Killing God's creatures

Today my 6 year old was in tears, refraining to come to the lunch table. He was punishing himself for 'killing God's creatures'.

He killed a fly.

It took me some time to convince him that he can forgive himself, and just not do it again. He bought it quite easily. It could be that he was really hungry and the morality issue became a non-issue.

At the same lunch table a single mother and her baby girl was waiting. It was interesting to see how tough she was on herself and her daughter. I almost got the sense that she too was punishing herself, this time not for killing flies. The father of the little girl left them not long after her birth. Since then she has gained a lot of weight, and stopped making proper eye contact, hardly ever smiling or laughing.

In my view this young women has not only lost the father of her child, but also her self-worth.

Often we allow others to punish us, or we punish ourselves in self destructive ways. Either by withholding ourselves from something we yearn for, like my son and his terrible deed, or not allowing ourselves to be who we could be. Not allowing yourself to live your purpose, because somewhere in your psyche you believe you don't really deserve it, or are worth that much.

This of course could never be true, but you are so used to convincing yourself, that eventually your self-worth is almost non-existing and you are hating the life you have created for yourself.

There are ways to get out of this destructive cycle. A good start would be to do the Motto Individual Assessment in order to determine your current self perception of your self-worth and other relevant related elements. This self measurement tool is available on our website.