Soulshine

I recently had someone tell me he has a hard time asking for help. He said “Every time I want to ask someone for help, I think to myself ‘they probably don’t even really like me anyway, so why would they want to help me?” When he finished his sentence, I pointed out to him “It’s not that they don’t like you; it’s that you don’t like you. And you’re projecting your own dislike of yourself onto other people, assuming that they see you the same way you see yourself.” He looked stunned for a moment, but then said “You’re right.” If we see ourselves as basically unlikeable and treat ourselves like we aren’t worthy of love, or friendship or help, we end up projecting our poor self-worth onto everyone in our lives. We reach a point where we believe that everyone sees us in the same negative light that we see ourselves. This is a primary reason why it is often so hard to ask others for help, or to believe that other people really care about us. In her book Conquering...

Many of us are too afraid to live life. Life happens and we don’t know how to handle it, so we desperately run away as fast as possible. And—sadly-- we even run away when life is presenting us with what we’ve really wanted, like a serious, loving relationship. I know too many people who have ended good relationships, even marriages, because they were too afraid to be involved in anything so intimate, even though their true-selves really wanted the intimacy. Unfortunately, their addictive-selves were frightened beyond reason and in the driver’s seat. So they zoomed off at 100 miles per hour out of the relationship. They allowed all of their addictive fears to escalate into self-destruct mode and they did everything in their power to alienate the other person. For example, let’s say Jared has been head-over-heals for Angela for a couple of years. He’s always suspicious of her, however, because she’s a very attractive girl and he’s heard some rumors about her past behavior wit...