I’m beyond excited to welcome you to the very first episode of Cultivate: the Jenni Carroll Perspective. This podcast is all about discussing foundational universal spiritual principles so that we can better understand ourselves, our relationships and enjoy an easier and sweeter experience of life.
In the debut episode “Intrinsic Worth” I’m going to share my perspective on this most important spiritual truth. While many of us are familiar with the idea of self-esteem, intrinsic worth is the much deeper, enduring value that is present within each of us on arrival to our human lives and, most importantly, is not dependent on who we are or what we do.
Together we will explore the power of embracing this foundational truth and how it can lead us to improve the relationship we have with others as well as with ourselves. Understanding and accepting our intrinsic worth also helps us in embracing additional transformational principles such as Psychological Separation, Persistent Forgiveness and Primary Awareness.
Learning to accept and recognize our intrinsic worth offers us many benefits. We no longer need to look for personal validation in other people or other things, such as achievements, sacrifices or material goods. We are also able to recognize and appreciate the enduring value in others, despite their “bad” behavior or contrasting beliefs. As part of our purpose, it is our job to transcend the errors both in and around us, and accepting our intrinsic worth gives us the ability to achieve this amazing goal.
Are you curious to learn more about something much bigger than your self esteem? Please join me for this first and very important episode of Cultivate: the Jenni Carroll Perspective.
Thank you so much for listening. If you enjoyed the information presented in today's discussion, please consider subscribing to the Jenni Carroll Perspective.
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Welcome to the very first episode of the Jenni Carroll perspective, the creation of this podcast has been a very interesting and very unexpected journey to say the least. If someone had asked me a year ago, if I was interested in doing a podcast, I would have absolutely said no. But things change. And over the course of the last 7,8,9 months, I have found myself not only considering the possibility, but of sort of being gently nudged in this direction. But don't get me wrong, I've had many moments of resistant thoughts, such as what am I doing, I cannot do this, I don't want to do this. And one thing this experience has taught me is that it's really important to ignore those resistant thoughts and keep going. And that's what I've tried to do. So here I am. And thank you so much for joining me today. So before I jump into the topic that I would like to cover, I would like to tell you a little bit about myself, I have had the pleasure of working as a marriage and family therapist for a little over 20 years now. And my career has really brought me so much joy. And I really consider it to be the honor of my life. In addition to what this job has brought me personally, I also have to say it's been a very much an educational experience. Day after day setting with people talking about their most personal struggles, the most intimate aspects of their lives, you learn a thing or two. And one of the most important things that I've learned over the course of my career is that even though our lives may like may look very different on the outside, we share so much more than any of us realizes. And we also tend to get stuck in the same places, no matter what the particular issue is that we're dealing with. The things that get us stuck and unable to move forward, are really similar. So in addition to being a marriage and family therapist, I have also been married for 27 years, I have two sons, who are currently 21 and 19. And being a mom has always been really important to me and a big part of my purpose. But now that my kids are older, and more independent, it has given me the opportunity to focus on some other things. About two years ago, we also added a fifth member to our family, who is our Labradoodle rip again. So I am also now a dog mom, something that I also absolutely thought I would never be or do. And so me and change have been really tight these last couple of years. So you just never know. I have also been on a spiritual journey for a large part of my life. And even before I would identify being on some sort of journey or quest, I have always had a
very strong sense of self going back to my childhood. And what I've realized is this sense of self and some of the other just sort of ideas or principles by which I sort of quietly live my life are actually connected to some pretty foundational and transformational spiritual truths that really serve as a foundation to living life well and easier than a lot of people realize. So all of this brings me back to the why of this podcast. It is my hope, it is my desire to share some of these ideas that I have lived my life by with more people than I than I am currently able to see in my office on a regular basis. So the first idea that I would like to discuss is that of intrinsic work. If I've chosen intrinsic worth, because, in my opinion, it really is the idea from which everything else flows. And without an understanding of our intrinsic worth, it's really hard to apply some of the other ideas and principles that we will eventually talk about.
So in my early days, as a therapist, it became very clear very quickly, that for whatever reason, a person came into my office for whatever issue they happen to be struggling with, it could very easily be connected back to their sense of self worth. If someone had a strong understanding of their own value, it would be relatively easy to help talk them through the issues and make the connections that they needed in order to move forward in their life. But if the person that I was working with did not have a sense of their own value, it was much more difficult for them to come to terms with whatever was happening in their life at that moment, and do what they needed to do to make the decisions or choices that would support themselves in moving forward in a positive way. I would argue that for these people, therapy was still helpful. But the void, that their lack of self worth left was not something that seemed to go away. And continue to slow down their progress, and in some cases, completely stopped their progress. So when it comes to intrinsic worth, most of us are familiar with the idea of self esteem. And self esteem is the concept that we use more regularly to understand our value, we tend to use two things to define our self esteem. The first one is confidence. And the second is good works. So when it comes to confidence, if we are able to identify something we feel that we are good at whether it is our athleticism, our intellectual capabilities are social skills, we tend to use this to define our value, we recognize what we are good at, we feel confident about what we're good at. And therefore we feel like we appreciate our value. The other aspect of how we define our self esteem is what we tend to kind of consider our good works. And this could be many different comes up in many different areas. But it really is about how we give of ourself for the greater good, whether the greater good is our children, being a parent, if anybody is a parent listening, there's tons of sacrifices, constant sacrifice as a parent. So that might be one way that we would define ourselves value is, you know, doing our best to be a great mom or dad. So, confidence and good works are both important, and they both have merit. And certainly, they both contribute to our self esteem. But the thing about self esteem is that it is only sort of scratches the surface of the greater intrinsic value or intrinsic worth, that we all carry. Our internal value, our intrinsic worth, is so much more profound, and so much more enduring than what many of us think as self esteem. So what is intrinsic worth? One of the analogies that I often use in my practice, is to ask clients to think about being in the presence of a newborn. Anyone who has ever held a newborn, or even just been in the room with a new baby can feel the preciousness of that little soul. There is really no arguing the value of that new precious life. But interestingly, I remind my clients that this baby did absolutely nothing to earn that worth other than arriving
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other than showing up and so this priceless value that everyone can appreciate does not dissipate as the child grows up the baby as its arms and legs get longer and stronger, does not lose its value. And at first people tend to agree with this. I've never thought of it that way that makes total sense to me. But wait a few seconds. And I can almost read the trajectory of their thoughts. What about my mistakes? That thing I did. The way I've heard others, fallen short, failed to be the person that I should be. And just like that, the preciousness, the value quickly fades away. For many years, most of my career actually, I believe that intrinsic worth was taught. And I believe that the primary responsibility to teach intrinsic worth was in the hands of the parents. If a child received bad messages, if they receive the message, that they weren't good enough that their feelings didn't matter, that they weren't important, it would be very difficult for that child to truly learn to appreciate their own value, and meet even more tragically, in the situations of trauma, or severe abuse. It would be almost impossible for a child to really understand and accept their own innate value. Oftentimes, one of the main focuses of my work as a therapist was helping people identify and challenge the faulty messages they received as kids or teens. But frustratingly, this work didn't usually translate into a new way of thinking for my clients. Even the people that really wanted to change or feel differently, continue to struggle. Then one day, it was in April of 2020, I was meditating, I was doing a lot of spiritual work at that time, as you can imagine why. And during that meditation, I had an epiphany. And the epiphany was that self worth is not taught. Instead, self worth is remembered. That moment in time was life changing for many reasons, but not the least of which was the revelation that the work that I was doing with clients, was maybe going down the wrong path. It wasn't necessarily about breaking down and challenging every incorrect or negative message. In fact, the messages themselves didn't matter. They were just the veil that hid the truth. And I'm not saying that we are not influenced by the experiences that we have as kids and the messages that those experiences give us, because we absolutely are. But there is something greater at play. And that is our ability to reconnect to the worth that is present in us, despite whatever experiences we may have. So many of us have some resistance to the idea of intrinsic worth. And in the hope to help us release some of that resistance. It's important to understand just what intrinsic worth is, and what it is not, and why it is so foundational to the lives that we lead. So intrinsic worth is the innate, immeasurable value that is ours, on arrival to our human life, and is given to us by virtue of our existence. intrinsic worth is not dependent on who we are or what we do. And I will say that, again, intrinsic worth is not dependent on who we are, or what we do. So why is intrinsic worth being aligned with our innate value so important? Well, it's not just important, I would argue that is absolutely foundational to our lives.
I guess on the most basic level, I think we would agree that it's difficult to take care of something that we don't value Taking care of something requires effort, consistency, sacrifice, dedication, strength, time, energy, focus, commitment. And all of these things and more are required to take care of ourselves. And I don't just mean getting to the gym or keeping our jobs, I mean showing up for ourselves every day, letting go of destructive thoughts and destructive behaviors, and replacing them with decisions and actions that authentically support who we are and what we are here to do. intrinsic worth allows us to neither internalized nor project, the inevitable pain, and coolness of the world. Something that we are all subjected to. intrinsic worth allows us to expect much for ourselves, and little, honestly, nothing from anyone else. Being aligned with our true intrinsic worth, supports us in the path to everything good. But perhaps one of the greatest reasons to embrace intrinsic worth is that allows ourselves to be free from looking for validation, in others or in other things. And this need to find validation from other people or other things is something that we all have experienced to some extent.
But looking for our worth, or our value outside of us is a slippery slope. If it is a person we are looking to seek our value from, they will inevitably lead us down. And if it is an achievement or material good, the payoff will be good but fleeting. And before we know it, we will be back in search of the next piece of evidence that we are enough. Another equally important transformational aspect of accepting our intrinsic worth is the ability to appreciate value in others, despite their bad behavior, or what we perceive to be their contrasting belief systems. The reality is we mirror back to others how we see ourselves. And if we learn to be flexible with our own shortcomings and mistakes, we will be able to offer that grace to others as well. Understanding that our errors and mistakes do not define us gives us the ability to recognize that other people's mistakes and errors do not define them. At the same time, the more critical we are of ourselves, the more judgmental and critical we are of others, which does service to none of us. So while I would argue that intrinsic worth is the concept from which everything else flows, the practice of forgiveness holds infinite power, in trance, from transforming our state of mind and our daily experience. And so much of the challenge of forgiving others comes from our inability or refusal to forgive ourselves. And finally, I guess the reality is, we all have purpose here, whether we recognize it or not. And a big part of that purpose is to find healing. We didn't create the pain and chaos of the world. But it is our responsibility to nurture healing for ourselves and for others. And this starts with learning to transcend the errors in and around us, rather than getting pulled down into the mess. When we embrace our intrinsic worth, it opens up access to a deeper part of ourselves, the part that is within each of us, and only observes the thoughts and feelings created by the thinking mind. The part of us that is far beyond the personality housed in our DNA.
My loving suggestion is to explore your intrinsic worth. Do you see it? Can you feel it? I invite you to spend a few minutes writing what you notice. If you're really struggling or feeling particularly skeptical, investigate the feelings or beliefs that keep you from embracing this real, universal and transformational truth.
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Thank you so much for joining me today. I hope something in this discussion was meaningful to you. You are light and your love
Transcribed by https://otter.ai