For years, many of my relationships would end up the same way: with me feeling rejected, abandoned and unlovable.
In fact, I’d feel this way during the whole relationship, not just when we parted ways.
More often than not, the other person would never know it. My true feelings would always remain hidden behind a mask of detachment and indifference — I was so convincing that I’d even convince myself I didn’t feel anything.
The funny part is, I’d simultaneously push away people that would show me love and support. Something inside me would freak out and feel an overwhelming need to run away and disappear.
I knew there was something wrong with me. Why do I feel so broken? Why do I self-sabotage healthy relationships and get myself into situations that will always make me feel unloved?
Months of introspection led me to the realization that the reason behind my experiences was that I didn’t believe I was worthy of love.
I had created a deep-seated belief, based on both my childhood and my first romantic experience, that would always remind me of how unworthy of love I was. This belief would make me push away people who truly loved me, while attracting into my life individuals that would reinforce my unworthiness.
Unfortunately, I was not the only one feeling this way. Many of us carry self-sabotaging beliefs that don’t let us find the happiness we crave.
It’s our responsibility to let them go.
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Your First Relationships Teach You What Love Is Supposed To Feel Like
We’re all constantly absorbing information from the world around us — even though it usually is an unconscious process.
When something happens, you immediately create corresponding beliefs, and depending on how strong the experience is, these beliefs become a part of your identity.
From that point on, you’ll see your life from the eyes of these beliefs. It’s inevitable. And the more you believe in them, the more you’ll get into situations and relationships that reinforce them. It’s a vicious cycle that only comes to an end once you consciously stop the process.
So let’s say you’re cheated on by your first partner. You internalize the belief that love is not safe, that people are not to be trusted and that you’re better off on your own.
Besides, you probably also believe that there’s something wrong with you because your partner felt the need to find another person. You feel used, replaceable, and not good enough.
Now, the likelihood of your next relationship making you feel the same way is huge — because that’s exactly what you’re expecting.
Or, let’s say you were in a relationship that made you feel controlled, manipulated and overwhelmed. After living like that for long enough, you start carrying the belief that you need to set some very strong boundaries.
Your space and your independence become your top priority because you know what it feels like to have them violated.
In any case, you relationships created your beliefs. Sometimes, you haven’t even had a romantic relationship — your relationship with your parents has affected you on such a deep level that it reflects your beliefs about love.
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The Answer Is In Our Attachment Style
We spend most of our romantic lives stuck in the same patterns, replicating them over and over again.
The reason why this happens is in our attachment style. Every attachment style has a certain predisposition to attract other specific attachment styles, as well as to avoid others that don’t fit our inner stories about love.
If you’re anxiously attached, you probably have the tendency to mistake an emotional roller coaster for love, which leads to unstable relationships that don’t fulfill you.
On a conscious level, you believe you want secure love, but your subconscious mind doesn’t know what secure love feels like. It only knows anxiety, uncertainty and unpredictability. It doesn’t believe you deserve a stable relationship because it doesn’t even know what that is.
On the other hand, if you have an avoidant attachment style, you attract anxiously attached people, whose need for reassurance makes you feel overwhelmed.
You’re probably asking, but why would I attract the exact thing I don’t want?
Because these relationships confirm and reinforce your need for space and independence. They make you feel like nobody will ever understand how important your freedom is to you.
You don’t even realize you’re the one sabotaging your own relationships because you’re too focused on how clingy other people are.
The point is, we all like to have our inner stories confirmed.
Our inner stories make us feel safe because they tell us the world is predictable. They tell us how relationships are and how people behave, and believing them is much more comfortable than acknowledging how uncertain life can be.
And this is why you accept the love you think you deserve.
Because you don’t know any other kind of love. Because familiarity feels safer. Because you can’t accept something you don’t feel worthy of.
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What Love Do You Want From Now On?
It doesn’t matter if your previous relationships were a mess, because you get to choose the kind of love you want from now on.
It doesn’t matter if you partner left you or cheated on you, because now you know what you will and will not tolerate.
It doesn’t matter if you’ve spent years pushing people away out of fear, because you can always choose love over fear — right now.
It doesn’t matter if your parents were not able to connect with you on a deeper level and teach you how amazing love can be, because their inability to love you unconditionally is not a reflection of how lovable you are.
None of that matters because you get to choose what love you deserve.
When you internalize the belief that you deserve the real, secure love your soul has been craving — that’s when you find it.
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This post was previously published on medium.com.
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Photo credit: Scott Broome on Unsplash