Do you feel you are unloveable and not good enough?

How hard is it to shift such beliefs that we may have about ourselves? 

Often, we make these core beliefs about ourselves when we are children and it feels like they are firmly entrenched even when we have evidence that shows us otherwise.  We can dismiss it searching for the one bit of evidence to confirm it. 

A child whose parents tell them they are going to boarding school because it is a wonderful opportunity for them may still wonder whether their mum really loves them.  This carries through to adulthood, with the adult doubting whether they are truly loveable as they are.  At school they realise they get external validation and praise for “settling in,” doing well academically or excelling at sport. As an adult this can leave a person wondering whether they are loveable just as they are. What if they don’t succeed in their career, what if they struggle emotionally.  Their self-esteem becomes gained externally rather than believing that they are loveable regardless of their outward achievements.

As Gabor Mate says in his book Scattered Minds, “A person truly comfortable in his own skin doesn’t say, “I am a worthy human being because I can do such and such,” but says, “I am a worthy human being whether or not I do such and such.”

There is often a time in life – usually in mid-life, when we re-evaluate ourselves.  We realise that we have been living our life according to someone else’s expectations, whether that is our parents or society as a whole. We crash. This may be triggered by a transition in life such as children leaving home, a marriage breakdown or retirement.  A supressed part of us becomes known and starts to want to speak out.  To express our hidden wants and needs which may not be in tune with those around us. As children we may have felt those wants and needs were unacceptable to our parents, so we kept them hidden to gain love and approval.

Depression can often come in at this point as making any changes to our lives can feel terrifying, so we numb out rather than risk stepping into the unknown.  Suicidal ideation can arise as it may feel an easier way out than the prospect of changing our course in life, meeting our own needs and causing any pain to anyone else.  Depression can be a sign of quite how desperate we can feel and how impossible it feels to live our life according to our true desires.

So, how do we re-evaluate those beliefs that we made about ourselves as children?  The one that says we are unlovable or not good enough as we are.   That belief that caused us to mask our true selves and create a person who could be liked and receive approval according to what was needed for social survival at the time.  When addictive behaviours no longer works,  it is only a matter of time before it becomes too hard to stay hidden and our true self screams out to be released. This is the call to listen and take action.

Carl Rogers, the founder of Person-Centred Therapy says that if you can provide a person with the right conditions – including the provision of empathy, unconditional positive regard and congruence in a relationship, a person will start to accept themselves as they truly are and shed those incongruent ways of behaving that cause fracture and distress.

During my initial training as a humanistic counsellor, we had to dissect every part of ourselves and reveal all those hidden shadow aspects of ourselves in individual therapy and to one another. Taking huge risks that we would be rejected with each week that went past.  What I discovered during this training and other trainings to date was the power of groups, and why I went on to train in group work and offer group work today.  I opened and shared the parts of myself I had kept hidden, and I was met with those core conditions which enabled me to bring those hidden parts of myself out in my relationships with family and friends.  There were costs, including my marriage.  However, with continued experiences like this, I now live authentically, and I do not fear depression returning as I know what I need to do to be emotionally well. 

The other thing I have learnt is that however much training and counselling we can have, sometimes those beliefs are incredibly hard to shift and they come round again.  It takes work.  For those of you who have low self-esteem, it can take more than a bit of convincing that you are worthy of loving as you are.  All the evidence in the world may be there, yet still you may cling onto that original belief that you made about yourselves at a young age.

So why is that?  Why do we hold onto them so strongly.  What if you truly let yourself believe it? To really believe it. To feel it.  What would happen?  Would you find yourself being successful, being visible, being in your authority? Would your friends, family or partner reject you?   Is it safer to keep yourselves small and hold onto this belief that you created as fact so many years ago, for fear of rejection if you showed these other aspects of yourself.

What I do know is that it is not possible to rewire our thought patterns by ourselves.  Babies build their self-worth and esteem from an attuned care giver.  For a variety of reasons, many of the people I work with did not have that experience. Unfortunately, going away to boarding school then added to this need for external validation with children seeking it from achievement or from other children.

As a Therapist, a huge part of my role is to offer that attunement back to my clients. In group work, we create an environment in which we collectively receive and offer that to one another by taking risks and sharing our true selves.  Recently I heard someone say that they did not believe that we are meant to be in a relationship. I disagree. We are born into relationships.  Neurologically, our brains develop in relationship with another. Our nervous systems can be soothed and regulated by another human. The difficulty begins when we have lacked this relationship at an early age, and we create this protective belief that we are unlovable and safer on our own.  We enter a relationship not revealing our true self in the hope of receiving love from another. Eventually our hidden parts are revealed and we are rejected as we are not who our partner expected. There is the evidence. 

But what if we had done the work on ourselves, let go of that mask ( Survival personality) and had entered a relationship as we truly are and attracted a partner who loved us for all aspects of ourselves.  Is that a possibility? 

To be part of my annual online course in which I provide a mixture of awareness building and tools to support you make the changes that you may need in order to shake off these beliefs you may still hold about yourselves, please click on the link below.   

https://www.theboardingschooltherapist.com/boarding-school-course