The Belief "I Don't Count" Is a Ticket to Self-Destruction

Many people grow-up with the belief “I don’t count.” They adopted this belief at a young age when 1) adults neglected to listen to them. And that neglect led them to believe that what they had to say didn’t count; 2) adults told them they were “too emotional” and dismissed their feelings as irrelevant. And that neglect led them to believe that what they felt didn’t count. Before long, after they eventually added one (what I have to say doesn’t count) plus one (what I feel doesn’t count) they got an ugly answer: I don’t count.

The belief that “I don’t count” makes life miserable. It also makes it impossible for the belief-holder to set proper boundaries with anyone. As long as you hold tight to the belief that everyone counts in this world—but you—you have made yourself less than human. And as long as you are feeling less than human, you will always doubt yourself, place your needs behind everyone else’s and have an insatiable desire for approval from everyone.

As soon as you adopt the belief “I don’t count,” you give your power away: completely away. Everyone you encounter receives a small piece of your personal power, courtesy of your subconscious mind. You’re walking down the street toward the subway and a person looks at you the wrong way. Immediately you believe it’s about you—that something’s wrong with you because you believe you don’t count. You get on the subway and neglect taking a vacant seat—not because you’re truly being considerate but because you believe you don’t count. You arrive at work and listen passively as a coworker takes credit for your exceptional work. You stand by silently, but angrily, and allow them to steal your worth because you believe you don’t count.

After work, you stop by a sub sandwich store to pick up dinner because the sign says that one of your favorite subs is two dollars off. You order the sub, but when the clerk rings it up, you are charged full price. You pay it, saying nothing, because you believe you don’t count. Later you arrive home to find a large package. It’s the small table you ordered from Summer Set Furniture. You excitedly open the box and then discover a nick in one of the legs, but you decide not to send it back because you believe you don’t count. You’re famished and start to take a bite out of your sandwich when the phone rings. It’s your boyfriend/girlfriend with their latest self-created crisis. You put your sandwich down and neglect your need to eat in order to listen to them whine for the next hour—because you believe you don’t count.

In these and many other ways, the belief “I don’t count” robs you of your personal power and of your life. If you constantly feel “less than” everyone else, you may be nursing the subconscious belief that you don’t count. If so, you need to get rid of this belief. Replace it with the belief that “Everyone counts—including me!” Make it your minute by minute mantra. Start taking back your power by believing in your own value as a necessary human being who has purpose and who definitely counts in this world. In doing so, your soul will begin to shine!

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

No One Can Calm Your Codependent Crazies, But You

Image
Ah, the codependent crazies. Those needy, needy feelings. I remember well the deep emotional pain in the pit of my stomach: The throbbing sting of shame, fear, loneliness and anxious desperation. Those feelings that are like fingernails on the blackboard of your soul. They eat you alive from within as they dig deeper and deeper into the black hole of your inner-emptiness. Yes, I remember them well. And I remember evenings of mental and emotional insanity-- squirming with a magazine, pacing back and forth, indulging in chocolate, chasing up and down the stairs hoping the doorbell would ring, and staring endlessly at the telephone for a sign of hope. All I needed was a call from my false higher power; a call that would help me to know that I was OK, that I was needed, that I was worth thinking about in some good way. I was dying to be emotionally caressed on the head like a poodle desperate for the attention of his master. And certainly I had made that other person into my mas...
Read more

Happiness is Something We Cultivate and Share

Who makes you happy? In reality, no one can make you happy. People in your life can enhance your happiness through sharing your interests. Or they can add to your frustrations by pushing your buttons. But no one can be responsible for your happiness or your misery—aside from you. One of the biggest problems for codependents is that we too often enter relationships looking for everlasting happiness. We expect that the person we choose to attach our dreams to should be responsible for making us happy. In our minds, we fantasize that he/she will be focused solely on us, will spend every waking hour with us and will do everything in his/her power to insure that we are as happy as we can possibly be. In other words, we assume this person will meet all of our mental, emotional, physical and spiritual needs in the same way that we plan to meet all of his/her needs. In our little dream world we will smother each other with attention and we will both drip with the honey of happiness. R...
Read more

Where There Is Kindness, There Is Goodness

Image
Author’s Note: The next few meditations will be from a retreat I directed recently called The Good News According to Disney . If you aren’t familiar with the films that are referenced, I’d suggest to take time to see them and to look for the deeper meaning within them. Many people today still live by the biblical adage “an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.” They actually believe that they will be at peace if they achieve revenge or restitution for any mishap that has befallen them at the hands of another. They believe they will reclaim their personal power once they have achieved their revenge, but this is impossible. Disney’s Cinderella (2015) reveals the true secret to owning one’s personal power and to retaining it no matter what we experience in life: “Have courage and be kind.” On the surface this motto looks a bit simple and wimpy. But in reality, it holds great power. That power comes from the heart of a person, or in this case Ella, who sees the world not a...
Read more

Become the Person You Want to Spend Your Life With Everyday

Image
I really don’t have to say much about the above quote. It says it all and it’s so true. We are too often taught faulty ways of thinking as children. So many of us get the wrong message at very young ages: Love is about finding the right person to love you. Looking back I realize I wasted many years trying to find that “right” person— the one who could love me into loving myself— instead of trying to BE that “right” person myself. It never occurred to me that I needed to love myself, nurture myself and accept myself enough to become the right person— the person I really needed most in my life. After all, what is my life without me? Now I know that I’m what’s been missing from my own life for years. My life is empty without me and without my spiritual Higher Power. This is true for all of us.  Once We find ourselves, become the “right” person God intended us to be, and become the person we want to spend the rest of our lives with, then we attract others into our lives who ca...
Read more