Building a Self-Worth That Isn't Conditional

Jessica Colarco (: 00:13

Welcome back to Healing is My Hobby.

I'm Jessica Colerco, a licensed clinical social worker, and this week we are in the Healing Lab. The Healing Lab is one of my favorite episodes to record each month because it's where we stop just talking about the work and actually start doing it. In this segment, I design real experiments rooted in clinical practice and I try them myself. And then I share what happens, the good, the awkward, and the genuinely surprising. This month's theme is shame and self-worth.

And the experiments I've designed for May

are particularly close to my heart because this is the work I have done in my own life, not just in the therapy room. And I think...

What I think about when I was creating this episode is kind of like, OK, how do we heal shame? What might be an antidote to shame? And it's self-compassion and working on worthiness. So that's what we're going to be focusing on.

Here's something I'll share briefly. A few years ago, I had come face to face with the core belief I didn't know I was carrying. The belief that my worth was tied to my productivity, that I was valuable because of what I did, what I produced, how much I showed up for everyone around me, not because of who I actually was. I was over-functioning in my relationships and I couldn't even see it because it had become so normal. It took real work, therapy, deep personal reflection,

⁓

to start to untangle that. And one of the most impactful things I learned in that process was this.

You cannot think your way into self-worth. You have to practice it. You have to act your way into a new belief about yourself through small, deliberate, repeated experiences of treating yourself as worthy. That is the foundation of everything we're doing in the lab this month. So let's get into the experiments.

Before I walk you through the two experiments, I want to give you the clinical framework underneath them, because I think understanding the why makes the practice land differently.

When worth becomes conditional.

When we believe consciously or not that we are only lovable when we are performing, producing, or taking care of everyone else, we stop giving ourselves permission to simply exist, to rest, to receive, to do things that bring us pleasure without a justification attached. This is extraordinarily common among high achieving women. And what I see clinically is that the absence of self-directed care isn't laziness, it's

symptom. It is the behavioral fingerprint of internalized shame. So the experiments this month are designed to interrupt that pattern at the behavioral level because sometimes we cannot change the belief directly. But we can change the behavior and when we change the behavior, when we start treating ourselves as worthy of care, the belief begins slowly to shift.

These experiments are simple, they are not dramatic, but I wanna be honest with you, simple doesn't mean easy. Doing things purely for yourself without productivity attached can feel deeply uncomfortable when worthlessness has been your default setting. That discomfort is not a sign that you're doing it wrong, it's a sign that you're doing exactly the right thing.

So let's begin with experiment number one, what I'm calling the Enough Body Scan. So this first experiment works at the body level, and I want to tell you why I'm starting there.

Shame lives in the body. We talked about this in episode one, the heat, the collapse, the urge to shrink. When we carry chronic shame, we often develop a complicated relationship with our own physical selves. We stop inhabiting our bodies fully. We push through pain and exhaustion. We treat the body as something to be managed, optimized, or pushed past, not something to be cared for.

This experiment is a direct interruption of that pattern. Here's how it works. Once a day for two weeks, I want you to set aside five minutes and do a slow intentional body scan from head to toe. But this is not a relaxation exercise and it's not about finding tension or discomfort.

at each body part, your head, your jaw, your shoulders, your chest, your stomach, your hands and your legs, I want you to offer a single phrase. This is enough. You are enough. That's it. Move slowly, breathe, and offer that phrase to each part of your body one at a time.

This is enough. You are enough.

Now I wanna be honest with you about why this is different from an affirmation. We're not trying to convince you of something with logic. We're not standing in front of a mirror repeating words until they feel true. We are anchoring a message, I am enough, in physical sensation, in the body itself. because for people who cannot access that belief cognitively,

Giving it somewhere, physical to land, is what allows it to begin to take root. You might find that the phrase feels hollow at first or that it catches somewhere, that there's a part of your body where it feels particularly hard to say, and that's not a problem, that's information. Stay with it. Notice where the resistance lives and come back tomorrow.

Here's what to track. Does the phrase feel true, hollow, or somewhere in between? Does it begin to shift over the two weeks? Where in your body does it feel most resistant? And what do you make of that?

This might feel a little strange and that's okay. You don't have to believe it fully to practice it. Just do it anyway. Especially on the days it feels the most absurd. Those are the days that practice is doing its most important work.

I really enjoyed this experiment and it was immediately impactful and beneficial to me. I chose to do this when I was in the shower and that was really impactful and helpful. It kind of helped set my intention for the day and to really think about how I treat my body, how I live in my body, and I really enjoyed it and it's something I want to continue to practice.

Let's move on to the second experiment. And this is one that came out of my own healing work. And I wanna be very direct with you about where it comes from because I think that matters. I spent years, genuinely years, building my sense of worth around what I produced and who I showed up for. I was extraordinarily reliable for everyone in my life, my clients, my family, my friends, my kids. If someone needed me, I was there.

I did not cancel and I did not let people down. But what I was doing was canceling on myself constantly. I constantly rescheduled my own needs so many times they stopped making it onto the list at all.

And here's what changed. I started doing something very small, very deliberately, every single day. Two to three things that were purely for me, not productive, not for anyone else, just for me. And over time, not overnight, but over time, something shifted. My nervous system started to register a different identity. I am someone who takes care of herself.

And that registration, quiet and cumulative, is how I built the sense of self-worth I have now. It didn't come from one inside or one good therapy session. It came from years of small daily acts that said, matter too. And that's what I want for you in this experiment. Every day for two weeks, do two to three things that are purely for you. Not for your kids, not for your partner, not for your clients or your boss or

anyone who needs something from you. Just for you. And here's a reframe I want you to carry into this. You are someone you made a commitment to. You show up for everyone else with reliability

You do not cancel on the people who need you. Start treating yourself with that same consistency. When you say you're gonna do something for yourself, do it. Don't negotiate it away. Don't trade it for one more task. Show up for yourself the way you show up for the people you love.

Your two to three things don't need to be

Here are some examples to spark your own ideas. Making yourself something you actually wanna eat. Not just what's easy or leftover. Move your body in a way that feels genuinely good rather than like an obligation.

Sit outside for 10 minutes with no agenda. Read something purely for pleasure, not for growth, not for information, just because you want to. One of the things that I do is like, things have to be like an eight, nine, or 10 and a 10. So I used to not let myself, like if I was reading a book and I didn't like what I was reading, I would make myself finish the book because you have to finish the book because you just have to, right? And I'm just like, if I read a book and I'm not into it, I let myself.

stop reading it wherever I am in the book and let it go and move on. And that really helps with just tapping into yourself, right? Do something creative just because it's enjoyable. Baking, painting, crafting, whatever is yours. Putting on music you love and actually sitting with it.

Taking a bath or a long, unhurried shower. Watching something you enjoy without guilt. Tasking alongside it. Have a cup of something you love made slowly with nowhere to be. An example I give my clients so many times is if you have animals, right, you'll get this, when you, especially dogs, when you come downstairs or you wake up, you let them out first thing in the morning. And so what I would do instead of my first act of the day being for the dogs,

walk over and turn on the coffee machine and then I let the dogs out. And so I just wanted to show myself that I come first and I matter. And examples of other things like buying delightful syrups for my coffee, having fun in the morning. I realize these two examples are very coffee surrounded. But you know, enjoying your cup of coffee, like maybe you weren't having creamer because you were like, I'm gonna have black coffee because whatever reason you

created for yourself and it's like if you love creaming or coffee, allow yourself to have that, you know? Your list will look completely different from mine and that's exactly right. The point is not what you choose. The point is that you choose something for yourself deliberately every single day without needing to earn it first. And here's what I want you to track.

Write down your two to three things each day. At the end of each week, ask yourself, how hard was it to follow through? Did I negotiate with myself, minimize or skip? What did the inner voice say when I tried to give myself something? And did it get any quieter by the end of the week?

You know, when we consistently show up for ourselves, something shifts at a deeper level than we expect. The nervous system begins to register a new identity. I am someone who takes care of herself. And that registration, slow and cumulative, is how self-worth actually builds. Not through a single insight, not through one good week, through the repeated, quiet evidence that you matter enough to keep the commitments you make to yourself.

I've lived this and I'm telling you, it works. The belief catches up to the behavior, but the behavior has to come first. Some days, the two to three things will feel nourishing and easy and some days, they will feel like one more thing on a list and you'll want to skip them. Do them anyway, especially on those days. That's not the experiment failing, that is the experiment working.

I want to say one thing about how these two experiments relate to each other because I think it matters. The body scan works quietly from the inside out. It's daily, it's small, and it's planting a message, I am enough, at the level of physical sensation. It's asking your body to practice receiving worth. And the daily commitment works from the outside in. It's asking your behavior to demonstrate worth, to treat yourself as someone who matters.

through concrete daily action. Together they are approaching the same belief from two directions. The body scan softens the ground. The daily commitment builds the evidence. And over time, those two things start to meet in the middle. And that's where the shift happens.

I want to close the lab portion with an honest note about what these experiments might bring up. For some of you, doing these things will feel genuinely nice. You'll enjoy it. You'll notice you feel better. And that will be that. And for others, particularly those of you who have run on conditional worth for a long time, there may be resistance.

Maybe even guilt, the sense that you haven't earned this yet, or that you're being selfish, or that you should be doing something more important. The voice that says, this is indulgent. And I want you to know that voice is not the truth. The voice is the wound. And the most powerful thing you can do when it shows up is not to argue with it, but to do the thing anyway, to say the words anyway, to sit with the cup of tea anyway, to say with your actions, I am worth this, even when

part of me doesn't believe it yet. That even one is where the healing lives.

Like I'm telling you, I am trying these experiments alongside with you. And if you do either of these, the body scan, the daily commitment or both, I genuinely wanna hear about your experience. Come find me on Instagram at healingismihobby and tell me what you've noticed, what came up, what surprised you. We are in this lab together. And if you would like to read my blog or stay up to date, you can sign up for the newsletter at healingismihobby.com. You can follow me on Instagram at healingismihobby or on YouTube at healingismihobby.

and if you'd like to know more about my clinical practice, you can visit Jessica Kolarko, lcsw.com, or follow me on Instagram at Jessica Kolarko. Next week is our final episode of May, and we're going to look at shame through a trauma-informed lens. How it shows up in the body, how it lives in our nervous system, and what it means to heal.

and what it means to heal it at that level. It's a powerful one. I'll see you there. Keep healing. It's worth it and you are worth it.