Existence is the only prerequisite for being worthy and deserving of love.
By: Delana Flowers
Tags: Love Yourself, Worthy, Women

Existence is the only prerequisite for being worthy and deserving of love. I’ve said this so many times to others. Then, much to my surprise, I recently found myself declaring how stupid this concept felt when trying to apply it to myself. I wholeheartedly believe everyone else is worthy just because they exist. Yet I discovered that I wholeheartedly believe this to be absurd when it comes to me. How? Why?

I told my therapist that I cognitively know that I should believe I am worthy and deserving of love because I exist. However, it seems my life has been full of hard evidence that proves the opposite. Besides, if this is true, why do I not have love?

First, I do have love. I’m surrounded by family and friends who have been loving me unconditionally for a lifetime. But we, especially women, have been tricked into chasing romantic love from someone we get to choose us, thinking this will validate that we are worthy. Thank you society, trauma, and Disney for perpetuating the idea that what we need is outside of ourselves. Thank you for the myth that we must be rescued by someone other than ourselves. Thank you for the lie that love is earned. Thank you for the devastation and disappointment that comes from finding this to be untrue over and over again, yet repeating it and expecting a different outcome.

It’s sad but true. We are taught, directly or inadvertently, that we have to earn love by doing the most. How painful it is to find ourselves on a hamster wheel, then discarded when we are no longer necessary or let down by the fact that we’re doing more and getting less than the desired result. Reality seems to set in only after years of pouring ourselves into others, work, church, art, being good/good at, etc only to find we can’t do enough to earn what we really want, need, and crave on the inside: love.

We must acknowledge and accept that we are worthy and deserving of love simply because we exist. But how? Well, we aren’t born with beliefs. Whether good or bad, positive or negative, we learn these beliefs and become convinced. We practice them and over time they become apart of us. If we want to change a belief we have to learn and become convinced by practicing the opposite. We have to repeatedly say and think the opposite. I started with daily affirmations. Then I started telling myself what I would want to hear from a significant other. Then I started being intentional about on the spot combating the old thinking with the new. Lastly, my therapist taught me to make a self love altar. The object of this alter is to give a sacred, designated, literal space and time to intentionally honoring yourself. The altar is made up of things that make you feel good about you and remind you who you are. While at this altar you can say your affirmations.

Doing these things teaches us to give love to ourselves. In doing so we become less dependent on outside entities for fulfillment and more aware of our own power. It’s uncomfortable at first. It goes against everything we’ve known and done until now. But learning how to fill our own cup will be so worth it in the long run. Filled with the peace of knowing the source of all things is within, we become better stewards of what we have to give. We become better managers of what we give, to whom, and how much because we have prioritized honoring ourselves.

Healthy self perspective makes it very clear that the people, places and things we serve may not be serving us. It strengthens us in the knowledge that what no longer serves us is not because we did not earn it or because we don’t deserve it. We may never know why it no longer serves us and that’s ok. What’s most important is that we are empowered to clear the table and make room to get what we need from the inside out.

From birth until death we will encounter people that simply cannot love us the way we need to be loved. This does not mean we are not worthy. This does not speak to anything about us at all. The inability of others to love us is not the problem. It’s our inability to love, honor and respect ourselves that becomes the problem. I have had to take the time to intentionally discover the faulty logic that makes me unable to love, honor, and respect myself. It’s harder than pointing the finger at and fixing others. It requires sitting with ourselves and our choices, revisiting traumas and the erroneous lessons they taught us.

Love is not earned, it is served, and we show how by the way we self serve. You are worthy.