Life & Therapy

If you are asking the question, “Do I deserve love?” then you probably were treated as if you didn’t at some point in your life, most likely during your childhood. You were born deserving love- every one of us was.  If you did not get that love, for whatever reason, then you sustained a tragic injury.  The way to heal that injury is to learn how to love yourself.   The more you are able to love yourself, the more you are able to accept the love of others.

Learning to love yourself is hard work, because in order to do so, you have to accept the parts of yourself that you’ve rejected for  your entire life.  You’ve rejected them because someone else did at a time when you were young and fragile.  That rejection was so painful, you resolved that you would do whatever it took to avoid feeling that pain again.  You decided that whatever part of you was “causing” this rejection was ugly, undesirable, and bad.

To heal the rejected parts of yourself, it is important to understand that you did nothing to cause the rejection.  There were no ugly, undesirable, or bad parts,  and there aren’t any now,  either.   You are feeling the pain of an injury, and that injury needs gentle attention rather than more beatings from you.  Start by noticing which qualities you dislike in yourself, that you are sure no one else could possibly love.  Now you have a roadmap- learn to accept these qualities as unique and lovable, and you are on your way to accepting that you deserve love.

For more on deserving love, go here.