5 Steps For Breaking The Cycle Of Feeling Unlovable

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To hold the belief that you are unlovable goes against your basic requirement as a human. We all have the need to feel loved, whether that be by your primary caregiver as an infant or by your lover as an adult.

As a baby, you are born totally and utterly lovable.

As children, you may have experienced the freedom of not questioning how lovable you are, you just simply were.

As you grew up, you began to develop a ‘self-image’. This version of yourself took on the conditioning, the stories, the pain, the negative core beliefs to be your new truth.

Unfortunately, for far too many, the new conditioned self winds up believing you are not worthy or good enough to be loved unless you become a certain person and fit a certain mold.

Those who do not consider themselves as lovable or worthy tend to fall into patterns of insecurity, take fewer risks, and have low standards when it comes to what they will accept in partnerships and relationships.

It has become clear that if you are to experience deep happiness, healthy relationships, and reach new levels in your personal goals, you need to address the way you currently see yourself.

You must begin to consider that as much as anyone else, you have a space on this Earth, and you deserve to be loved and feel safe to give love.

Here are five steps you can take to building your lovability toolkit.

1. Practice feeling you are lovable so you can believe it

First up, allow yourself to experience the feeling that you are as lovable as anyone else. Notice I am not saying to begin believing. First, you must familiarize yourself with the emotions that come with knowing you are lovable; then comes the belief. You do this through visualizations and meditations.

Initially, you will feel uncomfortable, especially if you have spent a lifetime doubting your lovability. This is the time where people often fall back into old habits due to concluding that this is not working.

However, others will continue to ride that wave of disbelief and discomfort. Eventually, the belief that you are unlovable becomes weaker and weaker.

2. Do not take life and pain so personally

For those who feel unlovable, it is not uncommon to personalise things that go wrong in your life and misinterpret them to back up the negative beliefs you hold about yourself.

The truth is, your ex walking out does not prove you are unlovable, your parents getting a divorce does not prove you are unlovable, your best friend having other friends does not make you unlovable, someone turning you down does not mean you are unlovable.

Those situations are awful, painful, and even traumatic; no one can or should ever take that truth away from you. Yet it is important to note that difficult experiences in no way correlate with your self-worth.

Do not let the pain have any more of you.

3. Create more love, meaning, and joy for yourself

One infallible truth for you to see is that you are the creator of your happiness. When you rely on external factors to make you happy and feel lovable, you are giving away your power.

To only feel worthy and fulfilled when you receive outside validation will indirectly send the message to yourself that you are not enough without X, Y and Z.

Show yourself love and you will feel love. Quit waiting for the future or another person to come along before you are willing to see yourself as enough.

If you dream of taking a trip, then take one alone. Want someone to buy you flowers? Buy yourself flowers.

You believe you are lovable when you treat yourself like it and giving yourself that five-star treatment is going to promote those feelings within you.

Who or what are you waiting for to happen until you are willing to treat yourself like the lovable person you are?

4. Declutter your mind

Slow down and notice what you give your attention to, and what thoughts you are having about yourself and the world.

The way you think is influencing how you feel about yourself. Unless you choose to notice and make a shift, you will continue to think the same thoughts, have the same feelings, and take the same actions.

If you are telling yourself you are unlovable, you are going to behave like someone unlovable. That means avoiding leaps toward a healthier life, settling for poor relationships, and continuing to do whatever it is that keeps you in the vicious cycle of low self-worth.

Tell yourself you are loveable, praise yourself when you have a win, and offer compassion when things get tough.

5. Notice the love that is around you

What you seek out, you will find.

One of the most disastrous things you can do for yourself is to filter out the love that surrounds you. When you tell yourself no one loves you, that is what you will find.

Look around you and open your eyes and mind to all kinds of love.

The love your colleague offers when they ask how you are after a hard day, the love your partner offers when they kiss you goodnight, the love your niece offers when she is excited to see you, the love from your neighbor when they smile over the fence.

Be present with people and engage in meaningful conversations. If you are not offering love, it will be hard to receive it.

We get set on thinking love must come from ‘the one’, and that is not the case at all. Deep down, you know who loves you, so allow yourself to feel it too.

Offering yourself the opportunity to reframe your perception of how lovable you are is one of the greatest gifts you will ever give yourself. When you make the above commitments to yourself, you are inviting in more happiness, health, and success then you can even imagine right now.

Every second you continue to believe you are unlovable is a second spent rejecting yourself. Life is confusing and messy enough; you do not need that too.

So, if you need reminding today: You are worthy, you are enough, and you are so, so lovable.