support of many Universal Medicine Practitioners. Now, I am all about honouring ME – a powerful way of Being.l
It is so much simpler to be ourselves and not to have to strive to please, be good, perfect or be any of those roles. In this way we are not dependent on any outside valuation for our self-worth. It is a whole new way of being for many of us.
We slip into so many rolls as children from a very young age to fit with the ideals and beliefs of our parents and the pictures they have created as to how life should be and how we should fit into that picture just to be accepted and loved by our parents and as we get older our peers and society. Defining our self-worth by how we perform in the different roles we take on, how exhausting is that. Then we grow up to do the same with what our parents have modelled to us to our children. Thank God for the teachings of universal medicine offering us another way to live. By being consciously present and re-connect to who we truly are expressing from our hearts and feel true self-worth.
I can certainly relate Pinky although it has taken me quite some time to be able to see all the roles I play. I like the way you have outlined them in this blog and will go on to read your next blog and what changes you have made.
I was the ‘good girl’ growing up, always seeking perfection … and then when I left school, I realized that I couldn’t sustain this level of striving, I had thought it was all for reaching the best year 12 mark and then I would be free to live and be happy! But University was even harder than school and I simply rebelled against all this pressure from school and my stressed out family… I wasn’t going to live like that or try to be like my high achieving older siblings. But without guidance and support, I found other ways to seek recognition, all of which felt like I was seeking freedom but I was still locked in the cage of my own emptiness.
I can relate to the busy Mum kids activities routine leaving us all feeling busy rushed and too exhausted to play. Recently I have been re-evaluating all of this and am feeling that having time after school to hang out and play together may be more important than learning gym, dance, etc etc.
After reading your blog Pinky I had a much greater understanding of my older sister who sounds just like you until you were forced to stop; her cycle just keeps on going around and around.
“From a Super Doing woman to a Super Loving woman”; what an absolutely wonderful transformation Pinky.
This is a great insight and understanding for what I see in my older sister too.
Pinky your life seems to have been like a Roller Coaster with no time for yourself! Hardly time to breathe for yourself let alone feel what might be right for you . And all for what? Recognition, to be seen as the person who can do and fix all! Many of us have had this ambition and role in our families to our detriment , I know I have been one, not quite to the degree that you have but close. I have to thank Universal Medicine and the Esoteric Women Health Presenters for the wonderful wake up call.
Pinky – OMG – I’m exhausted just reading your blog! I thought I was driven but you took it to a whole different level. Thank God for Serge Benhayon and Universal Medicine!
I really enjoyed reading your blog Pinky. I can so relate to doing things to be recognized for getting them done but as you ask so just “All this for what?” and later in blog ” When you are seen for all these things that you have done/performed, you forget how much you had to push yourself and work hard to get there.” I am learning now that the recognition is not worth the exhaustion and pain in my body that I would feel from living this way. I am now starting to do thing out of feeling how it will support me in my life if I commit to them. For instance with studying, knowing I will need the techniques and knowledge to be a dentist and to serve people lovingly in this way and not for being recognized for high grades etc. Still a work in progress but a very loving one. Thank you for sharing there is much to gain from.
I love that you took time to show so many flavours of this trick. What’s for sure is that you are a SUPER woman Pinky, naturally, way before any task, activity or box that is ticked.
Thank you Pinky, what a gorgeous blog! “From a Super Doing woman to a Super Loving woman”, also I liked your questioning; “All for what?”. Is it about getting Everything done, or how we are and enjoy what we are doing? – For life would be much more fulfilling with the latter. Universal Medicine has supported me (and so many others) to choose to connect back to ourselves, like the connection of a child, and re-imprint/re-learn this life, how to do things for ourselves and our feelings, rather than for constant recognition from others. Learning to live in the fullness of ourselves, and the richness of our expression – nothing can compare.
I feel exhausted just reading this blog and it shows me that I too had been caught up in the ceaseless drive to be seen to be doing ok by all the things I did for others. Along the way I forgot that I am first and foremost a woman not a daughter, sister, wife mother etc. Recognising why I was doing all the doing and just being me, a tender beautiful woman, while living each day I now enjoy all that I do and there is no drive or exhaustion.
Thank you Pinky, I can so relate to: “From a Super Doing woman to a Super Loving woman,…”. It is so easy to get caught up in the DOING of the world, like in a rat race… it ends up being a self-feeding momentum, that keeps pushing you on and on. However the quality in life comes from our innate loving nature and it takes a stop to re-discover and resurrect it again
What an exhausting cycle and great that your body gave you that stop moment. Thank you for sharing this with us as it gives us all a chance to consider what our own exhausting cycles might be made up of. Love the ending!
All those roles and all that exhaustion; no wonder we, as women, lose ourselves and when we lose ourselves everyone else loses us – all of us – as well. I love how you have made the transition: “From a Super Doing woman to a Super Loving woman” – now caring for you first, all those around you will also get a beautiful reflection of what’s possible when we stop focusing on the doing and begin to focus on the loving.
This is a great blog. Not only can I feel how exhausting this recognition game is but also the resentment that is all the time building up inside for we really do know what we are doing to ourselves. Let’s stop before we are forced to and start respecting our inner knowing and appreciate ourselves for who we are and the quality we naturally bring.
It is clear that living for recognition from the world, in the constant need to get something and please something ‘out there’ we lose ourselves. It becomes so exhausting to live everyday. but it doesn’t have to be this way. Thanks to Universal Medicine and Serge Benhayon for living this way and showing it for us all.
the way of not recognition and self-love of course.
PInky what you are sharing here is huge… we are the human RACE indeed (well said Kathryn). The identification with what we do as a source of self worth is endemic because it occurs the moment we are not in appreciation of who we are, just as we are, before we do… anything!
We can all relate to this blog Pinky. The drive to be good and try and get it right all day long. No wonder the world is exhausted. We are indeed the human RACE.
It never stops to amaze me how we are caught in the game of life, playing our roles and believing that it is true. Until such time when we wake up from this reality and see things for what they truly are.
I am glad for you, Pinky, that you found yourself earlier in life.
Looking forward to read your other blog.
Thank You Pinky. I found life in general so disorientating in my youth and childhood that self awareness or self love were not even in my lexicon, and the only mirror of recognition was that , a mirror, as I had not awareness of myself at all. External recognition was everything, and laid a corrupt core of self deception that was only recognised and healed through the love and true friendship that came with my knowing Serge Benhayon.
Thanks Pinky. From all of these examples, I also got a feeling that when we play these roles it seems like we are racing against time, as if its going to run out at the end of the day. But what I feel about that is we don’t live truly connected and joyful lives and so the day coming to an end and us realising all that we haven’t lived joyfully in that day is so depressing! Its no wonder we feel the day is running out of time, because we haven’t expressed ourselves yet! Thanks for sharing all of these things, i know many people can relate, including myself.
Pinky I love have you have described how you are in each of the roles that you have taken on. It is amazing what we will put our body through in the need to be recognised for the part we play in our chosen role.
Thank you Pinky, for summing up some of the devastative roles we have taken on in order to gain recognition for what we do, it makes clear to me how ridiculous this way of living is. Ridiculous and devastative because we have to continuously maintaining ourselves in improving these roles we play for gaining some level of recognition while deep within we do not feel right and confirmed by ourselves since actually we know that we are not the roles that we play, but so much more so.
Pinky I can so relate to playing many roles to get recognition and a sense that I have also reconnected back back to my own self-appreciation and self-worth and it has changed everything. I look forward to reading part 2.
A terrible exhausting way to live Pinky and I can relate to living a life for recognition. I ve got several stop points in my life but never truly stopped until I met Serge Benhayon and Universal Medicine. Since then I am constantly deepening the relation with myself, an ongoing process from discarding all that I am not. And the more I can see where this recognition aspect played a role and sometimes still does. It is great to observe and choose a fulfilling way of life.
Great to read this Pinky, “been there, done that” myself! And yes it was utterly exhausting.
So lovely to now, like you, feel the total difference when actually just being ‘me’, loving and caring for myself first. Everything else falls into place with ease and relationships prosper in magical ways.
I have loved observing you become more ‘you’, the loving way you are and bring to your family, friends and the world is gorgeous.Thank you for being you.
Pinky, I can so relate to all those roles and the pressure that came with them, or was it simply we placed the pressure on ourselves to be super-woman,
super-mum, super-wife, super everything in fact! I can easily recall the exhaustion that I lived in, and from that observation I realised that obviously there was very little quality in the way I was living. I was living to help others, to please everybody else; looking after me was way down the list. These days I know that I don’t have to be super-anything, but to simply be all of me and to bring all of me to everything I do, and caring for me is now at the top of the list.
The same for me Ingrid, I was so into all those roles, wife and mother especially but in truth it was anything that would make me feel like I had purpose. I didn’t feel like I was enough just me, on my own. Now I know the difference, feeling me, the contentment that is building in just me and my expression, and it is very beautiful.
A very inspiring read, it is so true how we can get ourselves stuck in the doing and forget about ourselves. When we truly look after and honour ourselves we actually get more things done, without having that exhausting feeling.
Another great blog Pinky. Really exposing the many patterns and behaviours countless woman take on. It’s great to see the patterns being lovingly looked at and re created with more tender and care.
Gorgeous blog Pinky, their are just so many roles that each individual takes on to get something back from the outside world that I have lost count.
Pink, when reading the bullet points I felt how it is like a plague that invades us to ‘do’ all.
Then reading the rest I wondered how anyone person could live with all that pressure. And why does it all start in the first place? This is the deepest concern, that lovely joyful children grow to develop a need to be super human.
oooo – I am definitely going to read part 2… When I read “From a Super Doing woman to a Super Loving woman” my eyes welled up with tears. You really are a super loving woman Pinky and you inspire me to throw out my ‘Super Doing Woman’ costume and be the super loving woman I am.
Gorgeous Leonne. Let’s all throw away our ‘Super Doing Woman’ costumes that felt way too tight anyhow 😊
Beautiful Pinky! I love the part of being a super loving woman and not a super doing woman. Made me smile. And this part ‘trying to fill the emptiness I was feeling inside.’ I have done this on many occasion. Usually with things outside of me and with recognition from others. I can also vouch it never works and your left feeling just as empty as before. Until you decide to fill the emptiness with yourself.
I know this that you write of all too well Pinky. Knowing myself by a role/s and not by my own feelings, and a deeper connection to who I am – truly. What I can say is that through my association with Esoteric Women’s Health and having access to all the amazing articles shared on the Women in Livingness Blog, I am getting to know another version of me, the real and very exquisite me that was hiding underneath all the roles. This process has been so incredible, a return to the woman I truly am. A return to my true essence.
What a fabulous expose of the exhausting ideals we buy into at the cost of our personal health, as we lose our connection with ourselves!
Thanks Pinky. I love how you break it all down to expose ALL the things we all do all the time just so that we can be recongised as ‘doing good’, at the very great expense of our bodies.
It’s a horrible feeling to override what our bodies feel to do, it’s like we forget that we have to live in these bodies for the rest of our lives so why would we want to make it uncomfortable.
Great blog Pinky one I can relate to, the roles we play and the recognition we seek. We have learnt that roles get us seen and playing them out is both satisfying and rewarding.
“Sometimes you get seen and recognised and sometimes you don’t. When you are seen for all these things that you have done/performed, you forget how much you had to push yourself and work hard to get there. All this for what?” That’s the point Pinky, for what? We push ourselves to the point of exhaustion for a few minutes satisfaction of knowing that we may get recognise for what did, and if we don’t we begin to resent all the effort we have put in and become a victim of our own making.
You are right Alison in what you are saying here, and there will always be a need for more and more recognition, until we come back to that place within ourselves that doesn’t need recognition anymore. I have played these roles and sought recognition myself, until one day I asked myself “there must be another way to live?”, so I started to look for it. Enter Universal Medicine and the Ageless Wisdom, a new way to live which is actually the old, true way to live. The teachings of the Ageless Wisdom have given me an awareness of how much I seek recognition and play roles and now I have no excuse but to work on bringing myself back to the real me and not allowing myself to play the role of victim anymore.
I like how you put this Sandra. That the ancient/ageless wisdom is actually the old true way of living. Even though Universal Medicine is introducing us to these teachings, in truth it is RE-introducing us to a way of living we already know deep within – bringing that which is within back out. Slowly slowly, but ever so surely.
What is so disturbing is how we can totally lose the sense of who we are to the point where, the reflection of recognition back from the world outside has more meaning than the connection with our true selves. Universal Medicine provides a reflection and a connection with our essence, our very being , and this is the bridge that humanity needs right now.
Yes the reflection Universal Medicine offers humanity is clear and true and very needed right now.
Thank you Pinky for your honest and open sharing – I agree it is so exhausting playing all the different roles constantly looking for recognition. I played this game very well in the past – trying to be all things to others and ignoring my own health and well being. When I began to appreciate and accept myself I was able to finally let go of all the roles and begin to develop the relationship with myself and others in a more true and honest way.
Thank you Pinky.
Returning to choosing truth in all areas as you have highlighted brings such a healing reflection to everyone around us, for we are choosing truth from first feeling that which is within us. It is so simple–we are love and not doing.
Yes so true. We are human BEings…. Not DOings. ✨
It’s so true.When we are young we feel truth but the world says and shows us that we are wrong so we doubt that inner knowing and listen to the world that told us we were wrong (when we knew we were right but hey, no one was saying it) about how to be. Crazy!
All these roles we have…..with all the ideals, expectations and behaviours within the roles. It is indeed exhausting just by seeing the list. And then the most incredible thing is that we forget that we are first and foremost a woman.
So true Caroline, we are constantly role playing and forget totally who we truly are, equal Son’s of God expressing through a woman’s body. It’s crazy how we cap our grandness and assume all those roles and seek identification and recognition in them. How can we trade our true Glory for something less that only brings us exhaustion?
Beautifully expressed Caroline and oh how easy it is to forget!
Just reading your blog Pinky I feel exhausted. I have done many things in my life just to be the good girl, wife and Mother and still find I do quite often but I am aware now when I do this and can still choose to or not. I find that the teachings of Universal Medicine and Serge Benhayon are so freeing but a the same time the responsibility rests with me to make the changes. Thank you for the reminder.
Hi Pinky
I can feel how exhausting it is to be ‘good’ and ‘try’ and play a role that then gives us recognition. Once we stop and reconnect with who we are… WOW… life changes doesn’t it? We develop more self worth and appreciation for who we are and not just what we do and we are then more truly supportive for others.
Ah Pinky, my life right there 🙂 great awareness and turnaround – i’m looking for part 2 now – thank you.
Knowing all the roles to play, finding myself in your words – I can’t wait to read on your next blog*
I can relate so much to what you expressed- I know this neverending circle of being recognised- I am curious about your next blog- great teaser at the end 🙂
Yes this never ending circle of constantly seeking recognition is exhausting and keeps us from connecting to who we truly are by looking on the outside of ourselves. It can only lead to disappointment and frustration when we don’t get the recognition we seek, which then adds to our lack of self worth. I can certainly vouch for that, it is work in progress for me.
Yes Steffi I too can relate to this vicious cycle of recognition. Its funny how we can be engulfed by this cycle and how exhausting it can be on our bodies. Pinky I am looking forward to Part 2.
This is great – you expose all the roles that so many of us have in life Pinky, and how clearly this has put you always in a second position to all else/others. Putting yourself now FIRST is self-loving not selfish as we otherwise like to think. And your words “….from a Super Doing woman to a Super Loving woman” is a true media advertising slogan that can be lived and honoured as you show us Pinky.
Awesome blog Pinky. I can so relate to these multitude of roles and the striving for recognition. I’ve recently come to realise just how much I’ve lived my life trying to prove myself to others. It’s like we take on the role and then we also have to prove we’re worthy of that role. It is a complete merry-go-round with stops at stress, frustration, anxiety and overwhelm. It is a true gift to ourselves and the world when we stop, turn the gaze inwards and learn to appreciate the love and beauty that has always been in us. That’s when I realised the emptiness was of my own making, in a choice I made to think I was not enough just being me. Slowly the roles are dropping away along with all the ideals and beliefs, leaving room for more of me to be expressed.
It’s increadible what we put ourselves through Pinky. I love you descriptions of the roles we get caught up in and how we think we are to be in those roles. With all those expectations we have on ourselves there hardly any room for us to be ourselves. It’s wonderful being able to let go of those expectations, just be ourselves which is more than we could have every imagined anyway. As you say “Super Loving Woman” – including being this way with ourselves.
Hello Super Loving Woman! It was a pleasure to read your blog, thank you. Can’t we all identify with many of these roles, – so thank you for “All for what???” It’s about time to live for ourselves from within instead of other people’s terms. What stood out for me in your blog was this: “The recognition I was receiving from the roles I was performing made me do it even more, with more force at the cost of my health and well-being.” OUCH! SO, – awesome to read about your transformation from Super Doing to Super Loving. Love it.
Hi Pinky, thanks for your honest sharing .Its great to come to the awareness that good is not it and the many different faces of good. With our body always reflecting what it’s like to live in the energy of good -exhausted, racy, anxious etc -not good at all.
Dear Pinky, Thank you for sharing your story. You have been successful at being “Good” in all your many roles. But it is still not fulfilling and sounds exhausting. It is very honest of you to admit that it didn’t work for you deep down, worsened by the anxiousness this momentum was creating. I can relate to your situation. Even though I didn’t juggle as many roles,I too have felt the anxiousness and the ” being good” and have arrived at the same destination as you Pinky. I look forward to read how you have turned your life around by being a ” Super Loving woman” ,
Pinky, I know this tale so well, ignoring what is there on the inside and instead looking outside for recognition and acceptance in what I do. This is something I am still working with. Thank you for this beautiful reminder to deepen my connection to all that lay within.
Thankyou Pinky I can totally relate to much of what you have shared, I used to think I was having a good day if I got all the tasks on my list done before dinner! Never mind my beingness in executing those tasks (often having more than one on the go at a time) the important thing was to just get them done!
I soon began to notice that no matter how much I did there was always more.. So even if no one noticed and appreciated what I got done, I couldn’t even bask in any self appreciation because even if I got it done it would never stay done or it was overshadowed by the next thing demanding my attention.
I now realize it is totally not about the doing, there will always be lots to do. The most important thing is that it is me and all of me being there in every moment of everything that I do 😀
Thank you Pinky. Your article reveals how exhausting it is, I relate to it well. It really brings home all the roles we go into where really all we need to do is be ourselves lovingly.
It is a sad reality that women feel they need to play these multitude of different roles and do them all perfectly, forgetting that the only important thing is honour the true woman that they are. Thank you Pinky for the reminder.
A great sharing Pinky and one well worth rereading thank you. I can also relate to finding my self worth and the recognition looked for throughout my life whilst not really being aware of this and this needs addressing on a moment by moment basis. It is definitely like a drug and defended like one also to simply not feel the emptyness when in fact we are innately love.
Thanks Pinky for your excellent description of being a slave to things outside of us, in other words a lack of self worth. I can relate to a lot of what you describe here. It occurs to me that seeking recognition can be a bit like a drug and we can get ‘hooked’ on the high we get when people do recognise us or ‘pat us on the back’ and this makes us forget the carnage it is causing to us and others as you said. And the ‘recognition high’ is fleeting and over very quickly leaving us feeling empty on the other side and wanting more or seeking the next hit of recognition.
I can definitely relate to what you have written Andrew, as I still have to watch out for wanting recognition. What has been revealed to me is the extent of what I and others will do to get recognition and in some cases actions can be extreme. I can see how you liken it to a drug and that when I think of it, its something I have been getting a hit from, from a very young age.
What you shared here Andrew really hit home for me. Being a slave to our lack of self worth and that drive to get a task done no matter what, even to our own detriment, is horrible. What this points out for me is that the expression of appreciation for myself builds that sense of feeling worthy regardless of what I do. I deserve quality not just any action by any means.
Hi Pinky, I can relate to the wearing of many hats and finding none of it satisfying. I had the belief that I should act in a certain way and all the time I felt exhausted and unappreciated. Looking back it seems crazy to me now and I can see that I did not appreciate myself, as I was too busy doing and trying to be perfect for everyone. No one expected me to be perfect, that was just my own picture of how I should be in the world.
Dear Pinky, thank you for this honest sharing. What struck me most by reading all the comments is how we all experience somewhat the same be it woman or man, young or old. This very much shows me how we are all driven by the same ideals and believes and yet we think we are individuals and stand alone with the problems that we have. What a blessing to have blogs like this and so many people sharing how it has been for them with an honesty that is gold for all.
I have previously identified myself too by the ‘hats’ I’ve worn in the roles I’ve played; so much that they became me, at work and at home. It’s absolutely exhausting keeping it up. I’m still working on the entrenched ones, this sort of blog is very supportive with the process, thank you, Pinky.
Blogs like these just continue to inspire me to break through anything that gets in the way of my living with a true sense of self-value. Thank you.
I had a period of my young life, when we are at our strongest (and dumbest) and I was going to college full time and had one full time job and 2 part time jobs and a girl friend that lived an hour drive from me. I had Tuesday and Thursday from 5 pm to 3 am free to go and see my girl friend, it did not include driving time. On the other nights at best was a 3-hour nap between jobs. This worked fine till after 3 months my body finally said NO…I fell asleep at one of my jobs and got sacked, I went home and slept for 3 days. It is crazy what we will do to ourselves with no regard to what we are doing to our body.
I love reading your blog Pinky, particularly ‘From a Super Doing woman to a Super Loving woman’, beautiful!
It is a little crazy how we complicate our lives with the different roles we play through life. When it is written down so clearly as you have it is easy to see why we end up exhausted and lose who we are as women. I know I have. And as you say “for what?” I can see that even though we may play different parts in our play, a lack of self worth has acted as the stage I stand on. Thank you Pinky for laying it out like this.
I am really beginning to understand how lack of self worth and self loathing play a big part in why we take on all these different roles. The more I allow myself to appreciate me the more I can see how self loathing has held me back. As long as I choose self loathing I find it impossible to appreciate myself, as my thoughts remain negative and self deprecating. To not feel the self loathing I have to go into a drive, to push myself, so I can so relate to what you have written in your blog Pinky.
I can relate so much to this Pinky, “The recognition I was receiving from the roles I was performing made me do it even more, with more force at the cost of my health and well-being.” And not only is it the recognition from others that I have found to be a driving force, but also feeling that I am any worthy of my place in world if I am doing (and seen to be doing) things that I have placed on my own ‘worthiness scale’. The fact that I can never measure up in this self-imposed measurement is exposing that what I do is so not the point. What grows my self-worth is loving appreciation and acceptance of myself and not how much I measure up to the roles I think I should be playing or how much I have on my ‘to do’ list. Thank you for writing with such clarity Pinky. You have supported me to go much deeper with this.
Looking outside for approval and recognition is a never- ending exhausting journey. I only ever felt as good as the last morsel of praise, then was looking for the next fix to keep me going. Knowing now that deep inside I am fine, whatever the outside world thinks of me and may express to me, gives me a great foundation on which to build a stronger, more loving me.
I have read both your blogs now Pinky. Thanks for sharing your journey ‘from a Super Doing woman to a Super Loving woman.’ Having spent many years getting exhausted trying to be the super doing woman, I too am loving the changes I have made on my road to becoming more self loving.
It is great to reflect back, for me it was only a few years ago how my life was all about others how I could support them and how I could provide for my family. It was always outside of me. When I started to attend workshops and courses from Universal Medicine I became aware that I had to look after myself first to then be there for everyone else. I have completely shifted in the way I live, my love has deepened for everyone, I am no longer angry or frustrated with self or others. This has created a deeper love and self worth which I take with me daily. This has a beautiful ripple effect at work as everyone can feel the change. As well as my relationships with others, my expressions have flourished.
I agree, the push and the drive to be recognised is indeed relentless and we absolutely exhaust ourselves in the process. Looking forward to reading part 2!…..’From a Super Doing woman to a Super Loving woman,’…..thank you Pinky
I have spent this lifetime over achieving doing more to the point by becoming something college professors had informed us of not to do, become over qualified because it would make it harder to get a job…and it has. It had been a drive to be a better whatever it was I was doing… I had become a sponge of useless information on how things worked. As technology advanced, I had to stay knowledgeable and added to the pile of stuff in my head. As you said the cycle was never ending…I have stopped looking to fill myself with things that are outside of me and my concentration is now on what is inside of me. I am a work in progress finding my inner self worth.
Hi Steve – what a great job to have, ‘I am a work in progress finding my inner self worth.’
I love the way you clearly lay out the roles so simply. It makes it so obvious what we do, and yet I too have played the same game, the same roles, and the same exhaustion and outcome of feeling wrecked rather than fulfilled. Time for a different approach…
Praise, recognition, doing well, they are such very powerful drugs, and as you so poignantly point out, their effect, whilst oh so powerful, is so very fleeting. They puff us up, and then we deflate, left to feel the emptiness that was always there. And so we keep searching, and looking, and doing whatever it takes to get that next hit of praise or success, or we mourn their absence, forgetting that it is the emptiness and misery that we need to feel, that we need to address, and not just the absence of our ‘drug’ induced high.
Reading this article again, I appreciate even more how much you have changed because I too have shared similar experiences – especially with parenting and marriage. But what is interesting is that I would work so hard, probably as hard as you, at being un-noticed. I would gain in some way an equal amount of recognition but it was always from under-achieving and not being recognised. In a sense, I would make failure my driving force.
To recognise that being a SuperWoman involves less doing and more being is a huge step for so many of us, and to change the inner critical dialogue to one of appreciation is a journey I am truly only just beginning, but it already feels great!
I agree Carmel, learning how to appreciate naturally quietens the inner critique which seems so obvious but it has taken many many months for me to get to appreciate the value in appreciating and I feel I am only just beginning.
I have a deep understanding of the path unfolded within this blog. Amazingly honest. When you are hooked on the recognition as mentioned above, letting going of being perfect is one of the hardest drugs out there, because you make the drug out of your emotions – it’s such a brilliant piece of human engineering. Admitting you do not agree, do not want to, and put yourself first feels like an absolute mountain to climb and fear sets in. I too (through the support of Universal Medicine) am now just starting to deal with this addiction, but it is like you a road I am prepared to tread. Very much looking forward to your next blog Pinky.
…’being perfect is one of the hardest drugs out there’, That’s an excellent way of putting it Phill, perfection can indeed be just as addictive as any drug.
So many roles, so much energy taken to keep them going, all to be seen as ‘Being Good.’ Great to see this for what it is!
Pinky, thank you for sharing your experience of ‘doing’ and ‘living’ for recognition from outside – to fill oneself up. I can relate to most of your experiences as I feel many women will too also. I really loved what you called your ‘TO DO LIST’, and how the ticking off of this list gave you a sense of achievement. I can still see how this can creep into my own day, and when it does, I know it is a marker that I have come away from the pure acceptance and appreciation of who I am as being enough.
I can relate so much to what you are describing Pinky and the need I had 1) to be recognised and loved by others and 2) to be useful to others and society. It is a very draining way of living and my health suffered as a result. Thanks to Serge Benhayon and Universal Medicine I realised that this way of life came from my disconnection to myself and that there is a more beautiful way of BEING in the world.
I agree Maryline, part of me wonders what would have happened if I hadn’t found the Universal Medicine team. I certainly had been living my life in a very energy sapping way, without realising that in fact did nothing to truly support others or be a useful member of society.
I can relate to how you talk about looking for proof of your worth outside of yourself, I have done this myself. I did it for many years. It does not work…Over the last few years I have building a foundation of self respect and self worth that is very supportive and I am able to feel pretty much content and consistent what ever I encounter. It feels great and I am only just starting to appreciate the power of building this foundation.
This feels very beautiful Samantha, and perhaps something you could share with us all in your own blog?
Changing from, “looking outside of myself for recognition to finding my self worth in the growing appreciation of myself” is such an amazing thing.
Thank you for sharing this Pinky. I can relate to every aspect of what you have shared. This has enabled me to now reflect on where I see my own self worth. I very much look forward to part two.
Wow Pinky you really went for Gold. I know I too have done many things for recognition and to be ‘good’, the good girl in particular struck a chord with me. I look forward to reading the sequel to this blog.
The ‘good girl’ struck a cord with me too and ‘your mother knows best’ is reminiscent of my childhood. I have done things for recognition, pushing my body so hard in order to achieve and it did not really matter what I achieved as long as I achieved. Great blog Pinky.
Re-reading this, I am struck again by how many roles woman generally expect themselves to live up to and, for myself, how exhausting it has been to not just be myself.
Beautifully and succinctly expressed Janet – and yes it is exhausting living up to roles and the expectations we have of ourselves to play them.
It’s such a relief to realise I don’t have to be anyone but myself. And in that being I can still ‘do’ the the things I need to do, as I need to do them, no multitasking, no trying, no stress.
I can really relate to what you have shared Pinky, pushing my body past its limits to have the perfect looking life, to be recognised. Thank you for sharing, and I look forward to your next blog!
Pinky, I too grew up as a little girl looking for recognition outside of me, like you as a sister, daughter, friend, employee and daughter in law. You are so right to say you become like a super women rushing and doing, and forget about the self and feel exhausted all the time. I too put a stop to this after meeting Universal Medicine. The practitioners have been amazing, not only I am no longer exhausted, but I have healed so many areas in my body as I have started to focus on my self worth.
I can relate to doing the good wife thing. In my first marriage I had an idea in my head of what it meant to be a good wife i.e. make sure the dinner was always cooked on time, put my husband before myself, go without, house had to be spotless, have sex when he wanted it regardless of what I was feeling, go to military functions so that it would look good for my husband. I even had a good housekeeping book which gave me tips on how to be the perfect wife and all based on pleasing your husband. Everything revolved around being perfect and getting recognition.
I agree Mary, I lived that way also in my past marriage, and it took me a long time to be able to get honest, and realise that it had been my choice to do this. The resentment and bitterness that had built up inside was enormous, because I wasn’t honouring me first in my relationship….in all my relationships. I have found this also as a mother, constantly doing things for the children, to get the love I was refusing to offer myself. Now I am developing a new way….that is consistently honouring myself for the woman I am, and allowing all my relationships to grow from this point.
I can really relate to everything in this blog. In fact I think I might be the male version of Pinky! Up until relatively recently I used to push and drive myself and my body really hard just for the occasional nod of approval or ‘pat on the back’ that would come my way from others. This being recognised or feeling worthwhile based on my actions or achievements can become a bit of an addiction and an obsession and certainly led me to completely ignore the warning signs that my body was telling me. There is also a lot of pressure on men to perform, to be unbreakable and to hold up a certain image and I am still unpicking this image I have fallen for but I do know it feels great to being doing so.
Great comment Andrew, it’s incredible how we fall for roles that lead us pushing our bodies for ‘the occasional nod of approval or ‘pat on the back’ that would come my way from others.’ And how this pursuit of recognition led us feeling empty and bad when the nod or ‘pat’ does not come.
Very beautiful Andrew to have the point of view of a man on the pressure to perform.
Thank you for sharing Andrew, it is amazing to see the enormous pressure we put ourselves under to become an ideal man or woman. It is such a deception. You have given me a deeper understanding of just how amazing it is to discover how glorious we are, just being ourselves.
Reading your comment Andrew has confirmed to me that we really are all the same, men and women, ultimately that is, the game might look a little different, but the same way of trying to live up to an image that we (society) have ourselves created out of our own choices to step away from the simplicity of knowing and living our divinity. Crazy! We are playing the game that we ourselves created!
I find myself that I have got off on the high I get from being recognised for something that I have done, or an image I have portrayed. And it is only now that I am really seeing this, and then the language comes in, ‘ you don’t need this, you are already enough’…it is a process that goes slowly for me.
Thanks Andrew, it is great to have the male perspective here too. At the end of the day, it is the similar roles we all play out which bring the the same results – total exhaustion to our bodies which if not felt, just carries on until the body stops us with illness and disease.
Absolutely there is very little difference at this level between men and women. Both are beings in charge of their bodies. Both have a responsibility to not adjust themselves to suit others…more to keep growing themselves and bringing all of the lovely glory to each relationship.
This has paused me to ponder on many things. I too would call truth to my parents and be berated for it so much so that I gave up. Which shows me how little I truly valued what was inside because if I’d have felt that value and not valued the outside, I would never have given up on what I knew to be true.
I’ve done the same when I was a young child. Gradually, as I grew older I became more discerning and stood up for myself more on what I felt was true. Its still work in progress.
Yes I too gave up – on myself and my connection to truth. I am enjoying the journey back: realising the power and clarity of being honest and truthful and recognising whenever I go into seeking recognition and playing roles I feel I need to play in order to get said recognition. There is a freedom to be me that comes with letting go of seeking approval based on a universal love that I am beginning to glimspe that is far greater than any recognition can bring.
Beautifully said Karin, and honest as you say. I can relate to what you have shared. How letting go of the need for recognition from outside, by connecting to the love that is within, is slowly changing my own life and the way I see things. It took me a long time to surrender to the truth that within me is a love far greater then any acceptance or recognition the outside has to offer me. I was so used to this version of love, and in a way one could say I was a junkie for it. The former, the great love that I am now discovering within was an idea I was just playing with in my mind, and not something I was accepting in my body. Now that I am beginning to accept this in my body, everything is changing, and this process is truly beautiful. A return to who I truly am.
How exhausting. The roller coaster of the ‘to do’ list and as soon as you tick off some from the top of the list you add more to be bottom. I know this one as a sort of justifying my own existence to always be needed and useful and to be seen to be doing. Serge Benhayon and Universal Medicine has shown me that there is a different way to live and just be me in everything I choose to do. My life is no longer exhausting and I am getting to know and enjoy the true me.
Its like a dog frantically digging a hole, the faster it digs, the more sand fills in for it to dig out again…. as you say Mary, exhausting!!
I agree Mary and Rachael – it is as if nothing is enough – a constant trying to prove to yourself and others. I am learning, having been shown by Universal Medicine, that the more I take time to appreciate my self and what I am doing the less I feel I need that recognition from others that what I am doing is enough, amazing, or the best! It is an exhausting roller coaster I was on non-stop and catch myself on at times.
I’m with you Mary – when I was reading Pinky’s honest and extensive list of her roles that she enacted so well – I was exhausted just reading it !!! But aware i had done and am still ‘ doing’ some of these roles. As Pinky beautifully put – its a never ending cycle and you never stop to get to know yourself. Like you I have been inspired by Serge Benhayon and Universal Medicine that there is another way to live. So over the last few years I have been coming back to getting to know and appreciate myself. It is such a relief to be gradually letting go of ‘ the doing’ and be more content in just ‘ being’.
What I find amazing is the layers of ‘doing’ in that I have been ‘doing’ the ‘doing’ for so long now. There is a retraining taking place within me – coming back to the ‘being’ rather then the ‘doing’. Recently I have been feeling myself becoming aware much quicker when I am in any drive and looking to be recognised for something I am ‘doing’. And so without being hard on myself, I realise this comes from a lack of contentedness in just being me. I am feeling this contentedness more and more and it is most certainly something to celebrate. Reminding myself today and all days that it is me who must take the lead in my life and way of being, with deep appreciation for the inspiration of Serge Benhayon and all those around me already embracing this way of ‘being’.
Thank you, Pinky, the more we talk about the multitude of roles we take on, the clearer and closer we are to being honest about the endless pressure we put ourselves under, and I love that fact that you have exposed so beautifully the relentlessness of it: one moment of ‘achievement’ closely followed by the need to perform the next task. The perpetual cycle of puffed up-ness followed by emptiness, since it is not a true way to be in life and in relationship with ourselves. Looking forward to Part 2!
Yes Matilda I can attest to the relentlessness of thinking I have to study for example to get qualifications so i can get a good job – rather than really appreciating what I bring and connecting to the inner wisdom I hold and can express from.
It is amazing the pressure that we put ourselves under to achieve acceptance and approval from the outside world. I can so relate to much of what you say as I too lived a life that was seeking outside approval to fill up that empty inside. For years I use to talk about a numb feeling inside without feeling there was anything I could do to change it. For some long time I used to go to a self-help group and this fixed the problem short term but it wasn’t until I began seeing an esoteric practitioner that things really started to change in the way that I was feeling inside. I now live an amazing life – and yes, I still have feelings to deal with but these feelings are not denied any more. In fact they are the beginning of a new phase of unfoldment and deepen my commitment to life.
Amazing job Sue! Even when it’s just feeling the feeling of being numb… We all have to start somewhere! It’s such a huge momentum for me personally to halt and to look within rather than give my power away to all the things on the outside that I have zip control over…
I can definitely relate to ‘having’ to be a good daughter or a good sister and a good student, it’s crazy how much pressure we put on ourselves to live up to our own expectations. Great blog, thank you for sharing
Whew, feel exhausted just reading this! Powerful question “and for what?”. Its an amazing moment when we can take a step outside of our lives for a moment and ask “what on earth am I doing all this for?”. Looking forward to part 2 and thank you Pinky for so honestly sharing your journey.
I can relate to all the roles you described. I had always put others before myself believing that was the only way to be. If everyone else was “happy” then I was, particularly as a mother & daughter. It was an exhausting way to be, as it was a never ending cycle of trying to please others.I am learning to put myself first , and everyone benefits that way.Appreciation of oneself is key, and as you say change “from a super doing woman to a super loving woman “.Looking forward to your next blog Pinky.
“Any happiness I would feel was always momentary as the excitement of an achievement would pass in a day and I would be left with my emptiness to do/achieve/get recognised again. The cycle was never ending…”
When you are able to feel this for yourself it is very empowering for it enables you to make choices counter to everything that you’ve thought you should do up until this point. Understanding that doing things and achieving even great feats will not fill you up or satisfy your thirst, supports us to stick with what is truly important – the glory and beauty of us.
It really is amazing how many roles we can take on and how good we can be at them and how much recognition we can gain in so doing. And as you say it just leaves us exhausted and believing or pretending ‘ that’s life.’ A roller-coaster way to live. What’s more amazing is that you have chosen to change all that and move “from a Super Doing Woman to a Super Loving Woman” as you grow in your appreciation of yourself. That’s awesome. Looking forward to the next installment.
I too know that drive for recognition and stress only too well. I was aware of the moments of elation when I was seen to do something really well, but I never seemed to question whether there was a relationship between that striving, those moments and the near constant anxiety and self doubt that I felt. I now wonder whether there is a direct relationship, and that the more that I looked for recognition, the more anxious I felt, and the more that I doubted myself.
Thank you, Pinky for your honesty in sharing the constant drive in your life of ‘doing good’. I am sure most women can relate to this or aspects of this way of life. I know I can and I love how you have broken down the various roles throughout your life. This is a great exercise to do for ourselves to capture the degree of sell out to ‘good’. I am learning through attending Universal Medicine courses that seeking recognition in what I do coming from a lack of self worth has been a cause of disease in my body. Accepting me as I am and valuing this has been a counter to the never-ending treadmill of life.
I can relate to a lot of what you are saying about playing many different roles in my life to get recognised for doing something. I found that I was different with one person than I am to another and then try to do something to please each one – exhausting.
It is good to have a reminder to watch out for those old patterns.
It is a hard nut to crack the valuing ourselves by what we do and are seen to do by others. I also was on this treadmill of never living up to my own expectations of what I thought others thought of me. Always trying to do better and never being good enough. The presentations of Serge Benhayon and Universal Medicine have shown me how to choose to reconnect to the tender beautiful child and woman I am, and always have been. In choosing self love, my love for myself and those I meet continues to grow and I am enough just being me. Goodbye treadmill.
Wow, it’s exhausting just reading everything you were doing. I feel like so many of us live our lives this way though, and think that that is the way we should be living. There are many aspects of your blog that I relate to myself, and I am realising the huge amount of pressure I put on myself, and the harm it does. I am realising that living that way takes all the fun, joy and appreciation out of life, so I’m working on bringing those aspects into every moment of my day. Looking forward to your part 2…
Pinky, I can relate to a lot of what you say here, especially the part about being ‘the good daughter’ and not speaking against adults and parents. I can’t wait to read your next blog!
Wow Pinky, a wonderful reminder of how exhausting and draining our life becomes when we look outside ourselves for recognition hidden in the various roles we play .
I can soo… relate to what you have written- but for me it was under the guise of being a “good catholic girl”
Look forward to reading your next unfoldment
Great blog Pinky, I relate to every word deeply coming as an expert of looking outside of myself for recognition and acceptance, it’s a lonely place out there so always preferable to remember we all have everything we need right there on the inside 🙂
Exactly – well said Rachael
Looking forward to reading about your growing appreciation of you. Thanks for your honesty Pinky.
Me too Fiona!
Ah yes, the ‘being good’ syndrome. I know it well. The quest,the purpose, the high on the summit, the momentary external recognition, approval or acceptance, the relief, the all-too-soon self-worth blood sugar dip, requiring an immediate fix with a new sugar-coated pre-occupation to bring the self-worth levels back up again. All this when we look outside ourselves for our source of validation. The most supportive thing I know I can do when I find this happening is to look at why I run this unrelenting game with myself – what’s really behind my lack of self-worth – and to use honesty as a way to make more self-caring choices which then drop that need to be all things to all people and run my body like a machine..
‘On the outside, I was this Super woman who could do it all, but inside I was feeling exhausted’ – this is a reality for so many women, thank you for exposing how vicious this tiring cycle can be!
Hi Pinky, wow it was exhausting, wasn’t it? I can feel that because of course I, too, did my own version and am so glad I have made life to be about Love first. It is amazing that when we begin to truly support ourselves, it allows others in to support us – for until then it seems like ‘we’ve got it all covered’, which of course, in reality means, all except for us! From one Super Loving Woman to another Super Loving Woman, bring on that next blog!!
Thank you Pinky for such a beautiful blog. I can relate to your story too and recognize all the roles I have taken on in my life just to fill the hole within myself because I was looking outside for recognition and love. Now I know this didn’t work for my own health and well-being but just distracted me from being who I really am and expressing that in my every day life as the love that I am–thanks to Universal Medicine.
Hi Pinky what a great blog. I can very much relate. My need for recognition and acceptance that I belonged, am worth while created such tension and anxiety in me I often got stuck in my head and couldn’t complete a sentence. Being so incoherent somewhat hindered my quest for acceptance and recognition in the roles I was trying desperately to excel at.
I have a few tell tale clues like not completing sentences, feeling rushed, out of time, pressurised, and actually lots more clues that I’ve identified that let me know I’ve left myself and am seeking something from someone. I am often surprised how common it is with me but rather than berate myself I welcome each awareness. It’s an opportunity to come back to myself and be there for myself in an intimate and more loving way than what i originally sought from another.
Being self-loving I am learning, albeit slowly, is something I can do for myself. Somewhere, somehow I started believing the love of another was more powerful, special. meaningful, than my own for myself. By not paying attention to feeling the potential of how much I can self-love and nurturing myself this certainly gave validity to this belief. A self-perpetuating cycle of essentially being a victim to what the world would give me in terms of love and recognition.
And to add, often the love I so craved from the world wasn’t real love but emotional needy love of what can I do for the other person and them for me. The love I am only getting glimpse of that’s inside me is huge and amazing. So really looking forward to your next blog of appreciation of yourself.
Dear Pinky what a exhausting life you describe and i can relate to in many ways .I also feel many women can relate to this trying to be good ,get it right and fill the emptyness with doing and looking for recognition.Thank you for sharing this so beautifully from a “super doing to a super being woman”.Most of us have not been brought up to be honoured for who we are simply and loved for this and our quality of being but thanks to blogs like this with Universal Medicine setting the way forward there is another way of living being shown to the world and it is inspirational.
Beautifully captured in your sharing Tricia, I definitely used to be constantly, ‘trying to be good ,get it right and fill the emptyness with doing and looking for recognition’. Exhausting, and as you say, ‘Most of us have not been brought up to be honoured for who we are simply and loved for this and our quality of being’. How amazing that will be.
Wow Pinky, that sounds exhausting fulfilling all of those roles every day! Looking forward to your next blog about how you went from being a “super doing woman to a super loving woman”
Thanks Pinky for this blog it rings so true for all the roles we take on as women. I totally understand the TO DO LIST that never ended and left me feeling empty over the years. When we connect to our self worth as you said Pinky the recognition is no longer needed. I can’t wait to read your next blog.
This is a very honest recap of the cycle we can so easily get sucked into.
When you say that ‘doing’ filled an emptiness, and would give a false sense of momentary happiness – I can completely relate to this pull. And then you feel empty – so you seek it again.
It’s like a drug really – that I wasn’t even really aware of.
Being nice and doing had been so ingrained into my everyday life that I didn’t know there was any other way.
Reading something like this is an amazing reminder that it isn’t about everyone else first – and that we can be more loving than doing.
Thanks Beverley, Stephanie, Susan & Gill. It was exhausting to live like that in all doing and not knowing that there is another way that is so loving. It feels soo freeing to not live in that cycle anymore with all the support from Universal Medicine and practitioners.
Ariana, I used to wake up feeling like I had too much to do and from the time I would be up, I would be up, up and on the go. Was really exhausting, I would be really tired by 9am in morning and had the whole day of doing ahead of me!
Yes, going to courses offered by Serge and seeing Universal Medicine practitioners really supported me and help shift my ways from doing to loving ❤
Pinky I can completely relate to that, I use too and sometimes still get caught in it that I have so much to do. If I don’t catch myself that I am in that pattern then I am tired a few hours into my day. However when i stop and allow myself to connect to me, allow myself to feel where I am at with my body and work through a list in a gentle rhythm, I feel completely different. So what I am finding bring present back to each moment makes a lot of difference.
A great blog Pinky, thankyou for sharing your move from super-doing to super- loving. I too can so relate to performing so many roles, looking outside myself for approval to the utter disregard of myself. How unloving was that. There was no quality in any of my actions, so not supporting anyone in truth. Deep appreciation to Serge Benhayon and Universal Medicine for showing me how to look within and trust that place of inner knowing and listen to what my body is telling me – very often crying out “stop!”
Great checklist, I think we’ve all ticked those boxes before! Thinking that was what was needed of us, the strive to get it all done, perfectly at that. And as you say, what for? At whose expense? I look forward to reading the next installment….
I am struck by the pressure you put on yourself to perform all these roles at great expense to your health and wellbeing and how transitory any feelings of achievement were. I can relate to many of the roles you shoe-horned yourself into and the emptiness and feelings of exhaustion and resentment that goes with that. Thank you Pinky and I am looking forward to hearing about how you turned it around and your growing appreciation for yourself.
Pinky you have written universally what almost everyone feels. It is true there are so many roles we play, and so many pressures we feel to be good at things, the huge lengths we go to all for some recognition – all at the detriment of caring for ourselves first.
Well said Meg. And it is interesting that we may think we are doing a ‘good’ thing, but in the end it is not good not only for ourselves as for others around us as well.
So true Meg. What Pinky has shared is Universal. A huge distraction that keeps us away from claiming our true worth and the power that comes appreciating and connecting to ourselves.
Hi Pinky, thank you for this blog, I really enjoyed reading it because I too have spent most of my life trying so hard to fulfil all the roles I thought were needed of me, in total disregard of the person I am inside.
Well said, Shami. No doubt, many of us can relate to striving through life “in total disregard of the person I am inside”. With the deepest appreciation to Universal Medicine for showing us another way.
Thank you, Pinky, for this wonderful blog that is so easy to relate to. I can recognise the drive and the living life in the future of what needs to be done rather than enjoying the moment you are in and appreciating what you’ve got. As Victoria says above, there can be a lot of pressure to ‘become’ rather than to ‘be’, and it can be crippling to live up to this all of the time. My relationships were ‘on the go’ and a means to an end, so there was little true connection to myself or others. And as others have said, thank goodness for Universal Medicine, for pointing out this exhausting cycle and presenting another way to be.
Oh that ‘to do’ list! It’s so easy to let it take over and forget about ourselves. I love how you highlight how this is for everyone else and how you are seen by them. Looking forward to your next blog.
Great blog exposing the falseness of living up to roles we have taken on for recognition and how it becomes a never ending treadmill of “trying to fill the emptiness I was feeling inside with the things I did and had to keep doing, looking for recognition on things outside of me.”
Thank you for sharing Pinky, I can totally relate to your story about wanting to literally please everyone around you, it is something I have always done, it is extremely tiring and only produces external results at the sake of my body. What I am now finding is that the more I look after my body and say what I feel the more people get the real me and the closer, more intimate, all my relationships with others become instead of staying superficial. I am looking forward to part 2 of your story!
Very well said James… and it’s incredible how looking after your body and making choices that feel true for you, can have such an impact on your relationships with others, which are then less super-ficial and more super-loving!
I love it how gradually the more open I have become with others, with friends and work colleagues the more loving our relationships have become – the love and care felt in our interactions is deepening – and it all stems back from looking after my body and making choices which I feel to be true. I am by no means perfect and things come up. I am finding that the more time I give to myself, the more time I in turn have and give to others.
Great article Pinky. I relate well to what you say and I feel it is a familiar case for many. I love the part about the role of super mum
“These activities seemed all enjoyable, but my To-Do-and-Achieve list for kids did not fill me, or the kids up. It actually left me feeling drained, tired, resentful and not at all happy and of course, the kids felt the stress too.”
I remember enrolling my son into many clubs and at times he would just look at me and say ‘can we just stay at home tonight” I was getting him exhausted in my attempt to prove myself as a mum. His appreciation of sharing time at home was far more beautiful than the exhaustion i was choosing to put us both in.
“I was trying to fill the emptiness I was feeling inside with the things I did and had to keep doing, looking for recognition on things outside of me” The never ending cycle in the pursuit of recognition is exhausting and will always always end up catching up with us. I love Pinky how you have honesty exposed your need to be good in order to hide deeper feelings of emptiness. How amazing it would be if from an early age, education involved learning to accept ourselves as we are and the importance of staying true to ourselves.
Hear, hear Samantha. Our education has been geared for us to seek our worth through constant performing, what we ‘do’… As a music teacher (working privately, not in the school system), I see the effects daily. And yet, so often children remain very ready when the opportunity is offered to them, to be and naturally express themselves without all the expectations and pressure. I see this in children both ‘big’ and small… For some it’s a bit of a shock to be allowed to be themselves, for others, they step into it like a duck to water and enjoy every moment.
I agree Samantha and Victoria, it would be and will be amazing when ‘education involves learning to accept ourselves as we are and the importance of staying true to ourselves’. Growing up with this teaching would/will be soo very freeing, taking away the importance from what we ‘do’ to who we ‘are’.
I could have written this blog, you describe what could easily have been my life, the constant pushing myself, and just for that bit of recognition to attempt to fill the empty feeling deep inside. I too was brought to a stop, and had to re-evaluate my life. Attending talks and courses by Serge Benhayon and Universal medicine have helped me shift this behaviour, be more aware, and so make more self loving and honouring choices.
I look forward to reading more Pinky. The way you have broken down all of the roles is brilliant. I can relate to many. The glorious thing is that without the Esoteric Women’s Presentations by Natalie Benhayon and women like yourself who are breaking the mould, I would have carried on seeing all of these roles as normal and a natural part of being a woman. What I am coming to accept is that none of these roles have anything to do with who we really are as women and this is very liberating!
Hi Pinky I can relate to much of what you have written, especially about being a super-mum and rushing around trying to do-it-all. Since becoming a student of Universal Medicine I too have transformed the way I live and now no longer try and please everyone or live up to crazy unobtainable self imposed ideals. I am looking froward to reading the second part of your blog.
Wow Pinky, I will be watching this space for your next blog. That was an amazing presentation and exposure of the myth that it is in ‘doing’ that we find Love and fulfilment. I love the way you write, ‘Super Loving Woman’!
I love your words Lyndy. What a ‘myth’ it is indeed – one that needs so much breaking down.
As Pinky so beautifully expressed, the emptiness ever-remains when we are looking for the next ‘high’ through approval from outside of us. And we are left devoid of the love within ourselves that does know how to live life another way.
And look out – there are a quite a few ‘Super’ Loving Women putting their capes on, ready to lead the way! Bring on the next blog Pinky!
Thank-you Pinky for this awesome blog. Your words encapsulate so much: “Any happiness I would feel was always momentary as the excitement of an achievement would pass in a day and I would be left with my emptiness to do/achieve/get recognised again. The cycle was never ending…” This says it all.
I’ve been reflecting a lot lately on just how young the ‘achieving/seeking recognition/measuring up’ is set up for us. I can see it in my family from very young, on how those around me still felt they needed to ‘achieve’ more within themselves (no-one really knew any better), and seeing great potential for ‘achievement’ in me, thought that they were encouraging me in the right directions. Yet so much focus was upon what I may ‘become’, not who I was, and just allowing me to flower and find my way. Truth is, all of it hurt, and further fed the emptiness I also felt when I did ‘achieve’.
From the day I began school, this came in a super strong way. I felt a much bigger pressure to achieve and ‘do it all right’. We are ‘educated’ to be this way – exactly the multi-tasking box-ticker you have shared that you were. No-one ever shared about the balance within us, the importance of truly staying in touch with ourselves, that ‘I’ am enough as I am (and darn amazing and beautiful) ‘just being me’ – first and way foremost… No-one, until Universal Medicine that is.
And so the exhausting run on the hamster wheel begins, in all the myriad ways we may buy into it. The thing is, as you’ve so beautifully expressed, “the excitement of an achievement would pass in a day”… and we are left seeking more, with the inner voice saying all along, ‘this ain’t gonna cut it’.
I so look forward to your next blog, and how loving you and truly loving others has made such a difference in your life…
Hi Pinky (the Super Loving Woman). I can so relate to your blog and the exhaustion of all the doing. How lovely to let go of having to be the good Mum, good wife, good student etc, and just be you! To know you are worth so much more than judging yourself by what you do. I look forward to reading your next blog.
Great article exposing the notions of ‘good’ in every role we find ourselves in as women – and as you say – for what? Being truly loving leaves no space for seeking-recognition achieved via ‘doing or being good’ which is just draining and depleting trying to live up to all the ideals we buy into….Pinky I just love what you write here: “From a Super Doing woman to a Super Loving woman” — that’s the key isn’t it! Thank you.
I am exhausted just reading the roles you had to keep up with Pinky. Your blog really hi-lights how we start to take on way too many things in life from an early age because we know we are good at them and we know we will get recognised. Once we start this cycle, it is like being on a tread mill we just keep going and we don’t get off, we promise ourselves we will, but when it comes to it we never do, we forget to press the stop button. This line is so true, “I was so entrenched in doing all my roles in life. On the outside, I was this Super woman who could do it all, but inside I was feeling exhausted, stressed and resentful for all I had to do and always running from one role to another. I had lost sight of the actual ME.”
So true Alison. I remember in my late 40’s standing in the middle of a field and shouting ‘I AM HERE’. I had lost the real me, didn’t know who I was anymore, and felt that no one else did either. Slowly, and latterly with the inspiration of Serge Benhayon, the Universal Medicine courses, the Student Body and their blogs and comments, I am ‘outing’ myself as the unfettered, loving One I knew as a child. Work in progress, and each new uncovering is a delight.
I know what you mean Catherine. As we start to respond to the pain we feel in our bodies when we press on in pursuit of reward and recognition, we will start to honour ourselves and feel the deep love we already have inside and so then we will know there is no need to keep going a million miles an hour with all the roles and the doing because we will come to know that we are everything we want (love) already!
hi Pinky, I can very much relate to this blog but the part that struck me was starting a cycle of doing and then feeling you had to keep going in this. How I can see that this makes us so resentful and exhausted!
I agree Brendan, and it is all with the aim of looking for recognition – how crazy is that?
Great sharing Pinky. I can relate to several of the ‘roles’ you write of and all the searching and seeking for recognition and approval from outside of myself. From attending Universal Medicine courses I have become more aware of this vicious cycle and the exhaustion and stress it causes to the physical body. There is a growing appreciation of myself and my self worth too.
Hi Pinky,
I can feel the utter exhaustion that you describe in how you lived your life for so long. It is amazing what we do to ourselves when we don’t realise who we truly are. I can relate so much to what you say about self-worth. But what a wonderful change I can see in you now.
Lovely blog Pinky, I so recognise what you talk of, that constant pressure to do the next thing and as you rightly point out, any recognition received is short-lived and then it’s on to the next thing to do. Really we set ourselves up with this, having to constantly keep ahead and chase ourselves, it’s a fantastic way of keeping the focus out there and not within us. I’ve changed a lot with this over the last few years, yes I still get caught out there, but now I see it more and can sometimes stop and feel me, feel my body and then the quality of what I do changes. Really if we’re not there doing it, then who is and what’s it all for, a role, an ideal we’re crushing ourselves into and not us, the most valuable thing we bring.
Reading what your shared, Monica reminds of how a dog chasing his own tail 🙂 Never ending chase, leaving the poor dog really unsatisfied (bit like how I used to live)!!
I used to be quite critical of myself on not achieving what I had set myself to achieve the unachievable amount of things. For me it was an ideal of being soo good at everything – not wanting to fail myself. It was ridiculous. Now I’m not so self critical and as you shared I can catch myself going off in doing and just come back to feeling how I feel and start over. It’s quite simple to just feel and then restart!
Great image Pinky, that’s it exactly and we can stop it at any time, which we’re doing which is fantastic.
I love the analogy of the dog chasing its tail. Because this cycle is exactly like that. There is no end and no true satisfaction ever, but just a hope and busily going for it – and it exhausts us and takes us further and further away from the stillness within us we started off with. And after a while we end up believing that our role and value in life is in us chasing our tail!
Great to see it and realise we can choose to stop it any time.
Thank you for this article. A valuable read with these comments and discussions showing that there is a different way.