Five subtle ways to be truer, braver versions of ourselves
5 subtle self-worth upgrades for 2025
The beautiful thing about growing our self-worth is we can never outgrow it.
It will always invite us into a truer, braver version of ourselves.
And, there’s no bypassing the deeper stuff.
We leave that to the self-love seekers, *wink.
[If you’re new here, I wrote The Inconvenient Truth About Self-Worth, where I share why self-love never worked for me.]
Even after six years of mentoring people to grow self-worth to be truer, braver versions of themselves, I wouldn’t claim to be a self-worth expert.
Of course, I’ve not been embodied in self-worth in all areas of life (I don’t believe anyone is).
But as someone who has meticulously walked this path for several years, I’ve learned how to be expressive of a truer, braver version of myself, until I embody it.
I’ve also become attuned to the subtle ways we abandon our truth, power and our brilliance - in interactions with others and even by how we speak to ourselves.
Here are five subtle self-worth upgrades for those of us determined to be be braver, truer versions of ourselves.
Note: If you’re working on boundaries, claiming your true desires and owning your power, you can get access to my audio course Worthiness Untamed as an annual member. Members also get full access to paid posts and monthly embodiment meditations.
Don’t settle for boring AF social interactions
Small talk is just so damn depleting, even if you’re ‘good’ at it.
The truth is, you’re far more spicy and provocative and dynamic than you pretend to be, for the sake of - what - being liked?
If we’re preoccupied with how we’re perceived, and attempt to manage people’s perceptions by tempering our expression and acting all vanilla, is it any wonder we don’t want to socialise if that’s the standard we’re complicit in?
The truer, braver version of you is imploring you to spice it up, ask a sideways question, give an unexpected answer. I mean, if the interaction is mind-numbingly boring, at least entertain yourself in it.
Otherwise excuse yourself, without apology, and save everyone from boredom.
(I spent the holidays with six other families I’d never met before, and granted, I was in late luteal I-don’t-fuck-around vibes, but thankfully I’m 44 now and like hell am I going to ‘be nice’ and politely answer, ‘So when did you come to Australia? / Where in London did you grow up?’, for the gazillionth time.
I cheekily told the second guy who asked me to ask the first guy (his mate sitting next to him) to tell him the answers. Everyone laughed. Miraculously, it diffused the tension of everyone trying to be ‘nice’ to me and we all relaxed into the far less boring version of ourselves).
Stop meaning-making the shit out of your life
The temptation as a spiritually-oriented person, especially one who wasn’t ‘perfectly’ parented with unconditional love and guidance (I’m pretty sure this is most of us), is to look for signs everywhere that they’re on the right path or signs that tell them which decision is the right one.
In my observation, this is a kind of obsessive compulsive habit that attempts to gain unconditional love and guidance - of the divine - to feel assured of our worthiness.
Several years ago, I began to see in myself how I gave my power away to meaning-making the shit out of my life, instead of being honest about what I actually wanted it to mean (this itself would have told me all I needed to know about the action to take).
If there was some synchronicity between what I desired and what showed up on my path in the form of 111 or 222 or an owl or some other ‘sign’, I would go into a story that would justify why a decision was now a worthy one.
A healthier approach, in my humble opinion, is to accept the non-linear nature of this existence and that any direction or decision is not ill-fated, but intrinsically carries its own intelligence and, if necessary, course-correction.
I love a good cosmic giggle by way of signs and synchronicities. But if I’ve learned anything about being a spiritually-oriented person who’s devoted to uplevelling her self-worth, it’s to trust the loving intelligence of the subtle language of my body first, before I look outward to signs from the Universe.