Looking for love in all the wrong places?

I responded to a wonderful video post on Facebook today, by a gal who (in a nutshell) spoke about inviting love in from any and all sources. It was an authentic message and a good one, and I suspect it will help a lotta folks… but maybe it slightly misses the mark.

How many of us remember that song from many years ago, “Looking for love in all the wrong places”? It probably came out around the time the film, “Looking for Mr. Goodbar” did.

The truth is, most people are their worst enemy (see my recent video post). They are critical, guilting and shaming to themselves, 24/7. These folks remain forever starved for love, because they’re looking for validation outside themselves, that they are good enough and lovable. Fact: Nobody can “make” you feel lovable, if you haven’t found a way to like, respect and admire yourself.

If you are hard on you, you’ll automatically attract others who treat you as abominably as you treat yourself… and you’ll tolerate that abuse from them because it precisely matches what you routinely deliver to your Self.

Self-abuse is so reflexive and automatic for millions of people since early childhood, they’re not even aware of how often they put themselves down or punish themselves for “crimes” they haven’t even committed. But WHY is this such a common pastime?!

I was never an abused child, but I grew up with a lot of neglect. A child deprived of adequate attention, affection and positive mirroring questions his worth from infancy onward. He feels undervalued, unimportant and never good enough. I was that child.

Years later, probably around my late 20’s, I invented tools for myself to turn my life around. I tried a lot of different approaches. Some stuck, and some didn’t. The ones that stuck and irrevocably altered my life for the better, I kept using until they bacame habit. I utilize these in my practice, to help mend all the core injured, tormented adult children who’ve mustered the exceptional courage to significantly better their lives, and truly heal.

Myriad books are written on child development, yet for some inexplicable reason, nobody ever reads ‘em! Every new parent evidently thinks they’re an “expert” when it comes to raising children, and nobody cares to even consult an instruction manual.

I detested my child development classes when I returned to school at 41, in hopes of getting a psychology degree or two to legitimize what I’d been doing for most of my adult life within other work venues. Those classes were dry, boring and offered absolutely nothing of value, in context of how early childhood conditioning and emotional imprinting can either make or break a person! How dreadfully lacking my entire continuing education was~ but luckily, I’d garnered a huge amount of understanding about human nature and surmounted many of my own obstacles, before returning to “academia.”

Given that being a good parent is literally the toughest, most important job one can ever occupy, it boggles my mind that ‘shooting in the dark’ is preferred by the majority of humans, over learning what actually works to successfully raise emotionally and psychologically healthy and self-actualized offspring. What a shame.

Perhaps society’s innate distrust (and with good cause) of the psychological profession deters one from seeking a suitable blueprint for attending to and raising a child, and that’s why hundreds of books on child and adolescent development are merely gathering dust on library shelves all around the world. Yet ironically enough, many still engage the services of a psychotherapist or psychologist (most of whom are empty, avoidant, anxious and depressed) to mitigate their core emptiness and pain. It’s literally the blind leading the blind, when we consider the prospect of genuine and permanent healing.

Don‘t believe me?? Talk to someone who’s been “in treatment” for a decade or more, and fantasizes about not needing therapy one day. Yes, they’re still struggling with inner pain~ and shaming themselves for it. It’s not that many haven’t resigned themselves to living with core pain, it’s that Resignation is light years apart from Resolution.

I say to my clients all the time, we cannot repair the adult that you are, until we’ve accomplished truly healing the little boy or girl inside you, who’s still bruised, battered and bleeding. That little child will remain an integral part of you until the day you surrender this physical body. He shapes every choice and decision you make during your lifetime, and drives self-defeating behaviors. Why? Because he can’t feel worthy or deserving of love, prosperity, contentment or joy.

In my book, DO YOU LOVE TO BE NEEDED, OR NEED TO BE LOVED? I speak to the very real fact that how we were loved as infants and young children, is how we learn to love ourselves and others (or don’t). Many of us do not know how to receive love, even though we can tolerate it for a brief period. It makes us a little uncomfortable to encounter someone who’s capable of loving us genuinely and deeply, because we’re not programmed from early childhood, to accept such a gift! In fact, it feels emotionally overwhelming, if we’re lucky enough to have it come our way.

Super-givers (those who are pathologically codependent, and NEED to be needed) are not comfortable receiving gifts, kind gestures or even, compliments from others. When we have poor self-worth, we surround ourselves with an invisible barrier that prevents GOOD from coming to us. Metaphysically speaking, we unwittingly send out a vibrational frequency that basically states, “stay away~ because I don’t deserve it!”

People who live like this, settle. They settle for being with someone who has little or no capacity to love them. They settle for less than they really want in their chosen vocation or career. They settle for never having enough money to afford what they need and want out of life, because deep down, they feel unworthy of receiving.

To these people I say, the tide of the ocean routinely goes out to sea~ but it must return to shore carrying sand and shells with it, or there’d be no beaches existing anywhere in the world! It is every bit as important and vital to learn how to receive, as it is to give!

It is utterly crucial to learn how to give adoration and support to your Self, so that you can become capable of attracting, accepting and welcoming the love you need from someone (anyone) else.