Treating ourselves the way we deserve to be treated

Have you ever found yourself thinking any of the following?

• I’m never good enough.
• I can’t do anything right.
• This always happens to me.
• It was never going to work out anyway.
• What did I do to deserve this?
• No one is ever going to like me or I don’t deserve to be loved.
• I know I have.

I’m often surprised at myself when I notice that I’m using some of this damaging and totally false self-talk. Even more so when I see it in others – people that I see as shining stars, full of life, with amazing gifts inside of them.

I think it’s easy to fall into those traps though – to take some of our common everyday life experiences that happen to us all and help us learn and grow – and interpret them as some type of consequence.

Especially if we’ve ever experienced trauma (car accidents, sudden losses, natural disasters, etc.) and feel let down by life, or if we’ve ever experienced abuse. In my opinion, the last one can be one of the toughest to reconcile – because we don’t see ourselves as being capable of treating another person the way we’ve been treated. In fact, we wouldn’t treat anything that way unless it was worthless. So, we take that and translate it to: “I’ve been treated badly, like I’m worthless, therefore, I must be.”

Again, so very common to adopt this belief. But in reality, this is looking at ourselves the way we think someone else sees us. This is like looking through someone else’s glasses!

The best thing we can do for ourselves is take the glasses OFF and then immediately treat ourselves as though we are the most valuable thing we have. Taking the time to do the things that make us feel well, that we enjoy, and bring us a sense of purpose.

When we treat ourselves the way we deserve to be treated, we’ll feel better, believe in who we are/that we deserve better, and we’ll only accept better.

What will you do to value you today?