Alicia Keys Knows the Secret of High Status
And now, so do I.
Last week, along with my Q-tips and Tylenol, I bought Alicia Key’s book, More Myself. It called to my heart. The literary book snob in me, resisted. But eventually, I gave in.
Alicia is a fifteen-time Grammy award-winning artist, songwriter, musician, producer, actress, entrepreneur, activist, multi-millionaire, mother, wife and struggles with her self-worth.
I was stunned by the premise! A woman with sky-high status admits to feeling worthlessness!
The book touches on many shades of status. There’s social status, financial status, health status, intellectual status, spiritual status, emotional status, material status, political status, career status, family status, marital status, class status, racial status, gender status and more.
Alicia Keys is a woman who has achieved superstar status in so many of the areas I’ve listed and yet, she admits to carrying the “seed of worthlessness” within.
Her truth-telling disrupted my mental track. It was an Aha moment. Alicia introduced me to type of status I hadn’t considered before.
The status of self-worth.
Self-Worth Status Definitions
Status: One’s position in society; the word derived from the Latin statum or standing (past participle of the verb stare, to stand).
Self-worth: sense of one’s own value as a human being.
Self-worth Status: standing on your value as a human.
How to Gain Self-Worth Status
1. Accept all types of status are precarious, but self-worth status doesn’t have to be.
At any moment, elements outside of our control, recession, pandemics, promotions, systemic discrimination, layoffs, gossip, accusations, can impact our status.
One slip in the wrong direction can mean the difference between dignity and dehumanization.Unless you’ve cultivated self-worth status.
When you have self-worth status, “you are a testament to the power of the human spirit and a reflection of [the] creator.” Self-worth status proves imperfect humans have the capacity to sculpt the “dust and boulders of our circumstances into fine art.”
2. Accept dependence on precarious status is not the only choice.
Most of us worry about our position on the ladder of worldly status. This is because “our self-concept is so dependent upon what others make of us.”
Minus signs of acknowledgement and recognition from the world, we find it difficult to tolerate ourselves.
However, we can pick up the pen and choose to become the authors of our own self-worth narrative.
3. Accept the price of self-worth status is total responsibility.
Building self-worth status is hard. It means questioning the forms of status preserved at the expense of self-worth status.
Alicia says, “everyday, I have to intentionally maintain an awareness of my value. I know I’m worthy. But I have to work everyday to preserve that status.”
In choosing to take total responsibility for worthiness, the din of the world falls away. Clarity comes, along with the realization, you are what you believe about yourself.
4. Accept lack of self-worth status may exist in you.
There are many reasons it’s easy to think that self-worth status comes on the heels of financial, career, intellectual status. That’s the dominant messaging.
But the real reason we still feel lack, even after hitting those status milestones is because we carry “seeds of worthlessness” within.
These seeds hold information like: You don’t matter. Your feelings don’t matter. Your ideas are not important. Your opinions are not valid. Your needs come last.
Generally, these seeds are planted in childhood and they grow with us, into adulthood.
Alicia teaches us, even when worldly status reaches unimaginable heights, seeds of worthlessness can rob us of who we are.
“If you don’t value my thoughts, feelings and ideas then, I must not be valuable,” she says.
We put on masks. We attempt to hide our lack of self worth status with worldly status, rather than uproot the lies.
“I’ve spent so many years withholding parts of myself, sacrificing my spirit to make others feel comfortable,” she says.
Moving forward, Standing on Worthiness
Maintaining self-worth status is a persistent practice. A good place to start is by asking the questions:
1. What are the forms of status I’ve been trying to preserve at the expense of self-worth status?
2. What status do I really want and deserve in my life?
When I reflect deeply on the latter question, the answer is unequivocal. I deserve the status of self-worth.
This is the status I ought to work hardest to preserve. This is the status that ought to propel me through my workday as a writer, a teacher, mother and wife. This is the status, I ought to work overtime for. This is the status that will serve me and others in the difficult years to come.
Self-worth Status is Contagious
I caught it from Alicia Keys, a New York City woman whose self-honoring energy hooked my heart and wouldn’t let go.
She’s a women who believes what we want most: “[is] to be loved, seen, and accepted for all of who we are.”
And I think she’s right.
