Releasing the grip of Unworthiness

There are so many ways these core beliefs of unworthiness, of not being good enough, of not being worthy of love and belonging can show up in our lives.

So why does this happen and what can we do about it?

When we get to the root of this belief that we aren’t worthy, it can feel so shocking but also so familiar. Like, oh deep down, I knew this all along.

For many of us these beliefs come from our early early life, when we were taught that in order to receive love, belonging, safety, connection, acceptance from our families we had to work to get some or all of these needs met.

We had to put in some work to prove we were worthy of having our needs met.

We had to make sure we got good grades / were quiet when our parents were around / didn’t get angry at our siblings taking our stuff / were useful to our parents / were polite enough / didn’t ‘misbehave’ / followed the rules that our families created.

And it’s not that I am against families having rules – we have rules in our house. It’s that culturally & emotionally the way that parents often train kids to follow rules is by communicating – you won’t receive love/belonging/acceptance/safety/connection unless you behave, act, be or feel the way I want you to.

But really, love, belonging, connection, acceptance and safety are our birthright. They are innate human needs. We should receive that regardless of who/how/what we are.

We shouldn’t have to work at proving we are worthy to receive any of that.

The rules of the family should be separate from that (and actually it’s so much more effective to have a child do what you require of them when you aren’t constantly threatening to remove love/belonging/acceptance/safety/connection.)

We are wired – as group animals – to need this combo of love/belonging/acceptance/safety/connection as a standard part of the ‘growing a child package.’

Food ✅

Feeling physically safe ✅

Shelter ✅

Feeling emotionally safe (i.e. I am allowed to have all natural human emotions, which are all of them) ✅

Warmth ✅

Acceptance ✅

Connection ✅

Water ✅

Love ✅

Belonging ✅

These aren’t optional needs. And they aren’t meant to be needs we have to work for.

Many of us grew up in families where some or all of these needs were attached to things we needed to do first in order to prove that we were worthy of having these needs met.

Or maybe these needs were never met – regardless of how hard we tried to make ourselves lovable, acceptable, good. No matter what shapes we bent ourselves into or how much we yearned to be seen, loved, accepted and to belong.

Our culture as a whole has moved into such a place where we are expected to prove our worth, rather than to be innately worthy.

And that is a very destructive thing for our humanity. Because it’s so much easier to be a kind, generous, emotionally resilient, loving, empathic person to others, accepting and non-judgemental, effective, strong and courageous if you feel innately worthy.

It’s so much easier to be a good parent / worker / friend / partner etc. when you aren’t being controlled by deeper beliefs of your innate unworthiness.

So what happens when we have to really work for any or all of those things in our family of origin?

We move into adulthood with a dilemma. Because we really needed our parents/caregivers to be attuned to and meet our needs, so that as adults we could naturally meet them ourselves.

But if we don’t have people attuning and supporting our needs as children, we often stumble into adulthood having no idea how to meet these innate needs, and often expecting others to meet them for us.

We want other people to make us feel like we belong.

To make us feel love, support, safety and connection.

But as adults we actually have to learn how to meet these needs ourselves. Not to rely on other people, not wait for circumstances to be perfect, or for people to become available to help us.

And in doing this process, of learning how we learn to meet these innate, essential needs, we start to create some little cracks in that belief of our innate unworthiness, and gradually we wear it down all together.

So to go from feeling unworthy to worthy, we have to learn how to meet our own needs.  

And like all great adventures, it starts with one small step at a time.

Can we start by accepting – even if we don’t believe it deep down in our being yet – that the sensation of innate unworthiness is just a learned belief and often a byproduct of some misplaced ideas / emotional turmoil present in our caregivers? Can we give ourselves some compassion for that?

And I like to say things like this to myself:

“I know that this unworthiness stems from a misunderstanding my parents (and their parents etc.) had about how to best grow good humans (or be one). I know I can’t talk my way out of this belief; I have to feel my way into feeling worthy one step at a time. But I can narrow the gap by honouring and giving space, and giving love, to this painful emotional sensation that this belief creates. And to acknowledge how hard it’s been living with this deep core belief in my life.”

I allow the energy of this emotional pain to be here in my body.

To hold it and to see it.

To give it space.

I give myself some comfort – stroking my arms, breathing deeply to access the ‘rest’ part of my nervous system, and some physical support.

And I witness the emotional energy that has been here for a long time. If I can stay with this emotional energy, and not the stories my thoughts create about my own unworthiness, then I get the chance to see it all the way through until it is released.

And then we ask can ask ourselves, where are we seeing unworthiness showing up in our life? Where Is it causing the most havoc?

We offer ourselves oodles of understanding and empathy in this process – because emotions love understanding and empathy! It’s so soothing to our emotions to hear empathy. To hear things like:

I get how hard this is to feel so unworthy.

It’s so understandable to have hard feelings around belonging or acceptance.

It’s tough to journey through these feelings around unworthiness.

It all makes perfect sense that I feel like this.

And can we then identify something small that we can do to start repairing this and closing this gap.

If we want more connection – can we think of a teeny tiny way to move into more connection with another person?

Texting an old friend just to say hi.

Going to that book club to meet new people that we keep saying you’ll go to.

Etc.

If we want more balanced friendships where we also get support – can we think of something tiny to ask for support around?

Asking a friend to come with you to a doctor’s appointment.

Saying no to a request that we don’t have the capacity for.

Etc.

Taking whatever is a tiny baby step for you.