A note on Unworthiness. Per the previous post, ‘Are you Unworthy’. Brian asked, “How does one fix that?”
Chadely, I totally agree with you. “Fill your hole with love.”
There is no other way around it. You have to believe, beyond any doubt that you are loveable, and you cannot fundamentally believe that if you don’t love yourself.
Try looking at it this way and see if it helps. You have to be your own best friend. You need to be your own confidante, muse, shoulder to cry on and parent. You need to be your own lover and companion. That doesn’t mean you cannot have other people to be these things for you as well, but ultimately, if you cannot provide these things for yourself on your own for the majority of your needs, you will look to others to fill them - this is where the crux takes place…
If you are looking, for more than say, 25/30 percent of those needs to be met by other people – you are at the mercy of their acceptance. What becomes a necessity to your fulfillment of the vacancy within – you believe can only be achieved from the “granting” by another person and if they are withholding in any way (whether they are tired, busy, or just not interested) it leads someone who is in need of this down a path of : (I’m not good enough, they don’t love me, is it the way I dress? Talk? Look? Maybe if I give more, they will love me. Maybe if I were skinnier they would be attracted to me? Maybe…)
You see the problem? And that’s just the start! Once the foundation is put down that you fundamentally think you are not worthy for one individual… it somehow spirals and rockets to an entire gender, or family, or group of friends! And the more you come off to people with a vacancy in your center or give off an aura of “need acceptance” the less likely you are to get it. It is simply human nature to avoid the complication of the internal self-loathing – probably because we all have our own self and worth issues to confront, other people’s makes us uncomfortable.
This is the catch, the moment you stop wanting approval or acceptance or justification from an outside source – you very often get it.
This has been ridiculously hard for me sometimes. My breakthrough came in Junior High when I was teased mercilessly for being fat and as one kid put it, “Ugly enough to make people cry in pain.” The tragedy was that I was 5’8 in 7th grade and weighed only 130 lbs. I was too poor to dress stylishly so I didn’t fit in and one “friend” asked me to wear her jeans one day before going to the mall because she didn’t want to be seen with me if I was wearing Lee’s. I was for lack of a word – a complete outcast. The more I wanted to fit in the less I got it and the more I was ridiculed.
My freshman year of High School I moved to Alaska, and in the 9 days it took us to drive there I decided. I just didn’t care anymore. Kids are cruel. People can be god-awful to each other.
When I arrived in Valdez, I got out of the car and thought from now on – I don’t care if everyone thinks I’m ugly – I’ll just be ugly and that’s okay.
In fact, the first time I think I met Chadely, he walked into the choir room and gave me a genuine compliment and I turned around and said, “You want me to bend over so you can blow some more smoke up my ass?!”
We’ve been Champion and Lady ever since.
I guess what I’m getting at is there is a wholeness of being, a headspace that can only be achieved by knowing – your survival and happiness does not depend on the giving of love or acceptance from anyone but yourself. When you have that, it’s like the freaking holy grail and you can heal yourself eternally with it and the love that comes from others to you – becomes a bonus. Your life changes from walking through a desert and running at mirages – to swimming in the ocean while it’s raining.
This is how I learned to love myself and give myself the things I needed to be whole.
Learn to spend time alone and LOVE my company. People who are uncomfortable alone are generally harboring a sense of unworthiness.
I learned to go out to movies alone, eat out alone, go on road trips alone. I learned to be creative alone and go off into the woods and camp alone. Not because I don’t have people I would love to go with, but because I want to spend time with Athena, and let her know I care about what she has to say, feel or need.
Only when I am full do I have plenty to give and never need it back. When I am feeling unworthy or “trying too hard” I generally go away for a time and cave to re-establish my inner well so I can be a better person/friend/lover.
I don’t know it this helps. Everyone has to find their own way to fill themselves or determine their own worth. It’s a process. Some days are better than others.
My advice is to be SELFISH. If you don’t give yourself what you need – you will expect/need/ache for it to be given to you by someone else – and in that moment – you will be making the choice to let their opinion of your value determine your level of fulfillment… that is, until you take your power back to yourself.
Does that make sense? Am I totally off the mark here?
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