I Love Me: Self Worth (Part 5: Healthy Community)

Find your tribe...

 The ones that make you feel the most YOU. The ones that lift you up and help you remember who you really are. The ones that remind you that a blip in the road is just that, a blip. They are the ones that when you walk out of a room, they make you feel like a better person than when you walked in. They are the ones that even if you don’t see them face to face as often as you’d like, you see them heart to heart."

-Jennifer Pastiloff-

It is important that the people we surround ourselves with also have a clear sense of self worth. People with low self worth are notorious for projecting their own sense of worth onto others. By surrounding yourself with healthy community, you all collectively reflect each other's light, and promote continued development of love and self acceptance. Therefore, the markers of a healthy community are the same as the building blocks of strong self worth.

Healthy community refers to friends, family, coworkers, church families, and any other communities that promote healthy self worth and acceptance. As the quote above points out, your tribe is anyone who makes you feel as though you are worthy of love and acceptance as you are.

AUTHENTICITY

Healthy community promotes and respects authenticity. There will be no shaming for your shortcomings. There will be understanding and support for who you are and your journey. They will give credence to your feelings, and bare witness to your truth. Once we become authentic in ourselves, we can better identify people who are also living in their own, and we can also use this to help us determine those who have not yet developed their sense of self to the point that they can be supportive of us. This will help us begin to develop healthy boundaries to help others respect who we are. You will find that once you do this, you will affect those around you to examine themselves, and in turn work on themselves.

ACCEPTANCE

Understanding your uniqueness/antiqueness is the privilege of every person you meet. If they fail to appreciate the privilege to know and accept you for who you are, all this means is that they are not a connoisseur of fine art. They have not developed the skill of properly appraising value. This is not your problem, this is theirs. This speaks nothing of your value but everything of how mature this person is in this area of life. Healthy community accepts your antiqueness; they try to learn more about who you are and how to care for you. They are interested in the intricacies that make you, and they seek to introduce you to their best, and they always highlight your best features. These people are here to help you shine, and you also help them in the same way. 

CHALLENGE

Your tribe are people who accept your authenticity, but will also challenge the parts of you that deny your truth. To be clear, they do not berate or undermine you. In fact they encourage you to stand up for yourself, and when you are unable, they are more than willing to stand up for you. They might ask questions about your thoughts and feelings that help you make realizations that you might be missing. They might partner with you to meet goals you've been struggling with the motivation to accomplish. They will create the ambiance that helps you be your best self, like having a self care day or game night to bring you out of a funk. However, they will also respect your space if you request them to.

*Please note, if a person has not met the test of accepting and respecting your authenticity, they do not meet the criteria to challenge you. This is the skill of a person who has shown mastery in loving themselves, and others, wholeheartedly. You do not want a broken person trying to challenge you, they will probably harm you in the process. You often find that the people best equipped to challenge you are the least willing to, why? Because they trust in your inner ability to challenge yourself, and understand that you will become what you need to be in time.

HEALTHY HABITS

Healthy community also respects balance and healthy habits. Chances are if your tribe are abusing drugs or people, though they might accept you and challenge you to things, they cannot lead you to self love as they have not found it for themselves. Drug misuse or abuse is usually symptomatic of people carrying unhealthy baggage and struggling with their identity. Your community should be helping you in positive ways that promote health and wellness. They should be respecters of health routines and habits; they themselves should be engaged in health habits. This one is delicate line in that, you don’t need anyone to be your mom, other than your actual mom, but you want more of a sibling who wants the best for you and is willing to stick by you as you figure it out. They should be willing to help you in habits you struggle with or just be willing to accept that you are not yet at the stage of life where you are able to establish routines without judgement.

No matter what form they come in, your tribe should feel like a smile when you see them, and you should be happy to see them coming. They are people who you honestly wish nothing but the best for and know for a fact that they do the same. They are the people who you might hang out with for days on end and not get tired of, but they are also the same people whom you might not talk to for months and still feel assured that they are still your peoples. These people promote our feelings of well being and help us realize that we are worthy of good things and good people in our lives. Find your tribe.