LOVE: THE SENSE OF SELF

My sense of self was very much tired to my mother's perceptions of me. In response to her impossible demands made upon me that I should be perfect,..I always was compelled to behave flawlessly in all area in my life. My inability to be perfect was too evident, and I began to believe I was a failure, a complete disgrace to my mother.

I think we often assume that merely because I think something or because someone such as a parent, teacher, or strange...said something...that it must be true. We don't even question the toxic thought. We just try to compensate for it and try to hide it from others. so they will like us. Life becomes about proving that we are not that...........
-to try to get the most beautiful woman even if she horrible because you think you are not attractive
-to try to get the best car....to show you are someone
-and the list goes on.

Trying to compensate for something that I believe is wrong with me. You know what I learn...even when I had the beautiful woman, the best car, and now a great apartment.....there weren't sufficient to disprove my belief once and for all. In the end, every situation I found myself had the potential to validate the worst about myself.

My whole sense have formed itself in reactions to a wounding or a event that suggested that I was unlovable, unworthy of love, or simply alone in life. These constructs of myself must be revealed for what they are.....not the truth of who I am. I am far more thane what I think i am. I must shed my old ways of defining who I am. Just because my mom told me over and over again things that I had fix about myself...doesn't mean that her statement bears any resemblance to the truth. My mom was a mere mortal. I must stop perpetrating the abuse against myself that originated by indulging my errant belief, day after day, year after year. I am persisting treating myself in the same destructive way that my parent treated me.

I also learn that just overcome my pervasive and compelling conviction that I am defective or unlovable by simply creating an affirmation that opposed the belief is not enough. Saying : "I am whole, I am handsome...I am successful" without also challenging the validity of the belief would be like pulling the flower off the dandelion. I have to challenging them.

The next time I find the internal "She won't find me attractive" or "Why would anyone want me...i am defective" dialogue kicks in....I am going to talk back to it. really talk back to it.

"You're ugly...she going to reject you. You're defective..why would she wants you" it will say

I will say...beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Joanne, Melissa, Katerina, Gina, Maria loved me..

It might never go away entirely, but I will learn to give up relating to them as though they were the dreaded truth about who and what I am. Rather than allow these belief to bully me with their incessant chatter, eat away at my confidence, and devour my life. When we operate as though the core belief we harbor in our heart is true, we tend to behave in ways that end up validating their existence. Either that, or we'll feel driven to find love in a attempt to prove that they are not. We'll impose upon our lover the taxing responsibility of reassuring us that we are lovable, worthy, important, attractive...all the while conversely doing all we can to convince her that we are anything but.