In this live Unlearning Lab presentation, the speaker shares a personal journey of discovering that self‑worth is an internal, immutable quality rather than something granted by external validation. She recounts a pivotal epiphany at age 42, when she realized she had been treating her worthiness like a "hot potato"—catching it when others affirmed her and discarding it when they didn’t. Through the lens of romantic relationships, she illustrates how the behavior of partners had unconsciously dictated her self‑valuation. The talk emphasizes intentional unlearning: shedding the habit of seeking worth in external sources (e.g., partners, achievements, material success) and reclaiming the inherent, always‑available sense of value. She highlights the importance of community (“tribe”) to remind us of this truth during inevitable low‑energy days. To make the concept concrete, she guides the audience through a simple, embodied exercise—placing the dominant hand on the heart, feeling the heartbeat, and affirming personal worthiness. The overall message is a call to reclaim internal value, recognize that worth is not contingent on external actions, and use daily reminders to stay connected to that inner worth.
Chapters
Hello everyone in the virtual room, everyone present in this beautiful space. Dina, look around. I'm perimenopausal, everybody, so I have moments where I have— I get flashes, I get emotional. I'm so proud of you. I'm so excited for you, and I'm just so honored and grateful to be in the presence of greatness, right? So thank you everybody for being here. Um, wow, unlearning. What part of my life am I not unlearning? So when Dina asked me to be part of the events, and I was thinking about What would I talk about? I was like, how am I gonna make this decision? Because the last 6 or 7 years, I have really unlearned everything that I thought I knew about myself, about the world, about others, you know, the expectations. But then there's that one piece, and I was like, Dina, this is where I'm going. So when we're in love, or even lust, we share parts of ourselves with our partners, right? Feelings, thoughts, trust, even glimpses into our sometimes messy pasts, right? Some of us give gifts. Who's a gift giver? Who's the gift givers in the house, right? Some of us give gifts, thoughtful tokens of our appreciation, right? Generous acts of kindness. But we're not supposed to hand our worth over to our partners. Now, this might be very obvious to all of you, but this was absolutely not obvious to me. I didn't hand my worth over knowingly, right? I'm not that much of a martyr. I didn't do it knowingly, but I did. And it was 42 years old, I was 42 years old, when I had this epiphany about my worthiness. Um, hmm. You know, based on my self-perception, based on my experiences, and the feedback that I received from other people, I didn't know worthiness was a thing. Not then. And that's a really interesting thing to unlearn at 42 years old, right? Um, so, all right, I'm going to jump around with my timeline because you all can track. So I'm in my apartment and I'm sitting at my table having dinner alone. And I'm going through, sifting through layers and layers and layers of hurt feelings, trying to understand why I was experiencing this tremendous heartbreak over someone that I wasn't even really into. Oh girl, right? And his behavior was very obvious behavior for someone who was not interested. And I'm sitting at my table and I'm eating, and I'm thinking, "But what is this intense emptiness?" Right? Because it was so much more than rejection. I'm familiar with rejection, right? And it was so much more than that, but there was this emptiness, this longing for, and there was a profound pain that I couldn't quite put my finger on. And boom! It hits me like a ton of bricks. Your worth. You've been handing it off over and over and over without ever realizing. So I came up with this visual. I was treating my worthiness like the symbolic hot potato. Someone throws it my way, I catch it. Right? Feel great? And then I'd cast it off again. But I was always longing for it to come back. Always with this deep desire for it, right? Just didn't know what it actually was. So this is how it was set up for me. In romantic relationships particularly, because that's the area that I want to emphasize today. If they called when they said they would, worthy. Jeez. If they did thoughtful things and showed up and expressed their love and attention, spent time with me— worthy. And if they didn't, what do you think that I came to think about myself? Yeah, not worthy. And this was all playing out automatically, right? This was the tape that was playing. And so intentional healing and unlearning was my way of coming to a very aware space in my life where I was able to look at all this and say, your worth is inherent. It belongs to you. At all times. Deena talked about hustling. You don't have to hustle for your worthiness, right? You don't have to go look for it in external places. You're not going to find it at the gym. You're not going to find it at the bank. You're not going to find it at your favorite department store. It's yours. And you have access to it at all times. And so this is the speech that I'm giving myself, right? And so I came up with something that I can do to remind myself, and I'm going to share that with you in a few minutes. Um, but your worth is yours. The actions and behavior of others That's theirs, right? And the two are not connected. The two are not connected. And I get it now, right? And so the unlearning around this piece blew the lid off for me, right? And some days I'm fully immersed, and I love that you highlight, Dina, that, you know, all of us Healing is not a one-and-done. I have this powerful realization that I am the keeper of my worth. But make no mistake about it, there are some days where I don't have access to that. And that's why it's important to be surrounded by your tribe, who can remind you what you sometimes forget. And I don't know what happened. We do all, but in the pandemic specifically, I forget a lot. Do you all forget a lot? I don't know if it's a caricature, I forget a lot, and so we need to remind ourselves, okay? So, um, I want to turn it over to you at this particular point. Does this resonate for anyone? Absolutely. Absolutely. We're never alone, right? You're never alone. You are the keeper of your worth. It is inherent. You do not have to go looking for it. You don't have to jump through hoops that are on fire to access it. You're not going to find it in any external places. It's with you now, it's with you always, and you need to absolutely have a way of remembering when the going gets tough and life happens and you forget, right? Because that's what it's like, that's what it means to be human. And I know we forget that we're human, right? So there's this expectation that we have it all figured out. So, in this moment, what I'm going to ask you to do, take your dominant hand, put it in the air. Put it firmly on your heart. Can you feel that? By now you should be feeling your heart beating. When and if you forget that you are worthy, that by definition you are valuable, you are enough, and you are deserving, put your hands on your heart, feel your miraculous heartbeat, and answer the question: Yes. You are worthy, my friends, simply because you are alive. Reclaim your worthiness today. In this moment, there's not a damn thing you need to wait for. Do not allow any of your experiences try to convince you that you are not worthy. They are experiences. Thank you. So I held it together for the better part of the morning. Until now. It's so real.
