Admitting to having self love can make some people view us negatively, when we say someone loves themselves it can suggest narcissistic tendencies, having no thought for others, someone who only cares about themselves would be said to love themselves too much but that’s not what self loves about. Self love is about valuing and appreciating ourselves. It’s about knowing we are good enough no matter what happens.
What Causes A Lack Of Self Love?
Someone who has grown up with dysfunction will find it difficult to love themselves, as I say in many posts on my blog as children we need good enough parents. A good enough parent will provide a child with security, a child needs a parent who is emotionally regulated, safe and reliable. The relationship with our parents forms the foundation of all future relationships, it affects how we relate not just to others but to ourselves.
Most importantly a good enough parent will provide the child with unconditional love and acceptance. Even a parent who thinks they are doing their best for the child by pushing them to do what society would consider positive things such as study, things that the parent thinks will benefit the child as adults is not providing the unconditional love and acceptance a child needs. A child without good enough parents is going to learn that love and acceptance is conditional; that they only receive love when they are performing certain roles within the family or doing what the parent wants.
A child is looking to their parents to help them understand the world and themselves, if those parents are less than good enough or even narcissistic and abusive it will be very difficult for that child to love themselves, a child needs their parents to love, protect and validate them so any form of abandonment is going to be life threatening for a small, helpless child. A child will internalise abuse and abandonment, it will create toxic shame and the child will learn that they need to look outside of themselves for validation, love and happiness.
How Will A Lack Of Self Love Affect Us?
Not having any love for yourself is going to be extremely detrimental, someone who doesn’t love themselves isn’t going to be able to act in their own best interests, they will be people pleasers and codependents. They will agree to things that have no benefit to them in fear of losing people, they will have a fear of rejection and abandonment, someone who doesn’t love themselves will see themselves as unworthy of receiving love or even respectful treatment from others. Someone with no self love is likely to repeatedly find themselves in abusive situations and relationships.
How Can Inner Child Healing Hypnosis Increase Self Love?
When people think about inner child healing they think it means reliving past traumas, inner child work like we do on the inner child program is not about reliving the past or blaming parents, everyone is doing the best they can with what they have and repetition compulsion says what we don’t heal we will either reenact on others or find new people to reenact our past traumas on us,
Inner child work is about becoming good enough parents to ourselves, giving ourselves the unconditional love and acceptance we never had as children. This kind of work is essential if we want to release toxic shame and its effects on us, increase self love, increase self acceptance, reduce anxiety, see ourselves as worth defending, avoid abuse, overcome codependency and people pleasing. Inner child work will also make us better parents to our own children and help us learn to build healthy relationships.
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