Hi friend,
Your worth is not equal to your productivity.
This is something I've been really struggling with lately. I was the kid who usually had her homework done while still in class. In my corporate jobs I prided myself on getting three times as much done as any other employee.
Now that I'm a small business owner, people occasionally marvel at the amount of stuff I produce, and yeah, I'll admit that feels good.
But I also think, beyond living in a capitalist system, this desire for productivity is rooted in my anxiety disorder. The more I produce, the more worthy I am. Losing months of my life to sudden-onset sleep apnea has really been a rebuttal of that toxic belief.
Yesterday, I apologized to my husband for being so lazy and not contributing more financially to our family. He blinked and said, "You're not lazy. You're sick."
It was a bit of a wake-up call.
It's clear that he considers me equally worthy and loveable no matter how much I produce, and I certainly tell other people their worth doesn't equal their productivity, so the least I can do is extend that grace to myself.
My silver lining today is that I'm feeling very justified and validated about what I wrote in the first edition of The Exhausted Entrepreneur about running a business with chronic illness and how to determine what your resources (particularly energy and brain space) are.
I was halfway through the second edition when sleep purgatory hit, but day when I'm able to finish it I'm going to be able to bring even more lived experience and wisdom to it.
After last week's letter about diabetes jokes and why they're not okay, a few folks replied asking for more information about the science on diabetes. I've included two links in the Quick Resources section below that contain lots of information on diabetes, body size and sugar intake.
