The Love You Deserve

“We accept the love we think we deserve.” - Stephen Chbosky

It may seem as though you do not have the ability to rise above the circumstances of your birth or upbringing. No one directly chooses to live in poverty, to be abused, to be shamed, to be made fun of, not only by those outside of your family, but also by those within your family. 

No one chooses to be made to feel small, unworthy, unwanted, unloved, repetitively criticized for not being “good enough”, or inferior to others because of physical characteristics, whether or not you are male or female, or simply because you do not want to follow in the footsteps of your family’s expectations for you.  

If you have experienced any of these challenges in your lifetime, you understand the impact of this and how it can alter the way you see yourself and your worth. It is a heavy burden to bear. This feeling of “not good enough” plays itself out in your personal relationships, your professional life, and the way you raise your own children. For those who may have experienced significant emotional, physical, or sexual trauma, the feelings of shame and unworthiness can seem insurmountable and even paralyzing emotionally. 

The conditioned feeling of unworthiness can lead to further abuse and unhealthy, inequitable relationships, where the person may still be unconsciously playing the role of the victim in those new relationships. We are attracted to what is familiar to us. 

You may have heard the saying, “opposites attract”.  In reality, that is only true in the world of electromagnetism, where polar opposites do attract and attach to one another. 

In human relationships, we are conditioned by events in our upbringing and external forces that surrounded us, with ingrained, conditioned ways of forming relationships, based on what we have been taught to accept.  

As a result, we are actually attracted to others, based on what we know and what seems familiar to us.  We are not attracted to opposites at all, but rather, something in that person that is similar to what we have been conditioned to accept. For those who have been treated with disrespect and shame throughout their life, they may actually distrust someone who is treating them with dignity and respect, because it is foreign to them. 

The good news is we are not destined to remain stuck in the mindset of our conditioning. When you know better, you can do better, and behave differently.  New knowledge and gaining an understanding of your conditioning by others, will help you to choose relationships and conditions in your life that are healthier, uplifting, accepting, loving, calm, peaceful, and fulfilling.  

How can you unlearn what you have been taught? 

Unlearning unhealthy conditioning by others is a process that requires peeling away layer upon layer of conditioning by gaining an understanding of who you are at your core and who you are not.  You arrived into this world as an innocent, being of light wrapped in a tiny body, without any of the emotional baggage that you carry now as an adult. That innocent, loving being is who you are at your core. You have merely been conditioned to forget who you are. 

Here are a few tips to get you started on unlearning the effects of negative conditioning: 

1. First, realize that you are NOT your conditioning. You are a timeless spiritual being who is here for a short while, to experience mortality, to know love, to learn, and to grow. 

2. Whatever may have happened to you at the hands of others, was never your fault. You deserved to be treated with unconditional love then and you deserve to be loved and accepted without conditions now. 

3. You are not destined to live a life of suffering and unhappiness. Working through the events of your past that have held you back and releasing them, will allow you to peel away the effects of the past on your life in the present. 

4. Whoever may have hurt you and taught you that you were not worthy of love and happiness, was projecting their own pain onto you. Their behavior says everything about them and their level of consciousness, which had nothing to do with you at all. You did not deserve that treatment in any way. 

5. No one can behave in a manner that is beyond their current level of consciousness or current mindset.  While knowing this does not excuse hurtful or harmful behavior, it can allow you to see that the people who have hurt you, were also victims of unhealthy conditioning in their own lives, are repeating it, and did not posses the skills to treat you any differently than they were treated. 

6. Find resources and professional help that resonates with you on how to address your conditioning, so you do not continue the cycle of dysfunctional relationships in your own life. There are many books on the subject to get you started. 

You deserve to be who you are at your core, underneath all of the conditioning that has caused you to forget who you are. You deserve inner peace, fulfillment, happiness, and to be surrounded by unconditional love in your relationships. 

You are worthy of the effort of unlearning what you have been taught that no longer serves you. 

The greatest gift you can give to yourself and the people you love, is the gift of being yourself fully.  There are many resources available, in many different styles of learning, that can lead to the same place…. back to who you are at your core that will set yourself free. 

Resources and Publications

Visit my website to learn more about my services and how to work with me. 

Contact me directly if transformational coaching resonates with you:  elizabethmlykinspac@gmail.com