Never thought until now to make a deep analisys of unworthiness of love. It seems that this question has been crystallising in my subconscious for a long time and there was a reason for it to resurface. The trigger was this article on NihshabdBlog. Here are some scattered thoughts.

So, imagine a not-so-uncommon situation: someone you love and consider the “love of your life” leaves you. After the pain part and the whole grieving process, which I don’t downplay in any way, at least because I know what it’s like from personal experience… do you feel worthy of love? Or do you feel like you’re just not worthy of being loved at all? And yes, there is a difference between these two “feelings.”

First is this feeling at all ? The feeling itself is important, because in terms of nonviolent communication, for example, it points to our unmet need. So what is this feeling of being unworthy of love telling me? Maybe it’s just a need – I need love, but no one is giving it to me? What if there’s no one around? Or do I believe deep down that I have to give something in exchange for love? Especially if as a child I had to impress my mom in some way to get her attention. Congratulations! Isn’t that exactly what conditional love is all about? I love you if you’re useful to me. The usefulness could be anything – like entertaining me. Or listening to what I say and doing it strictly. Maybe being an excellent student at school? So… how about I first check if I don’t have a trauma of rejection that’s causing me to do things to deserve love? I would start by examining my relationship with my same-sex parent. And you? Hello, Daddy. Yes, my very presence made you nervous when I was a child, so I learned to tiptoe and keep quiet around you. And that’s love, right – I please you, you don’t fight me. It’s a bit of a bargain, but at least it’s better than enduring angry outbursts for no apparent reason.

I think the feeling itself reveals the need: love. It is pure and very human to need love. But unworthiness… maybe it is a thought, not a feeling. Why do I think so ? Because it actually sounds like a conclusion: unworthy. When someone decides they are not worthy? After a long experience of not receiving, right? Especially if they compare themselves to others around them who receive. It doesn’t seem fair to me, but the reason must be me. Just an assumption. This is how our child’s mind makes simple conclusions that haunt us for the rest of our lives. 😉

It is easy to jump to the conclusion that the case is clear – I heard someone who said it is just that your parent did not receive love in childhood, so they simply do not know how to love, so that is the reality. Bad luck – I am sorry, but such is life.

But… this worthiness here… points to possible efforts on your part. Because to conclude that I am not worthy means that I have expected and not received. Because if I have not expected, then the question of being loved would not exist at all. And when I have expected and not received, there, in this feeling of unworthiness, there must be a component of disappointment too. Unworthiness itself can feels even like desperation: a refusal, I have given up, I have given up expecting. Which makes me think that I must have tried doing different things before I gave up. And if it is a question of doing, then it is certainly conditional love, and then perhaps we are not talking only about rejection, but aditionally about abandonment. And the trauma that we can check then is with the parent of the opposite sex. Hello, Mom !

Then of course, giving up our personal power, placing ourselves in the hands of an external authority to decide whether I am worthy or not. Which directly raises the question of inequality in relationships and power dynamics. Am I the only one who smells the smell of humiliation around? How were you raised? Did they make you feel guilty for what you did? And did they ask you the question “how could you be like this”, which made you feel ashamed of who you are, showing you that there is an expectation of what you should be?

What can give us a proper analysis from different angles and a rethinking of the feeling of unworthiness? Well, let’s say a better understanding of what lies behind this feeling, which I think is intertwined with conviction. Let’s start here for example. First of all to be rejected means to not being accepted in someone’s internal world at all. But you do not know why and there can be many reason you can not even imagine. Jumping to the conclusion that you are not worthy of love is rather naive. It is hard to say you were not loved if you were not accepted at all. And if you think you loved them but you have never being accepted, then seems it wasn’t love, but attraction by your side, which has not been reciprocated. Attraction is emotion, not feeling and not love itself. Or the deeper layer: need for validation. Which is pure power dynamics – they are the authority, you are the candidate for approval.

So to decide that you are not worthy of love you have to had access to this person’s internal world at least and did not felt their love toward yourself. Which opens another question: am I talking about love or affection ? Because the easiest way to make such a wrong conclusion that you are not worthy of love is to become friend with someone whom you desired as lover for example. You strive for more closeness, but the other person feel comfortable with this level of friendsip between you. It’s not that hard to dramatize such situation and to decide, that you are not worthy of love, but it is just not true.

If someone specific is not experiencing affection toward you, this has nothing to do with you, but with their feelings. You are just expecting to receive from specific person, but life does not work that way. You can be disappointed, yes, which means you had expectation. But the feeling of unworthiness of love is first not feeling and second wrong mental conclusion. Yes. it is a thought and false!

Now, what about expressing feelings? Can you express your feelings openly? Does the other person know about them and have they told you that they don’t feel the same way about you? Or maybe you hide your own love behind an expressionless face (like me) and expect the object of your love to somehow see your feelings behind the mask you wear? This was the case with my first love, for example. So much torment and pain that she didn’t feel any feelings for me, and I myself acted like a friend, not even daring to share my feelings with her. Because if she rejected me, I would lose her. And it was convenient – I sat in the unknown and hoped that something would happen. Yes, we were teenagers and it wasn’t exactly love, but affection and sexual attraction. Years later, when we met again and I finally admitted to her that I was madly “in love” with her, she told me that she was too, but I didn’t show my attraction in any way and she thought I wasn’t interested in her outside of our friendship. So, the conclusion here is: sharing feelings is important because people usually can’t read minds, nor are they good empaths. Especially when they’re attracted and self-doubting. And when we really have feelings for someone, we’re more likely to be insecure.

And another point of view: what about all those people around me that I don’t even notice? Some of them I may meet often – for example, in the store, the cafe, in the neighborhood. At work, at school or during a walk in the park. Do I notice them at all? Am I sure that any of them are not attracted to me? No, I am not and there is no way to know. I think that they are not, because I am sitting in self-pity, that I am alone, and somewhere inside me there is an expectation – if they like me, they will show it somehow. Really? What about me? Do I show my attraction to strangers? No? What a surprise. Then why do we expect them to do this? Yesterday a girl smiled at me on the street and I realized how sullen my face is at the moment. I felt like an idiot. But it is precisely this sullen, bored face that I walk through these streets. Would anyone even dare to look me in the eyes in this state?
During my psychology studies, I did an experiment and asked a bunch of people if they were open to meeting someone in public. Most of them said yes, but only if he/she made the first move. Do you know what that means? Yes – fear of rejection. So… before I start feeling sorry for myself again about not being worthy of love, it might be a good idea to check if this isn’t a convenient cover for me because I’m simply afraid of rejection. Because rejection is a part of life, but it is not the end of that life! It could simply mean that this person doesn’t want to communicate at this moment. It’s not even clear whether it’s with me specifically or with anyone else.

By the way… the same goes with the ex’es. She doesn’t want me in her life anymore. This doesn’t make me unworthy of love at all. It may not even have anything to do with love at all. It just means that this person, for some reason, doesn’t want to be with you – if they ever had such a desire at all – they may have had a need that you satisfied, but that’s no longer enough for them. And this isn’t about whether I’m worthy of being loved. It’s about what she’s looking for in a relationship and how she feels about it. A woman told me when we broke up that she loves me, but I’m unpredictable and she can’t control me. She wanted to CONTROL me? It is her own interest in this relationship. Should I have allowed it so that she could stay with me? Everyone decides for themselves, but despite the doubts I had about am I selfish, in the end I’ve always chosen myself, even if they think I’m. But I admit that I’ve worked hard on myself. And one of the key questions I asked myself was, do I love her or am I just comfortable in this relationship?

No matter what the reason, rejection is about not being accepted, but it has nothing to do with whether you are worthy. It has to do with the other person’s values, their taste or preferences. Or their limited belief in who is worthy of their love, limited by social stereotypes. Because let’s face it, a lot of people don’t know themselves and therefore have no idea what exactly they want or like in a partner. So they go with the flow and the stereotype that gravitates in the public space is what they think they are looking for.

Another perspective: being loved makes you indispensable, as Rajeshwari says in the blog post cited above. But it’s hard to feel loved while you’re looking for attention. Because such an unmet need is traumatic and makes you look for the next person as soon as someone accepts you. And there’s no one on Earth who can satisfy that need of yours. And that’s not love. It’s a need for attention. Which points to an early experience of neglect. My mom started working when I was 4 months old. So work is more important than me. Guess what kind of women I meet in my life? Yes, the ones who are very busy with their work and don’t have enough time to be with me. And they expect me to understand them. Which I did for very long, before I understood, that this is one way street and there will not be reciprocity here. So I had to make my decision.

When you have an unmet need for attention, even if you have a person who loves you, that’s not enough for you, and you’re constantly looking for confirmation that you’re the most important thing in their life—their priority. Which is not healthy relationship. And you’re constantly looking outside the relationship for more attention. So you’re not really loving. You are building a fan club. Because you’re afraid of abandonment and on a subconscious level you try to protect yourself from the pain by not getting emotionally attached and gathering more people around you so you don’t get left without the attention you missed as a child.

Your fear to not being abandoned makes you act like that and prevents you from deeper commintment. So I am worthy for love, but you do not love me. You need me. This is the reason I think the “feeling” of not being worthy of love is actually a belief. Wrong and limiting, but it’s job is to protect you from the pain you already experienced as conditional love with your parent from the opposite sex, induced initially by the feeling of rejection from the parent of the same sex.

So… growing up and becoming a man, in my opinion, is about realizing that you are worthy because of the fact that you are in this world. Everything else is own wounding and interests of different people that don’t need to be taken into account anymore. The rest is letting someone see you for who you are. And that’s up to you now. You don’t need to worry about your dad’s acceptance or mom’s approval anymore. What’s the big deal if you disappoint them?