4 A.M. thoughts.

With these thoughts, I am hoping to help others to write similar statements to honor themselves, their choices and their contributions.

My Personal Worthiness Statement

I am choosing in. I am choosing in to all my roles that have been marginalized and minimized. I am choosing in to be authentically who I am. I am resilient. I rise each time I fall or fail.

I am a warrior! I choose to work with the helpless, the hopeless and the homeless in whatever shape that may take. My core beliefs are love, faith, loyalty, belief, hard work, “anything virtuous, lovely, or of good report or praiseworthy, I seek after these things.”

Why? Because I am getting older and I am tired of living roles that have never served me well, you know, the perfectionist picture stuff. My daughter and my therapist are helping me choose things that will help me use the time I have left, which is limited and valuable, to best serve me and those I love.

Some of those roles include:

I am a woman and a good, kind, loving human being who wants deeply for every person I know to be the best that is in them! That is simply who I am. I am also strong AND I am tired. I am choosing to take time to honor my past efforts to raise the world and give myself an occasional break. 

I am a stay at home mom (a deliberate choice and the benefit of having a hard working husband) of three deaf children and their three spouses who are deaf as well. I am also the mom to a single mom. All of these people have faced life challenges that would have dropped many others in their tracks as have I.

 They are the parents to 22 children and grandchildren who are mine as well. I choose to love them and help them in any way I can. That does not mean I will choose in to all their requests. I give myself permission to say “No.” 

This, being a mom and grandma, next to being a wife, is my primary role outside of being my best me.

I am a wife of 50+ years now. He is, always has been and always will be, the love of my life. It was love at first sight and has never changed in all these many years. We have lived together through much joy and much hardship. When I have been down he has buoyed me up and vice versa. He is mine and I am his and that is a choice.

I have lost a child and some days 43 years later I still mourn her passing and some days I do not think of her at all. I give myself permission to do that. She is my “safe” child in a world that is threatening all my other children. I look forward to seeing her again in the not too distant future.

I am mentally ill. I have struggled with extreme anxiety, depression and suicidal ideation for a good share of my life. Medication and counseling have helped me deal with this for more than 40 years now. I try to educate and advocate for those in similar circumstances.

I am a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints because in this place I find strength and the will to trust my Savior to help me deal with life. Some of you who I love do not find that here but somewhere else and I honor your choice.

I have friends and family who are in marginalized and minimized groups of various ethnicities, beliefs, sexual orientations etc. I choose to love and honor them because of who they are as human beings and not what I hope or believe they “should or could” be. They are who they are and that is enough for me. It was enough for my Savior to love them as they were. Am I better than He?

I am a “Senior”. It has been my experience that is no longer honored much in this world. Still I choose to remain active AND involved for as long as I am useful to my family, friends and the world.

I am white and in many ways privileged. I hope to use that privilege which gives me a voice to serve others who I truly love and care for to have opportunities that may not otherwise come to them. I cannot do for myself alone without bringing others with me AND I will honor them if they choose not to accept those opportunities.

Sometimes I have had little and sometimes I have had much in the way of material things. I have always had “enough” and have chosen in to the idea that “enough is as good as a feast”. I choose to share my blessings in material ways in causes that I think will benefit those for whom I care. That is my choice and no one else’. I alone am responsible for those choices.

In fact, I alone am responsible for all my choices whether good or bad. I will accept that and move forward sometimes hoping to make better choices and many times fully satisfied with the choices I have made. I will choose the change if necessary, accepting that change can be a very good thing.

This is My Personal Worthiness Statement. I am and will be enough. When I am not enough, I will allow my Savior or someone or something else to help me become enough. I WILL BE.