People Who Felt Unlovable As A Child But Are Happy Adults Usually Learned These 10 Lessons
Very few people are raised in homes where learning to value yourself is on the daily schedule.
Lorenzo Fustaino | Unsplash Before you can fnd authentic happiness or even be able to truly accept love from others, you must learn how to truly feel lovable. Yes, it takes work to feel lovable! But where do you start if you didn't learn those skills as a child?
Even though your parents loved you and did their best to raise you, there’s a good chance you didn’t feel loved — at least not for the person you were inside. It's hard not to feel something is wrong with you. But you can’t help it, and it's not your fault. It’s an unconscious program in your brain.
But there is a way out of it. First, recognize and feel what your current relationship is with yourself is really like. Then you can start the work learning how to feel lovable.
People who felt unlovable as a child learned these 10 lessons to become happy adults
1. How you talk about yourself affects how you feel
How do you talk to yourself? Blame? Shame? Judge? Criticize? Numb out?
How do you treat yourself? Deny yourself good things in life? Stay in relationships that aren't healthy for you? Let people speak to you disrespectfully?
Get curious and write it down. After all, how we speak about ourselves, even in our own thoughts, creates reality. One foundational study found that "self-talk can enhance self-confidence and reduce cognitive anxiety" but before you can do that, you must come to terms with the chatter that keeps you feeling down.
2. You can choose to change your thoughts and behaviors
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You just realized how unhealthy your relationship with yourself is and now you have choice: You can continue doing the same thing, or you can change it with conscious effort now that you know what you're doing.
Take the time to "feel" what it’s like for you to realize what you’ve been doing to yourself for a very long time. Does it make you feel sad? Mad? Shocked? Surprised? Scared that you don’t know how to change that? Frustrated with yourself?
Continue to write down these feelings. The more you write down, the easier it will be to change this behavior with new choices. Then, do something different.
As noted above, positive self-talk affects our confidence, but it has to be authentic. If you self-bluster, you will know it's false and research has shown it has detrimental affects on performance. That's why you must come to terms with what you say that hurts your confidence and refocus on the good things you know to be true.
3. Change takes patience, but it's worth the wait
Your reaction to your newly uncovered behavior toward yourself is likely similar to what you uncovered: More blame.
But that’s how it works. That is the pattern that colors everything in your life. Obviously you would blame yourself for blaming yourself!
Many years ago, before I learned to love and be in a good relationship with myself, I realized I was always judging myself for everything! Guess how I reacted when I realized that? … I judged myself for judging myself.
I want you to know that when you uncover how you’ve been treating yourself, there’s a good chance your reaction may not change at first.
Please don’t let that stop you from going deeper, or from uncovering more about your patterns. This is part of the process and it's important for you to recognize ahead of time so it doesn’t catch you off guard.
4. You deserve support
It’s easier when you enter this process with someone who's able to help you see what you cannot see on your own. Otherwise, you may get stuck blaming yourself when you realize how hard you're being on yourself.
Often, you may get discouraged when you uncover your unconscious behaviors and may go back into the familiar "prison". But your pattern is not your life sentence and it's actually quite common.
When four researchers set out to determine why people go back to self-destructive behaviors, they found that there is a point at which people can identify what they do that causes harm to themselves. The problem, they discovered, comes up with the work of overcoming those feels worse than being stuck in the behavior.
Fortunately, this can be just a stage on your path to healing if you recognize that it is common and temporary. There is a way out, and talking to someone trusted about it can help you see that, even if you can't see it now.
5. You must embrace change for it to work
When you uncover such deep patterns of self-destructive behavior, you're taking a huge leap that's worth celebrating. So instead of continuing your unconscious behavior, this is prime time to celebrate what you just realized.
Imagine if you’d never realized what you just did! That would mean that there’s no way out of your unconscious prison. It would be a life sentence.
But now, because you become aware of your prison cell of blame, shame, and self-denial, your life sentence can be changed to a matter of days, weeks, or months, all depending what kind of a judge you want to be now.
6. Being kind to yourself is a daily commitment
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What kind of "judge" do you want to be to yourself now? A kind judge? This is your chance. You’ve fired the harsh judge and hired a compassionate, loving, and kind one instead. And this one wants to set you free.
The keys are in your hands now. How kindly do you want to treat yourself?
That’s what it all comes down to: How kind and loving would you like to be to yourself so you can create a healthy relationship with yourself?
It may not come naturally to you after a lifetime of unkindness, but that was only because you didn’t know you were treating yourself that way, nor how to change it. Your verdict is what’s going to dictate the rest of your life.
Let’s starts with small baby steps — one step at a time. This is a whole new way of being with yourself and treating yourself kindly is something you need to practice and get used to.
7. Change requires being conscious of your daily choices
When you first implement changes to give yourself a better relationship with "you", keep these questions in mind:
- Do I want to have a better relationship with myself?
- How important is having that to me?
- Am I willing to practice new skills to treat myself with love and kindness?
If you answered "Yes," to these questions, you are already on your way out of your prison. This may require a daily practice of self-awareness, like meditation or breathwork, however. Even a simple daily walk without headphones can give you time to stay present and aware of how you're feeling.
8. You must remind yourself of the goodness self-love can bring
Imagine what it will feel like to want a better relationship with yourself. Are you excited about what is possible? Scared that you may fail? Uncertain that you have what it takes to treat yourself with respect and care?
If it’s the latter, don’t worry. That’s all normal and not a reason to stop and stay in your blame prison.
9. You're the only one who can stop yourself from falling into old patterns
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You'll start caching yourself every time you are back in your prison cell being unkind and blaming yourself. Just recognize when you're doing it and write it down.
The moment you catch yourself is the moment you can choose a different response than what you used to. Pick a new path for yourself.
10. You deserve to celebrate the new relationship you have with yourself
Be glad when you recognize old patterns of behavior! Celebrate that you caught yourself and say something like, “I just caught myself again and oh wow, that's amazing. I am so proud that I caught what normally makes me feel awful and beat myself up. I really don’t want to go back into that again.”
Remind yourself that you choose to listen to the kind judge and go another route. You deserve to be out of this prison.
Every time you are kind and compassionate with yourself and treat yourself kindly instead of treating yourself with blame, shame, and self-denial, you move another step away into a new, healthy relationship with yourself. This is your key — literally your key to freedom. Make sure you use it.
Pernilla Lillarose is a self-love mystic & mentor at Divine Feminine Flow and the author of 5 Steps To Dive Into The Divine Feminine Flow.
