The Worthy Project - section 5, screen time.

Screen time [the book instructs one to take a screen shot of usage on whatever device is used most often, and then talks about removing apps that don't bring value to your life, setting boundaries around time spent on said device, etc.]: "Nearly all of my students are astonished when they take a close look at their average screen time. Bringing awareness and attention to this part of their lives helps to bring light to the larger problem of unconscious distraction. Many of today's apps are designed for the exact purpose of distracting you so that they can control your attention through bright colors, dopamine hits, and gamification. They are engineered for the sole purpose of seducing you into chasing and avoiding [the book talks about chasing and avoiding as two terms used to describe not dealing with uncomfortable feelings, and explains that if uncomfortable feelings are not confronted, we cannot live our most authentic lives and our sense of worthiness erodes). The longer you stay in the app, the longer they keep you in the worthless cycle, and the more money they make from selling your attention to advertisers.

When you give your attention and spend your time in apps that only take from you and give nothing in return, you are reinforcing wothlessness. To prevent this and to move you into the worthy cycle, I urge you to set boundaries with yourself, with your apps and with your screen time, so that you only engage when you receive fair compensation.

Instead of squandering your attention, start to protect what is rightfully yours. Additionally, you may find an unexpected amount of time spent on texting, emailing, or some other way of messaging. most of us have an almost Pavlovian respond to hearing a text chime, or the notification of an incoming message. Every interruption, whether it's during your work time, your commute, your resting time, or while you're in line at the post office, costs you valuable resources: time, energy, focus, and attention.

One easy way to help safeguard your boundaries is to silence notifications so that you are the one to determine when to pick up your phone, rather than being unconsciously reactive to the demands of your phone.

Our devices are not only interrupting our work, but are also interrupting our dinner, our conversations, our sleep, and are deteriorating the quality of our communication and connection with each other.

When it comes to screen time, we are terminally settling for less than we deserve. All of this distraction is taking a toll on our relationships, on our attention, on our physical health, and on our mental health. To move into the worthy cycle, you'll need boundaries around what you're willing to give, and what you expect to receive in return. Here are a few boundaries to consider: 1) only keep an app on your phone if it consistently reinforces worthiness; remove all others. 2) silence all notifications to stop distractions so that you protect the valuable asset of your attention. 3) be conscious and deliberate about your engagement with your device, rather than carelessly giving away your precious resources of time, attention, and energy. 4) don't settle for dumbed down digital conversations. Intimacy and connection are crucial resources that help build self-worth. Invest in the relationships that are most valuable to you by giving and receiving connection through real conversation. 5) set times for digital silence and allow yourself time to restore. 6) anytime you find yourself going down a digital rabbit hole, gently bring your attention back to your true self, check in with your emotions [the book describes how to find these things in previous chapters], and get yourself back into the worthy cycle.

Meadow Devor

The Worthy Project section 6, Allowing and Owning

This section of the book resonates with me so much, as she and I both grew up in an environment where as a child, love always came with strings attached, and had to be earned and repaid or we would be punished. So we couldn't accept gifts or affection without contriving a self-imposed debt and repaying it in full plus excessive interest.

"I was so eager to earn respect and love, I thought I was doing the right thing. I thought I was honoring her gift and that I was making myself appear more likable. I just wanted to even the score. I didn't want to be punished. I didn't want to lose her. I just wanted to repay the debt so she'd continue liking me. I thought I was being unselfish, I thought I was being kind. It would be decades before I understood what happened in that exchange.

In hindsight, I can see Barbara's face, along with the faces of so many other people throughout my life, people who simply wanted to help me or to offer me something. People who simply wanted to be kind. People who wanted good for me.

But I couldn't allow it. I couldn't handle it. I couldn't even believe in it. All that kindness had to be returned quickly. I couldn't let it land on me. The minute I saw sweetness and generosity coming my way, I'd duck and cover and bounce it right back. This is how I continued to feel safe. I would control the flow to me and make sure there were never strings attached. I would not only under-earn and over-give, I would make sure to never allow more than I deserved, and that anything extra would always be repaid, with interest.

You can imagine how fun it was to be in a relationship with me. Oh, you brought me a flower? Here are ten flowers for you. Oh, you want to take me out to dinner? Here are five casseroles in return. Just put one in the oven at 350 and freeze the rest for a rainy day.

This is how I survived my childhood, and this tactic works well when you're living with mental illness, alcoholism, abuse, or any other terrible dysfunction. This strategy kept me alive and it helped me feel a tiny bit of empowerment in an atmosphere of chaos and violence.

But out there in the real world, this strategy just pushes good and loving people further away, while leaving a wide open door for the ones who want to exploit you. It makes you incredibly difficult to love, and very easy to use. It's an impassable barrier to intimacy, and a perfect recipe for worthlessness. Over years and decades, this strategy isolates you, preventing you from experiencing the benefits and risks of what it means to be human. For me it made love an impossible dream, and one that I'd long ago deemed the stuff of fiction. Instead, I settled on a cheap substitute: admiration. If I couldn't be loved, I'd be admired. I'd make myself an asset, I'd erase my own needs, I'd ignore my feelings, my desires, myself, and instead I'd keep selling The Ideal Version Of Myself, the one who needed nothing, the one who handled everything. That Ideal Self? She was the Star Who Needed Nothing. And the true me? She was the Nothing that needed Everything.

Meadow Devor

The Worthy Project - contrived debt, invisible hands.

Contrived Debt.

Maybe you've never accepted an antique TV, and maybe you've never offered to work for free in exchange for something you didn't even want in the first place. But if you look closely at your life I suspect that you'll find places where you've invented debt without even realizing it. Places where you've contrived a way to pay back something that wasn't ever owed, nor could ever be repaid. Places where you decided that you didn't deserve what you received. Places where you created debt out of thin air to alleviate the discomfort of being given more than you could reconcile.

Maybe this looks like inviting your neighbors to dinner because they took care of your trash cans while you were gone. Or maybe this looks like sending a thank you note after receiving a gift. Or maybe this looks like bringing coffee to someone you accidentally wronged. In fact, many social niceties and general forms of politeness are often a reaction to an invented debt. To be clear, nothing is wrong with being polite. And nothing is worthless about wanting to express thanks for a kindness received. In fact, gratitude reinforces worthiness. However, we get into trouble when instead of being grateful, we try to pay back, control, or deflect. Instead of allowing goodness to come our way, we contrive a way to bounce the goodness away.

To be truly grateful means to allow yourself the experience of what you're being offered. It means to allow yourself to own what you've been given. For example: how many times have you deflected a compliment? Someone tells you that you have a great smile or pretty hair or kind eyes and you wave a hand across your face as it batting away a fly. Or maybe you force out a quick "thank you," but it makes you feel all itchy and squirmy until you gush some flattery back in their direction. Or maybe you counter the compliment by undermining it. Instead of saying thank you, you give a reason for not deserving the compliment in the first place. "What, this old thing?" "You should see my sister's hair." Or, "Well after six thousand dollars in braces my smile better be pretty." This is a sneaky strategy, and most likely you're not even aware of when or how often you do it.

Or maybe you feel terribly guilty for being given something. Anything. Maybe you feel you received more than your fair share of intelligence, beauty, money, privilege. Maybe you think it's unfair that you have the advantages you have, or that you were given the personality you have, or the loving parents you have.

So before we go on I have to state an uncomfortable truth: Life isn't fair.

It's never going to be fair.

It's not possible to make it fair.

And yes, some of us have been given more than our fair share. And some of us have been more lucky, more loved, more healthy, than others.

Some of us have been given a more symmetrical face, more athleticism, more intelligence, more access to clean water, more protection from abuse.

And none of this is fair.

When I spoke about earning, I talked about fair compensation as receiving what you rightfully deserve. This concept is important so that you can set boundaries with yourself and others around under-earning. This concept of fairness is really about the low end of the spectrum, the bottom end of the receiving boundary.

THIS section, is about allowing yourself to receive MORE than you deserve, when more is given to you. It's about the top end of receiving.

The upper limit of this boundary is infinity.

Meaning, that you deserve infinite kindness. Infinite love. Infinite goodness.

I want to make sure to clarify this, because if you gloss over this idea, it could almost sound like I'm an advocate for entitlement. That's not at all what I'm teaching here. Allowing yourself to own and appreciate benevolence is not entitlement. Entitlement is thinking you deserve more than others. That's grandiosity, not self-worth. Entitlement isn't fair compensation. It's unethical, it deteriorates social bonds, and it reinforces worthlessness. When you lie, cheat, steal, or exploit, you not only degrade your self-worth, you additionally hurt those around you.

This section isn't about thinking you deserve more than others. It's about believing that we equally deserve more than we can even imagine. It's about allowing yourself to inhabit, own, experience, and love what has been given to you. It's about understanding that sometimes you simply cannot earn what you've been given. Nor should you try. And some of our most precious assets will never come from our direct efforts. They only come as gifts from God, from the Universe, from those who love us, from angels, from fairy godmothers, or simply by a stroke of luck.

I mean, how can one actually deserve a butterfly? A sunset? Autumn Leaves? Or a starry night?

You build self-worth by allowing yourself these gifts and by taking full ownership of these gifts. You reinforce worthiness by living in a state of gratitude.

However, when you try to contrive a debt, or to control fairness by disregarding what you've been given, it only creates enormous amounts of suffering and ultimately keeps you stuck in the worthless cycle. This is the most common source of contrived debt, and the invented payment is typically a type of emotional suffering called Toxic Guilt. It works like this: It's not fair that I'm paid more than Alex, so in exchange, I feel guilty. Or, it's not fair that I was born to middle-class parents who put me through college, so in exchange, I feel guilty. It's not fair that I'm taller, thinner, smarter, so in exchange, I feel guilty. Toxic guilt is a contrived way to pay off a debt that can never be paid. It is an attempt to control the uncontrollable. It's a way to try to even the score to a game that doesn't even exist. It's a way to keep yourself from the benevolence that you've been given. It's a way of not having to take responsibility for what you've been given, and instead levy an emotional tax in its place.

By disregarding and disrepecting what's been given to you, you do not build self-worth; you simply reinforce worthlessness. You cannot create equality, fairness, or justice through toxic guilt. You cannot solve the problems of social justice, privilege, ignorance, or prejudice through toxic guilt.

If you want to make this world a better place, you must be willing to own what you've been given. You must be willing to own it even if the unfairness is tipped in your favor; especially if the unfairness is tipped in your favor. And this can be radically uncomfortable, because this puts you face to face with the truth of just how unfair life really is. Yet, when you allow yourself to stand with a strong backbone and a wide open heart, in the place of allowing and owning what you've been given, you see that you have infinite worth, as does everyone around you. You make no distinction, because there is no shortage of worth. Everyone belongs. Everyone is worthy. Everyone deserves.

From this worthy place, you can affect true change. From this place, you take action to serve others, to help right any wrongs, and to help protect the marginalized.

But when you're stuck in toxic guilt trying to repay your privilege through suffering, you don't reinforce someone else's worthiness. You only reinforce your own worthlessness.

To move into the worthy cycle, you must give yourself permission to experience what you've been given. This isn't about being hashtag grateful or hashtag blessed. This is about fully inhabiting your life. It's about allowing kindness in. Allowing yourself to be seen, to be held, to be loved, to be cared for. This means that you take what you've been given and smile at the heavens and say thank you. It means that you take ownership of your life, of your time, of your energy, of your infinite worth, and drink it all in.

Invisible Hands.

I used to think that I was self made. The story I used to tell was one of rising out of a childhood of abuse, putting myself through college, starting my first business in my mid-20s, and boostrapping my way through life. This is how I had to tell the story because I couldn't wrap my mind around anything else. Nothing could be owned unless it was earned. Therefore, everything had to be earned by me alone. This was the story, the rise of the Ideal Image, that fueled the worthless cycle. I'd go round and round this story, always hoping to prop myself up on a pedestal of worthiness, never understanding how arrogant, how naïve, and how ridiculous it was to take credit for my life as if I alone were the playwright, the protagonist, and the audience. In this story my successes were accomplished on my own, and any failures were chalked up to injustice. In this story, I was a single mother doing it all, I was an entrepreneur making it happen, I'd been on Oprah for godssake, modern-day proof that I was indeed Somebody.

The issue with this story (beyond the glaring problem of reality), was that underneath it was simply a girl, a woman, desperate for love, acceptance, and belonging. And the more I went up to the mountaintop to try to proclaim my worth, the lower I dropped into a debilitating sinkhole of worthlessness. This is what I had to reconcile if I was ever going to climb my way out of that hole. This would have to stop if I was ever going to be able to hold on to some sense of self-worth. I would have to come to terms with myself, my story, and my life in a radically different way. And this was terrifying for me because I felt lower than low, emotionally bankrupt, and so afraid of feeling even worse about myself. So I'd just try harder, and give more, and pat myself on the back for being such a hard worker. I'd refuse help, disregard kindness, and give myself accolades for how self-reliant I had been. I look back on myself at this time with nothing but compassion for the woman who thought that this was the only way forward. I wasn't trying to be arrogant, I wasn't trying to push people away, I was completely ignorant and unaware of what I was doing. To me it felt like I simply had to keep myself from drowning. And the only thing keeping me above water was my heroic story. I didn't realize that this story was never going to save me. Instead it was more like concrete blocks tied to my waist, pulling me under faster than I could ever outswim. It was a terrible and painful way to live. It was a life where everything was up to me. One where I was alone, one where I would always be alone. It was a life lived in a tiny glass house with a very low ceiling. Everyone could see in and no one could reach me there.

As I gained self-worth, cracks started to form in my hero story. As I began to see myself as worthy, I also began to see others as worthy. When I stopped focusing on myself as the Leading Lady, it was as if out of the periphery, all of the unrecognized participants began to appear on stage. The invisible hands that had helped me along my path: the angels, the teachers, the friends, the loved ones who had always been there to help me, to guide me. From a foundation of worthiness, I could now see that I was never alone. That there was kindness and goodness that had helped me every step of the way. Throughout my childhood I had teachers who, now in hindsight, seemed to be aware of what was happening at home, teachers who'd give me jobs after school, who told me of possible futures, who helped me see that I might be okay someday. I had friends who watched out for me, as did their parents. I was taken on a college tour completely funded by my classmate's grandmother, solely because she didn't want me to fall through the cracks. My college tuition was almost entirely paid for by the invisible hands of another mother figure. I did not know this at the time. She anonymously sponsored many young women who wanted a college degree. She believed in women helping women. She not only paid my tuition, she gave me a job, and helped me start my first business. She gave me access to people I would have never met otherwise. Most remarkably, she insisted that I play piano for a dinner she hosted for Benazir Bhutto, prime minister of Pakistan, and the first woman to head a democratic government in a Muslim-majority nation. To be in a room with such a powerful woman, to play piano for her, to have a conversation with her, it changed my life. I did not earn that privilege. It was a gift from a woman who wanted me to see what strong women can do, and that experience is still a source of profound inspiration to this day.

Beyond college, there were countless hands that reached out from behind the scenes of my story, people all around me who helped me heal, grow, and learn. There was never a time when I was the sole hero of the story. My Oprah appearance was a gift from my teacher who had put in a good word for me. My experience of single motherhood was more of a village raising me while I raised my daughter. I think back on all the kind people who saw something in me, and who took a risk on me. I think back on all the people who offered me shelter when I needed it, food when I was hungry, kindness when I felt broken. None of this was by my own hand.

Once I began to see life through these eyes, I was overwhelmed with humility. With thanks. Even the car I drove became this miraculous piece of equipment that had been created by complete strangers far away. The food on my plate and been picked by hands in the fields not too far away from the home I'd been allowed to live in. Rather than see everything through the eyes of what I'd earned, I began to see everything that I had been given. Things I couldn't earn. Things that I shouldn't ever try to earn. The kindness of strangers, the stop lights that kept me safe at an intersection, the movies that kept me entertained in the evenings, the coffee that made getting out of bed in the wee hours of the morning possible. I did not create these things. I did not make them happen. There were miracles upon miracles that were unfolding all around me. To realize this, to let this in, to allow myself the benevolence that had always surrounded me, this changed everything.

(ooof it's late - to be continued)