- I don’t love myself
- What’s preventing you?
- I don’t know, I wish I knew
What’s preventing so many women from loving themselves and believe in what they can achieve?
The mechanism of feeling not good enough is based on one self-belief: the belief that we aren’t good enough in order to be loved and included. Its roots are in the self-identity and how we learnt to value who we are. This is the self-esteem.
Now, when we mention ENOUGH we are thinking about a standard that we compare ourselves to. The standard is of course based on perfectionism. Instead of working on a scale from 1 to 10, perfectionists work on a scale from 1 to 15, with the difference that they call the 15, 10. The result of this comparison is a judgement on ourselves.
So once we judge ourselves as being not good enough compared to a standard that is not human, we can only create pain and shame. And in a circle, they feed themselves with more negative self-talk that can keep us stuck in this circle for as long as it becomes too much to bear. If we don’t do anything to fight back the negative self-talk generated by this self-belief, we end up believing them.
We end up believing that we can’t be ourselves fully because we would be rejected. Which in turns, lead us to the pain of having felt rejected when we were younger. And we go into ego-mode: we wear a mask. Masks are there to protect us from new potential wounds. It’s the ego believing that we aren’t able to protect us from new pain.
Do you know what happens when you push a balloon under the water for a long time? Sometimes you lose control of it and the balloon comes to the surface.
It’s the same thing. We are able to heal and love ourselves if we work in this direction. Things don’t have to be like that.
Changing things takes courage to listen to what there, healing and self-compassion and finally self-acceptance. But it’s absolutely possible and it’s the path to a solid inner confidence. To finally live a life in which you can be yourself and dedicate your time and energy to what makes you happy. Surrounded by people that celebrate you.
