Intentions and expectations

So, I haven't written in a week or so, but I have had a lot of time to ponder about what my expectations of others are, and if they are realistic. I've also questioned the expectations I hold of myself. What are my intentions when I want to control? What is the outcome I want and am I acting or reacting from fear based emotions?
Well, I can say, as a woman, that this can be a harder question to answer during certain times of the month. For me anyway!! Geeze. I feel like I'm going crazy sometimes. But, I also am learning to recognize what is emotional, hormonal, and genuine concern.
I have been keeping high expectations of myself, more than anyone else. I am afraid of failure. I am afraid of loss. I am afraid of not being enough. This makes it hard to take responsibility sometimes for my feelings and emotions, because that too can be seen as weakness, or failure. But I'm realizing that it is a super strengthening ability: to be able to accept responsibility for our own feelings and stop waiting for some one else or something else to change so we can be happy.
I was recently talking to my awesome sister on the phone, and we were discussing how difficult it is to be a woman and not have certain physical and mental expectations of ourselves. We grow up with a sense of what is appealing, attractive and acceptable, and if we don't have those things, then are self worth suffers. Greatly!
We discussed how you get to a point where you don't let those things bother you anymore.
How do you stop caring about what the world (media, etc.) deems acceptable and find your own beauty and self worth?
What does loving yourself and loving who you are have to do with codependence? a LOT.
Here are my views on self image and codependence.
When you doubt who you are and you constantly live with negative thoughts and feelings about yourself, the insecurities that accompany those thoughts and feelings are enormous. When you add on top of that any kind of fear, you will react to situations without confidence, without faith and without love. You're driven by your fears and self-depricating views.
But, when you begin to see your true worth, and that it's not just physical, but emotional, mental and spiritual, you begin to find that you don't react to others out of fear, but that you really want to be proactive. You will have an inner confidence that will carry you through those days when your codependence wants to take over. You will know that you are worth while. That you are special and that you don't need anyone else to tell you that, show you that or do anything to 'make' you feel it!
I'm curious to know what everyone else thinks about this. Tell me what you think helps a woman, or a man, find his own self worth. How do you grasp that on your own, being codependent?
I'm all ears....