Q: Why does it hurt to love myself? I especially notice the hurt when I use the affirmation 'I Love Myself'. Every time I repeat those words, I feel them bouncing off some kind of steel shield inside of me that is protecting the hurt I feel. Do you have any insights that can help me understand?
Can you help this person out with your own experiences about loving yourself. Is it easy or hard for you to do? What is the best ways to love yourself. Any comments you can share I am sure will be gratefully appreciated by the person who sent me the question.
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I want to thank Robert Milstein for his thoughtful and detailed response to the
question the young man asked me. See his response in the comment section.
Our truth is, the fear of love we have, is the fear of loving ourselves.
ReplyDeleteIt hurts to see ourselves as desirable, wonderful to care for, lovable, needed, attractive and appreciated for all we are, when we were not desired, cared for, loved, needed, seen, heard and appreciated....so much we gave up wanting to feel those things ever again.
Now someone loves us and shows us what we are unable to do...for ourselves.
When we fear being loved, opening our heart and losing someone, we fear that we will lose the ability to see ourselves with loving eyes again.
Our ability to love and not love ourselves, hurts us.
Caring for someone that does not care about us feels good....when we are afraid to want to be loved, ourselves.
The fear of wanting love, of wanting touch, of wanting to be seen and loved...is something we have to get the fuck over....so we can see ourselves, feel our body, care about our life and love who we are.
Most of us that become empty inside and have difficulty loving ourselves, have suffered from "betrayal or trauma bonding" and don't know what it is or how to heal from the desensitization.
Betrayal or trauma bonding is really about neglect that makes someone give up. Because this type of neglect makes someone give up their own volition, the same trauma and chemical response is seen in the brain as in someone physically abused. It is most difficult for people to heal from neglect that caused them to give up, because "there is nothing that "happened" to get angry about." This trauma from neglect is internalized because the bond of fear of loss/ attachment is stronger than any other bond... even physical abuse.....the bonding and trauma brings up the feeling of fear when someone is asked to feel emotions about neglect... and this fear of feeling, now becomes a powerful type of freezing...a frozen part of one's development and a fear of real individuation, that needs to heal before someone can experience their own being and body....A self perception that we are a victim, can permeate our life, often making us hyper vigilant, obsessive, have anxiety resting and become narcissists.
To heal ourselves we must care about ourselves and be the parent or soul mate we wished we would have had. Another step is to be angry at those that took our volition and time and did not appreciate it. Forgive and forget, is how love and pain became one and the same.
When the people we are with make us feel heard, seen, enjoyed, wanted, adored, valued and needed, we embrace who we are.....and now effortlessly we are heard, seen, enjoyed, wanted, adored, valued and needed by everyone and it seems right, because we are loving our inner child allowing this love to happen.
Our own healing and aliveness allows source energy to flow powerfully within. When we develop compassion for ourselves, become whole, authentic and embrace all of our emotions, we have a fire we can share....that is love. With love for ourselves, we can show someone in darkness how compassion for ourselves is necessary to remove the blocks to our fire.
After feeling what I buried deep inside....after screaming from fear, screaming in anger, moaning in pain and sobbing from neglect....I was able to forgive people in my heart...but only after it came back to life as reality, a reality I hated and had to change.
That is all that matters, that I left the illusion that kept me from my life and from that place of aliveness....reality, the only place forgiveness is even possible, the place that loves is waiting for us..
Robert, as soon as I saw you comment in my moderation box, I immediately shared it with the person who asked me the question. He was blown away by your response. He said you saved his life. FYI: For those of you interested in knowing about the work Robert does, visit his web site: http://www.ichangereality.com/
DeleteI am very grateful Frederick, I worked hard myself to rewrite the conditioning of betrayal bonding and be whole again. Bless you for helping us have a life.
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