I Don’t Deserve This!
The biggest amount of healing work I have had to do pertaining to relationships was a five-decade process.
I finally saw a pattern with the significant relationships into which I chose to invest my time and energy.
That pattern was the following:
I would pick someone who showed a glimmer of hope that he/she would value me and put effort in creating a deep, honest connection with me. This glimmer of hope could include any of these:
our obligatorily living together (such as family-of-origin) or otherwise being in close proximity of one another
being blood related
his/her willingness to spend time with me
his/her telling me flattering and promising words and phrases (aka love-bombing)
When the other person showed signs of not valuing me—thus also seeming disinterested in a deep, honest connection with me-I would try to convince them to do so.
My attempts at convincing came in the forms of
spending as much time as possible with him/her
trying to do a song-and-dance of his/her choice so he/she would find me easy to deal with
pleading
scolding & correcting
teaching
explaining
expressing my hurt from his/her rejection
shutting down and trying to be invisible
I would ultimately be very upset with myself until I finally ended the relationship and let it and the other person go.
Studying into this further, I saw that those people’s rejection (via their behaviors and choices) of me and the relationship I wanted with them, actually represented my inner critic (the extremely-critical and mean authority-figure portion of my Super Ego) which was established by my upbringing.
This inner critic subconsciously would tell me, “See how this person treats you? See what he/she thinks of you? See how much he/she doesn’t value you and who you are? He/she is doing that because that’s what you deserve.” And “See this person’s low standards and ethics? See his/her lack of principles? You deserve that too.”
When I was growing up, I believed the inner critic’s messages. In my teen years, when I began to realize that many things just didn’t feel right with me, I would be very moody—but I thought it was because something was wrong with me. I didn’t connect my discontent to my being devalued by my loved ones. When I finally got the courage to use my voice, I would try to convince the other person to value me and to want a deep connection with me, as explained above.
Several decades later, I finally saw that the other person’s behaviors and choices were actually my inner critic mocking and scolding me.
My trying to convince the other person to value me and to want to a connection with me was really my fighting my inner critic, “Oh no! I do not deserve this rejection! I don’t deserve this treatment!”
I finally realized and said to myself:
“You know, when you try to convince this other person, when you fight against how this other person is, you are making yourself a part of how he/she is. Fighting against his/her behaviors, choices and lifestyle is your actually believing you deserve those things in your life and your relationships.
If you don't believe you deserve that, then let him/her be him/her. Stop believing you have to prove you don't deserve that.
Let it go.
Live out what you deserve. Be who you deserve."
Realizing this, repeating it often, really toned down my inner critic.
I have compassion for the person who thought she had to convince anyone of her value. I have compassion for the person who chose people who didn’t value her and who didn’t want to have a fulfilling relationship with her. She doesn’t have to do that anymore, now that she believes she deserves what she has to give and her inner critic has been forced to go along for the ride.
[Author Pete Walker writes about the inner critic in his book titled Complex PTSD: From Surviving to Thriving. Life coach Richard Grannon has really good videos based on Pete Walker’s book regarding our inner critic, as well as teaching how to minimize emotional flashbacks (emotional triggers).]
Do you need coaching? Please contact me. I’d love to help you.