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Stress Management: Ladies, Lose The Guilt!

Written by: Tami Szabo

Article Overview: It’s time we women said, “Enough guilt!” What exactly are we trying to measure up to anyway? When is what you’ve done “enough”? How can you get past the guilt that raises its ugly head? The answer lies in discovering what you’re trying to prove.

Stress Management: Ladies, Lose The Guilt!

It’s time we women said, “Enough guilt!” What exactly are we trying to measure up to anyway?

This may come as news to you, but you will never get fully caught up on everything. There will always be something more to get done or something more you could do. Just look at your kitchen and tell me you don’t know this already!

When is what you’ve done “enough”? How can you get past the guilt that raises its ugly head? The answer lies in discovering what you’re trying to prove.


* Proving Your Worth *

For many women, we are trying to prove our worth as a woman. We’re trying to prove our worth to men, to employers, to our children and even to other women who are caught in the same vicious cycle.

It shouldn’t come as a surprise since we live in a world known for oppressing women. In some ways, we have been programmed to see our value based on our productivity. The good thing is that this lie is beginning to have some critical cracks, ensuring its destruction.

The sad thing is that we women haven’t quite believed the truth about ourselves. When our self esteem is feeling a little low, what do we do? We tend to try to prove our value by what we do instead. Sound familiar?

The problem comes when we discover women are humans, like everyone else. Humans simply aren’t perfect and we definitely have limitations. What happens when we simply can’t do all the jobs presented to us? What happens when we’re spread too thin to do a great job in every area? You guessed it…GUILT!

The other problem is the source of where we’re looking for approval.
When we look outside of ourselves for our sense of value, we give others permission to decide our worth for us. That’s a scary place to put ourselves in!


* You Decide Your Value *

What if the person to whom you have to prove your worth is actually you? You see your girlfriends as valuable so why would your value be any different? When you choose to believe you are good enough as you already are, guilt will begin to lose its strangling grip.

You are a being of choice. As such, you are the one who chooses your value. What price tag would you like to put on yourself? As you go higher in value, the effect of guilt lessens.


* Change Your Thinking *

You are a good enough, but you have to choose to believe it. You are not a failure and you have incredible value. You really have nothing to measure up to when you’ve recognized your own unique worth.

How you feel is up to you. You choose what your thoughts are and your thoughts affect your feelings. Guilt is simply just another feeling. Therefore, it stands to reason that to lose the guilt, you must change your thinking.

Guilt will drain you. On the flip side, positive thoughts may energize you. Start by saying “NO!” to negative thoughts. Replace them with positive ones. You’re smart, you’ll figure out which positive ones have the greatest effect on you.


* Begin with Decision *

Every action begins with decision. Decide what you need to do to get inspired about your value. Do you need to remind yourself you are beautiful and smart? Does doing something else tell you you’re valuable? Then do it! Set the intention to accept the truth: you have incredible worth and you have nothing to prove.

Choose not to let your productivity determine your value and toss that guilt off the side of a cliff!


Copyright 2007 Tami M. Szabo

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Article Tags: cracks, girlfriends, guilt, job, jobs, productivity, sad thing, scary place, self esteem, stra, surprise, truth about, ugly head, vicious cycle



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