Why won’t anyone love me??
Are desperate to be loved?
Do you find that you keep selling yourself short, engaging in destructive relationships and hoping that the current person you with will just love you like you so desperately want, but being disappointed again and again?
If you don’t love you first, if you don’t know your value, you won’t find that love you’re looking for. You’ll settle for dysfunction, co-dependency and disappointment. It takes courage and effort to embrace the discomfort of trying something new and scary – having a healthy relationship.
If you don’t love you in a healthy way, if you don’t know your value, you can’t give or receive the love you so desperately want. You aren’t capable, and you won’t find anyone capable, either. You’ll find someone else just as desperate as you, or worse, someone happy to take advantage of your neediness to manipulate you for their own selfish ends.
Loving yourself means knowing that you are inherently valuable. Children don’t produce meaningful income for the family, do very few helpful chores until they are teens, and are a general drain on financial and other resources. Do parents look at their kids this way and think, “You have no value”? No. They know that their children are inherently valuable. They provide for them because they love them and because they are good parents.
As we grow into adults, how do we end up losing that basic understanding of our inherent value? Perhaps it’s due to being neglected or abused, getting negative messages about not being good enough, or listening to the comparison lie in our society that tells you if you’re not driving this car, wearing those clothes, or look that way that you’re not good enough.
It’s time to defeat those lies that cause us to live in shame! If you take an objective look at yourself, you’ll find the truth. You have value, period.
Try saying this: “I have value. Period.”
Now, try saying it LOUDLY: “I HAVE VALUE!”
How does that feel? It’s likely you might feel a bit silly, and it might feel untrue. But think about how long you’ve been telling yourself the opposite, and how much you believe that. I’ve heard it said that if you repeat something untrue long enough and loudly enough, people will believe it. Well, the truth is that you DO have value, and if you would only repeat that loud and long enough, you would come to believe it and act accordingly.
How do you know this is true? Well, you work (at work or at home), you provide meaning to the world, you overcome difficult things, you learn, you solve problems, you laugh, you make others laugh, you strive for better, you’re curious, you enjoy beauty, and so on. If you do any of those things, heck, if all you do is get out of bed, brush your teeth, get dressed and do some chores – you have value!
To have zero value, to not be ‘good enough’ you would really have to work at it.
Can we say that a homeless drug addict who produces nothing for society but instead is a net negative is worthless? No, because they can change. They have the potential to overcome their situation.
They have the potential to save someone’s life, to teach, to work, to become drug free, to become something more. Our day to day actions do NOT determine our value – only God does that.
So, how are you treating yourself?
Are you standing in the truth of your inherent value, or are you beating yourself up over your mistakes?
Are you desperately seeking ‘love’, only to find dysfunction and dependency, or are you standing your ground, refusing to settle for less than healthy love?
Is it time to change?
The truth is, if you’ve been in and out of destructive relationships, a big part of the reason is because you don’t value yourself enough. If you consider yourself a 6 out of 10, you’re not going to go for the 10. You’re likely to settle for a 4, when if you really knew your true value, you wouldn’t settle for anything less than the best person for you. Obviously, people can’t be categorized on a 1-10 scale, as it’s superficial. But if you don’t value yourself, you’ll put up with other people devaluing you. If you don’t value yourself, why would anyone else?