What way did you learn to be loved? I’m not talking about having coffee brought to you in bed, or being greeted at the door when you get home. Nor am I talking about romantic date nights or lots of passionate sex, I’m talking about what you learned growing up about HOW to get love from the people around you. Let me explain.
Pity Me – Some people constantly need to be a victim. They are depressed, down on their luck, and constantly at the butt of someone else’s actions. This is a familiar place for them. This person has learned that you get love by having other people feel sorry for you!
Perfect – Other people may feel that in order to be loved, they must be perfect. That’s hard to achieve since we’re all imperfect, but that’s what they learned. When they make a mistake, they risk all love being lost!
Work, Work, Work – Maybe working like a dog is how you learned to be loved. This martyr-type believes if they work themselves to the bone, they get love. You’ve seen this type – exhaling loudly, lamenting about their mile long To-Do List, or remarking on how difficult their life is. They can’t sit down and rest or they won’t be loved!
Over-Achieve – Perhaps your brand of love suggests that if you are more successful than everyone else, then you’ll get the love you need. It’s a nice thought, but I’ve seen very successful CEO’s with countless degrees and awards on their walls who still feel unworthy of love.
People-Pleasing – What about pleasing everyone around you? Could that be how you learned to get love? Good luck with that! The only way to please everyone around you is to be who they want you to be (if you can figure out what that is). When you guess wrongly, you’re set to lose the love you’ve worked so hard for!
Even When I’m Bad – How about unconditional love?? If you are loyal and loving to me even in the face of my bad behavior, then you really love me. Your partner might be able to keep this gig up for a while, but eventually they will tire of being used and abused (by your bad behavior) and attempt to set boundaries to protect themself. To you, that is going to look like they don’t love you. Ouch!
Know Everything – Maybe your way to be loved is to know everything and be smarter than everyone else. At some point, someone will know more about you on a topic or come up with an idea better than yours. Can you let that person take the credit or do you risk not being loved if you do?
Good Looking – Our society puts high value on being attractive. It’s not hard to come away with the idea that in order to be loved, you must be stunningly good looking at all times. Sadly, every last one of us is in a losing battle. If we can’t be loved unless we can keep our youthful beauty, love is on its way out!
Being Right – Need to always be right in order to be loved? You may have mastered your craft and win every battle, but you may also be alienating yourself from people who really love you because they don’t like being proven wrong at every turn.
In Pain or Sickly – Maybe you grew up not feeling loved except when you were sick. If this is the way you learned to be loved, you may have to feign sickness or milk a minor injury or illness in order to be loved.
Look into your past and examine the ways in which the people around you were being loved. Whether your method is listed above or a hybrid of some of your own, you need to question how healthy your method of being loved is. The simple truth is . . . we are not loved for what we do, we are loved for who we are.
What way did you learn to be loved? Is it healthy? More importantly, does it lead to sustained love or does it just provide temporary, fleeting loving feelings? Allowing yourself to be loved in a healthy way will give you room to relax and grow into the best person you can be!
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