Dear Rich:

You are welcome and thank you for your appreciation.

It is okay with me, perfectly fine that you post with the same issue, which is love, I believe (could be the title of your untitled thread), anytime, any number of times per day. You post rarely and I wish you posted more often.

You wrote: “This week I worked on trying to convince myself that I was lovable, that I am worthy”-

It is unfortunately impossible to convince oneself of one’s lovability/ worth. This is why lots of people try, achieving all sorts of things: educational degrees, prestigious jobs, careers, wealth, awards and yet fail to … convince themselves of being lovable and worthy.

The reason it is impossible to rationally convince yourself of such is because feeling lovable and worthy is a matter of faith, of belief. It is not a matter of intellectual understanding. And to believe it, you have to experience it first.

A belief is a thought, like: “I am lovable”, “I am worthy” glued to neuropathways in the brain with the glue of emotion. The emotion is what keeps the thought in place.

When a child is unloved, the child naturally concludes he is unlovable, not worthy of love. The child is not capable of reasoning that the parent is too busy, too unavailable, too distressed, too unloving to love the child. The child has to feel the safety that he is in good hands, so to speak, in the presence of loving parents, and if only he becomes lovable… then he will be loved.

You wrote: “I just can’t pinpoint what exactly is wrong with me”. I can. You weren’t loved yet.

You wrote: “know that if i can’t learn to love myself there’s zero hope of anyone else loving me”- no, first you have to be loved. You have to see and hear and feel someone else, a person outside of yourself, loving you. Then you will believe it, that you are lovable.

It is about someone else loving you as you are, feeling unlovable. It is about someone seeing you the way you are and loving you, accepting you approvingly.

Thing is, how can you get this experience? Look for it where it is, not where it isn’t. Look for it in your parents and they are likely to fail you. After all they failed you so far, when you were a cute and innocently reaching out child. Look for love in unloving people, and you will not find it. Look for behaviors that you think are love but are not, and you look in the wrong places.

Look for a person who accepts you approvingly, who is curious about you, want to know more, takes in what you share, sees you as you are and approvingly accepts you, with affection.

anita