When I look inside myself I see my worth and know that I am good
“When I look inside myself,
I see my worth and know that I am good.
When I look outside myself,
I see my works and know that I am good.”
This is an example of something that when I heard it, I didn’t hear what was being said. I heard something else. The exact quote is different.
And yet, these words had a powerful and dramatic effect on my life.
When I heard this, I was in despair, suicidal despair. I had surrounded myself with negative people. I had somehow picked up the idea that because I was 38 years old and had only worked for 16 months in my life, there was something wrong with me. I was at the bottom of a 6-month-long shame spiral.
This saying opened my eyes. I realized my life wasn’t about impressing others, that my life wasn’t about trying to fit into the model that others lived by, the 9 to 5 work from 20 to 65 and retire mindset; that it was my life and it was about what I did. My own sense of self-value defined my life. It was what I had done, the works and actions that I had taken, the things outside of me that defined who I was.
It was nothing about whether I fit into the model of 9 to 5. It was nothing about anything else.
Now, it took me months after writing down this card to actually let this seep in to the point where I was up and on my feet again and doing things. This saying changed my life.
Grace.
Original quote is from Black Sabbath’s “Spiral Architect” on the album “Sabbath Bloody Sabbath.”