Jennifer Breheny Wallace

It wasn't for exercise, it was it was simply to come back to herself and to show herself that she was a priority too.

So if you are struggling with feeling like you don't matter, I would say start with mattering to yourself again.

finding, getting in touch, tuning in to what you need so that you can show up as your best self.

That's number one.

And then number two, I would say ask yourself if you're investing in your friendships.

Finding one or two people in your life that you can open up to, that you can be vulnerable with, and who will be vulnerable with you, those relationships feed our sense of mattering.

They remind us that we matter for who we are.

Yeah, so mattering is a deep human need that we inherited from our earliest ancestors.

It's an evolutionary need.

We need to know that we are valued by our band or our group.

And so when we are made to feel like we don't matter, we will act out in ways as if to say, oh, I don't matter.

I'll show you I matter.

And that is what road rage is.

right?

Somebody feels cut off either literally or figuratively.

And so they are asserting their sense of mattering.

Oh, I will show you I matter.

So it's almost like demanding attention, demanding it.

Once you see the world through the lens of mattering, you cannot unsee it.

You will see that when people are rude to you, incivility, these are signs that they are struggling with a sense of mattering themselves.