Jennifer Breheny Wallace

The fastest way to feel like you matter again is to remind someone else why they do.

I think about this litmus test.

When I'm feeling like I don't matter or my sense of mattering is taking a hit, I ask myself this one question.

I say, am I letting people in to see me and know me for who I am deep inside?

Am I leaning on my people?

Am I opening up or do I feel like I need to go through whatever struggle or whatever I'm going through in the busyness of life on my own?

People often...

don't want to invite people into their lives when they're going through something hard.

But there's research that I love called the beautiful mess effect, which is the idea that we often overestimate how much people will appreciate us opening up to them.

that opening up, revealing a bit of our struggle to others actually makes us look more authentic and it actually brings people closer to us.

So if you're feeling like you don't matter, ask yourself, do you have one or two or three people in your life who know you for who you are deep inside?

And if you don't, think about ways that you can start to invite those people into your life.

That's exactly right.

I mean, mattering is not some sort of trophy that we win and we put up on our shelves.

It is fluid.

And there are moments in life when we feel almost like we matter too much.

I mean, that's the other end of the spectrum.

When you are a busy parent or a caretaker,

you can feel like you matter way too much.

But that too is not a true sense of mattering.