Written by: Sarah Cady, Executive Contributor
Executive Contributors at Brainz Magazine are handpicked and invited to contribute because of their knowledge and valuable insight within their area of expertise.
Maybe you just aren’t worth it. Maybe your value is just pretty low. Maybe you shouldn’t be investing in yourself with your time, energy, or with your (or your spouse’s/family’s) money. You shouldn’t if you are truly not worth it.
Full disclosure out of the gates here—as a practitioner and coach, I happen to think you are worth it and that you do hold great value, but that obviously doesn’t matter enough to benefit you if you disagree and, most importantly, don’t act like you are of value. What matters is if you think you are worth it—worth caring for, worth saving. It’s ultimately for you to decide.
I see the disconnect often in my practice—people will think and say they are of value but then will not act accordingly.
So, how much are you worth? Let me rephrase that, "How much do you act like you are worth? What is your value? What is the price tag (figuratively and literally) you would put on yourself? How much is your happiness worth? How much is your health and well-being worth? What is the price you would pay to save yourself from hardship, struggle, despair?"
I feel like we take things on a case-by-case basis and put things on a ‘severity scale’ to assess whether or not things/situations are ‘worth’ addressing. To offer a practical example, if your car broke down and needed extensive repairs, you would most certainly find the money to pay to fix it because having a reliable, functioning car is necessary. (Why do we sometimes take better care of our vehicles than we do ourselves?)
I find that this ‘severity scale’ assessment is especially true when it comes to our health. If you found out you had cancer, or if you had a major accident and needed surgery to repair your body, and you were the one who literally and personally needed to pay for care to heal and repair yourself…would you? Would those things, those situations be worth it and warrant the investment, whatever the cost?
Certainly, those situations are pretty ‘severe.’ Of course, you would do whatever necessary to take care of those things. Right? In those cases, you would treat yourself like you are worth a lot (even though the financial cost would be considerable).
But what about your daily struggles that aren’t as overtly severe but still plague you every single day--affecting your function and your enjoyment of life? What about those struggles that have maybe become an underlying thread of your existence—almost like an extension of you, occupying your thoughts, robbing you of vitality, and threatening your current and future state (maybe even threatening your work or relationships)? Are those things worth spending time, energy, and money on addressing?
Of course, the common subject here in any of these situations is—you. The situations, health conditions, and struggles are not what you would really be taking care of, spending time, energy, and money. It’s you. You are the commodity. You are what you are assessing a value to each time to say yay or nay to investing in your well-being.
So, how much are you worth? Are you ‘worth it?’
I engage with people inquiring about healthcare who are suffering every single day. People who want to find answers, solutions, relief, and ultimately find freedom from that suffering. Because of their health struggles, their work-life and relationships are suffering. Their simple enjoyments of life are fading away or pretty much gone altogether. They want to find care and are searching because the ‘care’ they have had up to this point has failed them. They say they are committed to doing all the work necessary to get well. But then….
The investment holds them back. They say they just can’t spend the money on themselves. They have just told me they feel like they are drowning in their struggles, cannot continue on the way they are, and are desperate for answers, solutions, and care, but when it comes time to take that action step, they won’t, and feel like they can’t, make it happen financially.
In my opinion, I find it’s a bigger, deeper problem than just not having the funds available. Because let’s be real, we often find the resources to spend money on less important things than our health and well-being even if we can’t come up with all the funds upfront—vacations, home renovations, aesthetic treatments, a luxury car, just to name a few. Why is wellness and health care different? In my opinion, it’s a value problem. It’s a self-worth problem.
It’s selfish, as I have been literally told. It’s selfish for them to ‘spend’ on themselves in this capacity even though they say it will provide them with everything they are looking for and even though they are miserable. They describe how much they are suffering and struggling but then don’t feel like they can spend what’s necessary to help themselves. And so, they essentially choose to stay stuck. They see themselves as an expense rather than an investment. It’s heartbreaking when you really sit with that for a bit.
I wish I could snap my fingers and make these wonderful people understand their value because, at its base, I feel like that’s the real issue at play. I wish I could clap my hands and help people understand there is nothing more valuable than their health and well-being and how investing in themselves to gain the freedom they are craving is so worth it—no matter who they work with!
But of course, I can’t. I can just support, encourage and pray for them to one day see that they are worth it and then take action. Because I think we all need to understand that there is a cost to everything. Sometimes that cost is financial, and sometimes that cost is much, much bigger and more devastating than that (and oftentimes costs us things, times, experiences that are unreplaceable). Those are the costs already in play. These wonderful people are already ‘paying’ for illness in many ways--costs that can be swapped out if only they understood their true value.
If this is you, I urge you to understand your worth, your value. I urge you to see your health, well-being, and happiness as some of the greatest treasures to you and your loved ones. I urge you to take control of your wellness, find a practitioner who will appropriately support you in your journey, and surround yourself with people who also understand your value. If need be, get financially creative and resourceful and make it happen for yourself. The light at that other end of the tunnel is bright, and you deserve to bask in it!
What are you worth? What would you pay to be free from your struggles? What would you pay to feel your absolute best and brightest, to feel free and light?
Are you worth it? I say you are. I say you are an amazing being who deserves to feel amazing, and I hope you also believe that and, more importantly, act like it.
Sarah Cady, Executive Contributor Brainz Magazine
Sarah Cady, FDN-P, is the Owner and Practitioner of REIFY Holistic Lifestyle & Nutrition Coaching. She has had the privilege of coaching and supporting other healthcare practitioners in the Lifestyle/Functional/Natural Medicine space (for more than two decades) while also running her own holistic practice.
Sarah specializes in working with clients who are motivated and committed to their wellness but are struggling with health challenges, don't know why and don't know how to 'fix it.' She provides them access to specific lab testing to help finally uncover the contributors to their struggles. She then builds an individualized and targeted diet-lifestyle-self-treatment plan to help them finally become free from those struggles and frustrations and truly feel and function at their absolute best, coaching them and supporting them along the way.
Sarah is passionate about seeing people finally achieve freedom from their health challenges and relishes in such successes of her clients.
