At your core, you are infinitely capable of handling life's challenges.
But right now, you just feel stuck.
You want to feel happier, less anxious, more at ease with your life.
No matter what you try - the self-care techniques, the changes in your routines, the affirmations, even other therapies - it either doesn't work, or it doesn't stick.
The strategies you’ve used - the coping skills and self-medication, the late nights spent endlessly trying to figure out how everyone seems to be doing just fine but you – they just don’t help. You can never just… feel okay.
You feel like you're on a hamster wheel going nowhere.
You don't know what you're doing wrong.
The truth is, you are not doing anything wrong.
And another truth is, you are not alone.
What you are experiencing are the effects of deep-seated beliefs you developed in childhood, in order to make sense of the world around you. It was then you developed beliefs that you were fundamentally flawed, or not enough.
Sound familiar?
There is a part of you that decided you must be perfect in order to be deserving of the ease you seek.
Maybe you had a single parent who worked two jobs and had no time for you.
As a child, you may have thought - because children do this - it was your fault they didn’t spend time with you. You may have subconsciously concluded that you were bad or unworthy somehow (otherwise, they would spend time with you, right?). You blamed yourself for what they didn’t - couldn’t - give you.
So a part of you decided you should work to win their love by being the "perfect child" who never (ever!) makes a mistake, so you could get their love and approval. Be worthy.
And maybe this worked well in your youth. But at what cost? The “perfect child” became terrified of making mistakes. Now the "perfect child" is a chronically anxious and self-critical adult. Now it is hard to feel that you can do anything well enough to feel safe or at ease.
Any time our needs did not get met as children, we developed a belief that we must make ourselves better to earn love.
Any time our needs did not get met as children, we believed that we must change ourselves to earn acceptance.
Left undiscovered, these beliefs continue to run our lives and our thoughts long after they have ceased being useful. They then become the weapons of anxiety, fear, and worry that we use against ourselves, without even realizing that we're doing it.
But you don't have to live this way.
It is time to remember who you are. You have ALWAYS been worthy of the love you seek.
Comments