Self Worth: Why Do Some Men Feel Worthless?

To have a balanced sense of worth is healthy and conducive to someone realising that they deserve to receive and to achieve in life. The problem is that not everyone has this experience and this can cause them to believe that they are worthless and therefore deserve very little, if anything, from life.

This could mean that one displays an exaggerated sense of themselves and this is the result of them going to the other extreme. Perhaps they feel as though they deserve everything in one moment and the next moment, they slump right back into their feeling of being worthless.

In some contexts their level of self worth might be normal or even high and in others it could be nonexistent. And for others it might be a general experience that they have. So no matter what it is, they still feel worthless and unable to accept what they truly want and need.

Males And Females

For a long time males were seen as the bread winners and as the people who had most of the power and influence. And as times have changed, females have gained a lot more power and influence. As they were starved of this for so long, this can only be a good thing.

So that both genders can be in their power; with neither one feeling worthless or less than the other. Besides, each gender is different and their purpose if not to compare themselves with each other. And while a women’s sense of empowerment has generally risen, it has not necessarily been the same experience for men.

For some men, it has been a time of wondering what their identity is and what will give them a sense of self worth and purpose in a world that is changing rapidly.

Local Level

While there is a general experience being had in the world, there is also the experience that some men are having on a more local level. This could be something they tell their friends and family about or it could be what they keep close to themselves.

Other people may notice it if they pay attention, but men are not always comfortable showing how they feel to others. To be man can often mean that one has to cover up how they feel and to pretend to others that they are doing just fine. If their feelings were to be shown, one might be labelled as weak or another derogatory description.

Suffering In Silence

And man may engage in drugs, violence, drink, food or even working out as a way to numb their feelings of being worthless. Depression could ensue and be something they are very familiar with.

These options may work for a while and lead to one feeling better, but what they won’t typically do is deal with these feelings. What they will do is numb them or push them out of one’s conscious awareness. It would be a lot more functional for them to be dealt with and yet, this is not something that always takes place.

If it was more socially acceptable for a man to open up about how they felt and not as taboo, then they would be more inclined would reach out for help. And as a result of it being acceptable, there would be more solutions widely available for men in this position.

Areas Of Life

A man could find that his low sense of worth is having an impact on every area of his life. From his: relationships, career, finances and health for instance. Or it could be something that just affects his relationships or career.

The need to grow and to see that one is progressing in life might then be stifled. One might simply feel like giving up or not put in the effort to begin with. There could also be a kind of compensation that takes place.

Here, a man uses the pain of feeling worthless to become very successful in his career and yet in every other area of their life, it could be very different story.

The Opposite Sex

This could also cause a man to feel worthless when it comes to the opposite sex. The desire to attract a woman or women into their life could be a real challenge. So they could settle for any woman that comes onto their path or end up not having women in their life.

A man may only feel a sense of self worth when he is with a woman and fell worthless when he is not with one. So his sense of self is then completely dependent on women. To be without one could result in one feeling: powerless, hopeless, ashamed, empty, depressed, and suicidal.

Power

So it becomes clear that women can have incredible power over whether a man feels good about themselves or if they don’t. This could be looked at to mean that men are therefore below women and that a man has to wrestle back some of this power.

For an adult male, this might not make any sense as to why they would feel like this in relation to women. However, at one point in their life, they were completerly dependent on a woman. And this woman had complete power over them and defined if they had their needs and wants met or if they didn’t.

The Mother Figure

This woman would have been their mother in most cases. It could also include other influential females who were around at the time. Such as a: sister, grandmother, family friend, auntie and cousins for instance.

So how ones mother responded to them and to the men around them as a baby and as a child, would have had a massive impact on how worthy they go on to feel as an adult. If this was a mother that was generally empathic and attuned to their needs and wants, they would have developed the outlook that they are worthy and form healthy sense of power.

If on the other hand this was a mother that was unempathic and therefore unaware of their needs and wants when they were younger, they would likely come to the conclusion that they are worthless. It could also have included a mother who was abusive in some way and made them feel worth less through physical, verbal or emotional abuse.

Awareness

These experiences would have created beliefs in one’s mind and how one felt as a result of what happened could have stayed trapped in their body. It might be enough to change these beliefs that exist in the mind, but for others it will be important release the trapped feelings and emotions from their body.

This can be done with the assistance of therapist or healer who will allow one to face their trapped feelings and emotions and gradually release them.