Use the Past to Understand How You Need to Love Yourself Better



An underlying need for the average codependent is to meet someone who will make them OK with themselves. We all want someone who will complete us by loving us into loving ourselves. Recovery teaches us that this is an impossible fantasy. In reality, there is no prince or princess to rescue us Cinderellas/Cinderfellas from our loathsome selves.

Yes. In recovery we learn this truth but we are still desperate for that special someone to love us. Well, imagine this: What if we are the special someone who needs to love us first? How about we make the effort to choose to reconnect with our past, not to punish ourselves (we’re champions at that), but to better understand how we need to start loving ourselves.

Our past can point out to us the many ways in which we were deprived of the love we needed. Instead of lamenting the lack of love we received from important others (and punishing ourselves over it), why can’t we begin to love ourselves in the very ways we wanted our parents, families, friends, etc. to love us? All we have to do is try.

We can’t change the fact that when we were five or 15 years old, we were faced with storms and no one was there to comfort us. But when we are faced with storms today, there’s no reason why we can’t comfort ourselves first. In doing so, we may also be comforting that five or 15 year old inside of us who is still suffering from past abuse. Plus, we now have a Higher Power who will help us comfort  ourselves.

If we’ve never found that right person to love us, maybe it’s because we need to be that “right person” first. Once we start loving ourselves, it’s much more likely that we will attract others who will love us, too. They will want to know all about our past and who we really are. And those who are meant to love us will do so by taking the time to understand our past. They will use the past to help them to love us, not punish us. But first, we must be willing to do the same for ourselves. 

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