Greetings, Freethinkers!

Welcome back to my little podcast corner of the universe. I am really glad you’re here with me today. I’m especially stoked for this episode because it’s a bit longer and a bit different than most of our recent pods. Today I will be chatting with my friend, Thaís Sky, who is a psychotherapist and writer and has some brilliant insights to share about worthiness. You can learn more about her in the bio below!

This conversation sure is a juicy one — and a healing one — but I do want to let you know ahead of time that we will be briefly discussing eating disorders and body image. If these topics are triggering to you, please take care and feel free to skip to the next episode. 

In this episode, Thaís and myself will be diving into:

• Thaís’ healing journey and overcoming the feeling of inadequacy
• What it actually looks like to embrace your worthiness and bridge the gap between your feelings of inadequacy and your personal freedom
• Finding worth in a culture that thrives off of you feeling unworthy
• How your family and community can be protective factors or risk factors in your development of self
• How your relationships and the beauty of co-regulation can help you heal
• Some tips for deepening your belonging to yourself

Listen to the episode wherever you like to listen to your podcasts

Read on for quote highlights or listen to the episode below:

Pull Quotes:

“As I began, what I call my healing journey, or just the exploration of the inside… I started to rub up against this chronic state of inadequacy, which doesn’t just mean that I didn’t feel good enough, but also in ways that I felt too much that I was too loud, too opinionated, too boisterous, too, etc.” (6:47)

“My past has really been informed by an understanding that when we know ourselves, and when we become more curious about our culture and self intersect, the more we can decide we have more choice, we have more freedom, more possibility, more options.” (8:41)

“I really wanted to find myself, and I couldn’t.” (11:16)

“Can you ever find worth in a culture that tells us that you shouldn’t be the way you are? You know, that’s a question that it can be really hard to sit with, if we have identities that go against our culture’s expectations or ideas of what normal look like, I mean, how do you how do you find space to exist within yourself?” (12:45)

“The way that I have really understood the worthiness wound is that it’s an emotional wound. That’s why I decided to call it a worthiness wound because I wanted to kind of evoke thoughts of a wounding something that exists But within us that we can’t just kind of bandaid over that that’s, you know, it requires attention and requires thought and presence and healing.” (14:42)

“The worthiness wound is essentially a wound of belonging, it’s telling us that there is something within us that does not belong. And so healing, it requires us to find belonging.” (18:12)

“I think we are in, especially our western, kind of individualistic notions of ‘we shouldn’t need people, we should be able to be self sufficient.’ And I think what we’re missing in that equation is that we actually, so desperately do need people, and we need them for our survival.” (21:43)

“Wherever you are on your healing journey is exactly where you’re supposed to be.” (29:56)

“We can’t do it alone. We shouldn’t to do it alone. Why would we have to do it alone?” (31:49)

“There’s people out there that want to help you. You’re allowed to receive that. You’re allowed to seek that. And if it didn’t work the first time, keep trying. Keep trying to find it. You know, don’t give up on yourself.” (39:12)

“The attachment is so critical to our well being, we will give up so much of our internal world if it means surviving. And isn’t that so incredible that we do this as humans? The resilience and the human nature, we will find ways to survive. And that may be now as adults, we get to go beyond survival. And we get to go to thriving.” (48:36)

Mentions & More: 

• Thaís’ website: https://www.thaissky.com/
• Thaís’ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/iamthaissky/
• “Schopenhauer’s Porcupines: Intimacy And Its Dilemmas: Five Stories of Psychotherapy” by Deborah Anna Luepnitz
• Donald Winnicott’s psychoanalysis legacy