When my son was very little, just starting to put sentences together, I found him throwing a £5 note in the kitchen bin. I said to him, “don’t throw that away, it’s money!”. He put it back in, “no, Mummy, it’s wubbish!”. I couldn’t convince him that this scrumpled scrap of paper had an intrinsic value so in the end I just took it and put it somewhere safe. Probably in my purse. I had the advantage of knowing that the scrap of paper had intrinsic value that couldn’t be decreased by age or damage. He was taking it at face value; it looked like a grubby torn off shred of paper so that’s what he assumed it was.
This is rather like the speakers’ trick I have heard about – but not seen live myself – where the speaker holds up a £20 note (we are moving up in the world). He or she asks if anyone wants it. Of course several people put up their hands. Then the speaker scrumples up the note and asks if anyone wants it now. The response is the same. Treads on it. The response is still the same. We understand that money has an intrinsic value, and we know it means the same to us, whatever it looks like and however damaged it is.
We are just like money. We have an intrinsic value. We are born with it and it can’t be erased, whatever we do and whatever happens to us. The rub is, we need to get the message that we have this value. Otherwise, if we look older, know we are damaged, or feel bad, we will assume that this is the measure of our worth. Just like my son with the £5 note, if we don’t know our intrinsic value, we can treat ourselves like “wubbish”, taking ourselves at face value. And of course we can do this with other people as well.
Today I am reminding myself of my intrinsic value, and remembering to get that message out to others as well. If every child was raised to know their worth, indelible despite their behaviour or what happens to them, how different would the world look? Just pondering………….
