Reclaim Your Life Through Authentic Self-Love

Self-love is a tough one for most everyone who enters a Recovery program. So many of us as children were taught, or programmed, to loath ourselves. We were constantly criticized by our parents and rarely, if ever, received positive recognition. We were taught by them that we were not valuable, that we did not count and that we were basically unlovable. 

Growing up in my own household as a child, I learned I was lovable if I did all of the right things to please my parents, but otherwise, I was NOT lovable. Love had to be earned and it could be withdrawn at any second of any day. This led to a fear of abandonment as well as self-loathing inside of me. 

Life became a hell of emotional instability for me. One day I might be lovable in the morning, but by afternoon, I was getting the silent treatment or hearing words like "I'm ashamed to even call you my son!"

As an adult I firmly believed I needed someone who could love me unconditionally into loving myself. I searched and searched for that person, but my radar was extremely broken and so I kept seeking unconditional love from people who were like my parents-- emotionally broken inside and totally unable to love me in any healthy way.

Recovery has taught me that I have to reclaim my personal power by learning to love myself; by turning off the inner-critic that tells me I'm not lovable; by learning to speak and act kindly and compassionately toward myself, especially when I make mistakes.

Recovering addicts have to work with God, or their personal Higher Power, to emotionally heal themselves and to learn to truly love and value the person they are. Sometimes this requires therapy and it definitely requires a support group, like A.A., Al-Anon or CODA.

Many people don't want to do the work of learning to love themselves. They hold tight to the idea that someone else is going to rescue them from their self-loathing and inner-emptiness, but that's nothing more than magical thinking.

We have to be responsible for ourselves, our lives and our happiness. Until we learn to love ourselves, we will be prisoners to the same old habits and unhealthy patterns of behavior. When we meet people who honestly do love us unconditionally for who we are, we won't believe them. Deep inside we will think they have an ulterior motive and that they couldn't possibly truly love us for simply being us. Why do we believe this? Because we don't love ourselves and we still don't believe we are lovable and so we find ways to push away those people who honestly love us.

Sadly, we often create drama, accuse them of false motives for loving us, blame them for everything that's ever been a problem in the relationship, make them the bad guy and push them out of our lives. And all because we are too unwilling to work on loving ourselves. Then, we often blame them for abandoning us when in fact the only person who has abandoned us is once again ourselves.

It's impossible to have a healthy relationship with another person until we first have a healthy relationship with ourselves. Sure, it's a lot of work-- self-work. But it's worth it. Stick to your Recovery program and learn to love what you were taught to hate-- yourself. Regain your personal power over your own life and happiness.