This post originally appeared in January of 2020 and has since been expanded to include 3 practical tips to help you find your self-worth.
“I don’t deserve love.” Wow. That’s a powerful statement. Love can be a confusing and fickle concept. Deep down we all want to be loved, share love or experience love. However, sometimes our family history, our past relationships and our limited self beliefs can make us feel like “I don’t deserve love”. Feeling deserving of love really comes down to our ability to see ourselves as worthy of being loved. Sometimes the voice between our ears- our negative self talk- can hinder us from believing that we truly are worthy of love and happiness. In order to change that negative self talk around deserving to be loved, we must first look at perhaps where some of those ideas of worthiness and love came from.
You might also be interested in: You Are Worthy of Love
Read on to find how our relationship with our parents or family of origin and our past relationship history, can lead to limiting beliefs and negative self-talk regarding our ability to be loved as well as the thinking that “I don’t deserve love”.
Family of Origin Love Style
Our family of origin, our parents, or the adults who were responsible for raising us- are our first example and model of how to love. With the idea that our parents or guardians growing up did the best they could with the skills that they had – we may have gotten some inaccurate ideas about how to love and be loved- or at least some ideas that don’t feel authentic to us. Perhaps we had guardians or parents who were distant, worked a lot, or really didn’t know how to articulate thoughts and feelings around love and affection. This could have left us feeling ‘unchosen’ or as if we were not “good enough” to be loved. As a child, we didn’t know any better. The way love and affection was shown in our household was our “normal”. But as we grew up, and started to engage in romantic relationships of our own, we brought along the same ideas of love from our childhood.
Relationship History
Another place to explore where our ideas of love and being deserving of love come from, is our past relationships. This idea grows on the previous one where it was already stated that our current romantic interactions tend to mirror what our family of origin‘s representation of love and affection look like. Being able to take a look back on the type of partner you’ve chosen, the way you’ve shown up in the relationship, and the way you felt within and after the relationship, are all cues to figure out how we’ve come to this conclusion that “I don’t deserve love”. When we look at our patterns of behavior in past relationships we are able to see if there are consistency- for example, the types of people we pick, the way we are treated, the things that we do. We can explore all of these things and see if there’s anything that we want to change. Change cannot come until we are aware of the unhelpful patterns that have happened up until this point. Where in your past relationships have you been told that you were not deserving of love? Where have you been made to feel like you were not “good enough“? These are questions we can use to gather more information on our ideas about love.
Self Talk
The chatter going on between our ears can also give us great insight into how we feel about our ability to love and be loved. What is the story that you keep telling yourself? Are there consistent thoughts of being unworthy, unlovable, “too much”? Do you identify yourself as having abandonment issues or commitment issues? Are these thoughts coming from a place of judgment? Are you being critical or judgmental of yourself for having issues with commitment in the past? And what would it look like to turn those judgments into compassion and understanding? Our patterns of behavior in past relationships didn’t come out of nowhere – they are just that, patterns of behavior. And with awareness, compassion, encouragement – we can start to change those patterns of behavior in the future.
You Deserve Love – 3 Practical Tips for Finding Your Self-Worth
While self-worth is innate, our sense of self-worth is learned. That is to say, if we’ve learned that we don’t deserve love, so too, can we learn that we are absolutely worthy of it.
Challenge the Narrative – The story we create to describe our life experiences is our narrative. When our narrative creates pain or limits our potential, exploring with curiosity can help us create space for new ways of describing our lived experiences. When you find yourself feeling like you don’t deserve love, try asking gentle questions such as: Where did you learn that you don’t deserve love? When you think about the message that you don’t deserve love, whose voice is telling you that? Is there fear or shame driving the current narrative? Could other narratives also fit? What evidence is there to support the old or new narrative?
Practice! Creating a sense of self-worth that is unshakeable can take practice for those of us who have lived most of our lives feeling unworthy of love. Changing our thought patterns and knowing we are innately worthy will take time and repetition. Each journey is unique, but common areas of needed practice on this leg of the journey include practice setting boundaries, receiving love from another person, speaking lovingly to ourselves, and feeling comfortable taking up more space than we did before. Don’t be afraid to try out your new skills as your learn them – practice makes progress!
Self-Compassion Exercises – Feeling worthy of love from another person starts with feeling we are worthy of love from ourselves. This can be a tricky concept to master, especially if we were taught that embracing self-love and self-worth is arrogant, self-centered, or selfish. A great way to boost our sense of self-worth is to practice self-compassion exercises. There’s no shortage of resources in this area and a quick Google search can offer something for everyone – whether you prefer guided visuals, journaling exercises, mindfulness exercises, podcasts, blogs books, or videos, the resources are rich. As you navigate these exercises, you may feel uncomfortable, and that’s ok. Going slowly can help you learn to trust yourself and lean into honest and authentic self-compassion.
You are Worthy of Love (and support)
If this sounds overwhelming – do not fear. A relationship coach, therapist, or counselor can help guide you to create a new story around you being deserving of love. Sometimes bringing up things from the past, or processing through current situations, can be scary- but the good news is we don’t have to go through it alone.
We are all worthy, deserving and cannot think that I don’t deserve love- you just have to start believing it.
