Anxiety is unkind; it has a way of making you feel inadequate and insignificant, undeserving compared to other people. It produces unhealthy, irrational thoughts that persist no matter how much evidence stacks against them. It says, “you aren’t enough. You won’t ever be enough”. Of course, anxiety lies. You are just as significant and deserving as anybody else; you are enough. Recognising this fact and working towards internalising it is a key step on the path to living with anxiety. It’s not easy, and anxiety won’t back off without a fight, but each time you challenge its lies, you get a little bit stronger and it gets a little bit weaker. Anxiety may not be something you can treat or cure—it’s not like a typical infection or disease—but you can learn to overcome the worst of it and minimise the impact it has on your day-to-day life.

Why It’s Important to Value Yourself

When you undervalue yourself and get lost in thoughts of not being “enough”, it can be easy to self-sabotage, shunning the people who want to help you and turning to counter-productive outlets instead. Remember, you deserve the same amount of love and respect as everyone else. By understanding your own worth and embracing the help of others, you’ll have a strong foundation with which to develop healthy belief-systems.

If you can find confidence within yourself and your own gifts, you won’t feel the need to change in order to be accepted by other people. It’s inevitable that you’ll meet people who you don’t ‘click’ with. Without a sense of self-worth, however, you’ll take this unavoidable fact of life as evidence that you should fundamentally change your personality, beliefs and values. This is never the case. You should never have to sacrifice your own personality for anyone else, for any reason.

Challenging Thoughts of Unworthiness

Thoughts and feelings of unworthiness don’t come from a place of rationality; that’s why challenging them can be so difficult—not impossible, though. There are a number of techniques which can help reframe your irrational thoughts and let you work towards overcoming them.

Imagine applying your own feelings of inadequacy and the reasons behind them to other people. Do they sound unfair? Ask yourself: would you ever judge someone else as harshly as you’re judging yourself?

Next, write down your irrational thoughts and beliefs. Read them over and over; rewrite them in different fonts, colours and sizes if you have to. What do you think of the words in front of you? Do they sound fair? What would you think of someone else writing these words? By separating your thoughts from yourself and manifesting them in the real world (if only on a page), you’ll find it easier to break them down and start to build up a base of self-worth.

No matter what anxiety or anybody else has you believe, you are enough. You don’t need to change in order to be accepted. You deserve love and respect, no “ifs” “ands” or “buts”.