Changing Perspective from Shame to Self-worth | Sue Bryce | TEDxPepperdineUniversity

So as I stand on stage at one of America's most prestigious universities for a world-class speaking platform, I think about how a girl from South Auckland, New Zealand, got here, and then it occurred to me that I was about to tell him. I'm about to tell you my biggest

shame

: I didn't finish high school, believe me, the irony is not lost on me right now. I formed a strong belief system and identity around this and I just felt like I wasn't good enough and didn't do it. I don't know why and my fear wasn't that you'd think I was stupid, but that you'd think I wasn't good enough and I grew up working class and uneducated and I wore this perception of inadequacy like a cloak of

shame

and this insufficiency that showed me It went wrong in every area of ​​my life and my income, my body, my career and my relationships, and honestly, at 15, what chance did I have?

I was

worth

less and the world was reflecting that, back to me, I bounced around, you know, community education for about three. years old when I turned 18 I found photography I fell in love with it and I found my way I'm a portrait photographer and I've been one for 30 years I spent the first 10 years just obsessively mastering my craft and I found my value in mastery and I left I'll tell you something about mastery because it doesn't matter who you are or where you come from or where you were born, no one can take away your mastery.

The master's degree gave me the confidence that I didn't get from education and I worked in my own way. To become an associate photographer, suddenly I'm 23 and I'm photographing rich, successful, high profile people, lawyers, doctors, surgeons, athletes, no one seemed to care that I didn't have an education, in fact they were all elevating me these. Smart, successful people sat down for me and taught me something: You see, the camera is an extraordinary tool, you can talk to someone for any period of time in complete comfort, but the moment I bring the camera up to my face, in the moment when he covers my eyes.

I see you going to vulnerability sorry I just lost my baba so this time I'm almost 30 years old. I have a great job but I make minimum wage and I dreamed of starting a business. I did not have money. He had no education. I had no value, I will be a huge success and at the time of starting my business and unlocking my value, I went to my mom and asked her why you two never started a business. My mom looked at me and said yes. we lost him, this was news to me, I didn't know it and when I think about it, they were 21 and 22 years old, they had three little kids, they were kids with kids and then my mom told me the one line that would profoundly change my life she said that Dad couldn't ask for money and that broke my heart and I remember clearly at that moment thinking that this is unacceptable to me.

My parents are good people, hard-working people, they deserve more, but it doesn't work that way, right? I soon learned, when I started my own business, that I was exactly the same. I couldn't sell my own work. I couldn't ask for or receive money of the same value and I couldn't honor my

self

at all. Now I understand the value of my job. It already was. working on it, but this goes beyond that, it seemed to come from me, it gave me physical and emotional pain to expose my

self

and my work and again it showed up in every part of my life, why do we constantly ignore the fact? that we carry all our emotional pain in our bodies it is quite obvious that the ego tells great big lies but the body does not lie it always reflects your pain we carry so much shame for debt so many wounds from our childhood we carry so much pain and shame in our bodies , but debt and unwanted weight and fighting self-hatred are just classic symptoms of avoidance and you see that shame is not our enemy, it is the guiding light of your self-esteem.

Your pain simply comes from resistance and disrespect. -Self-acceptance, sales are a metric of value in business and money is a metric of value for oneself, that is why you cannot create abundance without self-esteem because you have to be able to receive it. Money follows

worth

, success follows self-esteem and this was my Tipping Point Abundance is not a metric for good and bad, bad people make money, but rather it is a metric for what is worthy. and what is not worth it, and when you are trapped in a cycle of debt you feel helpless and it just feels unfair and then you discover this abundance that is available is not decided by birthright or social evaluation in fact no one decides that you are worthy the only The person who can decide to be worthy of something is you and when you live month by month you don't dream and you don't make big plans, you simply try to survive and there is no expansion when you live in a place of survival, make no mistake, this is a work of self-esteem and It's difficult, this is mirror work and it's about you and the worst and the best of this is you are the poison and you are the antidote and when you come to total acceptance of your now and take responsibility for what you have and take it back ownership of all areas of your life until you deactivate your old story and learn a new way of perceiving and presenting yourself to the world, it will continue to disempower you, so how do you rewrite this story?

Go back to the moment you feel fear before you act, question number one, everything that fear says and if you can stay aware and simply observe your own thoughts in this moment you will find yourself reaching for the old story and whatever you do in this moment. moment don't numb it don't numb this pain don't eat it don't drink it don't buy it we have become a numbing culture just feel it and observe it and when we turn off our avoidance we not only feel in control, we begin to evolve and this is where you create a new story, just go back to observing the pain, there is a lesson here for you, you will become the more successful the amount of pain you are willing to endure and the faster you accept the pain, the faster you will overcome it, it is very important that you learn to stay here because if you go back to the past right now, you will bring resentment and then you will enhance your resentment right now if you go into the future right now with worry and imagination you will bring fear and you will enhance it in your now and instead what I want you to do is comfort yourself stay present feel the feeling observe your reaction, this is where you learn to care for yourself the longer you stay in any focus the faster you will attract that energy, good or bad, observe your own pattern, you created it, observe yourself until you realize that you have complete control over how you are responding to I want you to try to master the approach of self-acceptance, self-awareness and pure self-love because this is where you challenge the old identity and I promise you that there is more power in the emotional mastery than in any skill you can learn.

I know I thought the world was against me for a long time until I realized I had nothing of value to contribute to this world. Do your daily practice: self-awareness, self-acceptance, self-worth and self-care every day in everything you do and watch it transform. In your life I have learned that you can be born in poverty but not be poor here, don't take me with you, poor thing, it's about being able to enter a room so full of value to give, you can do it on equal terms. I learned that the tremendous revolutionary transformation that is open to each of us is to understand and rewrite our greatest shame, our weakness, our failure of character, the parts we hate most about ourselves and bring them to light.

I found no physical barrier to success. It wasn't created by me and I really believed there was. I suffered deep shame for not being educated, and ironically, I built an education company, empowered my biggest shame, and it became my superpower. You know, this isn't about accumulating millions, although I agree with that. It's about going beyond survival, okay, it's about overcoming enough to survive, it's about abundance in all areas of your life, deeper relationships, and most importantly, it's the life you wanted. live, I deserved more so I created more I built an amazing business and I found my confidence in the service of my gifts and I learned how to attract manage and keep money breaking my own cycle of debt I decided what I really wanted and I declared it with certainty and conviction and then I focused on it every day and did it with an obsessive focus and a heart full of service to give and grow and as I built more value in myself and my business, I thrived and it manifested in every area of ​​my life and every time I went back to fear and avoidance I remembered my statement and I was honored because the antonym of shame is honor and this is what you will never attract more than you think you are worth so I challenge you to find your worth and I promise It's never too late to rewrite your story.