You’ve felt the pain and turmoil before, it happens when you feel inadequate also referred to as ‘I’m not good enough’. This message ‘not good enough’ is always an internalized process brought on by how others have made you feel. Usually, it can stem from childhood and be instilled by families.
This process of telling yourself ‘I’m not good enough’ can be a consequence of trying to understand someone else’s behaviours, why they’re behaving in a certain way towards you, mainly ‘why are they treating me badly?’ Your reflection of their behaviour is that you’re being treated badly because it’s you; it’s a reflection of you as a person. You’ll always find yourself looking for someone else to make you feel good about yourself and this comes from your not liking yourself.
Example.
If you partner ignores you or comes and goes as he/she pleases, you know you haven’t said or done anything to warrant this, you may still end up feeling like you’ve caused it. Your belief system is that if your partner was with someone else, they wouldn’t behave in the same way and therefore it must be you. This is based on you trying to understand their behaviours given you haven’t done anything but eventually, the more you try to understand it and can’t, you’ll feel inadequate and blame yourself.
Your partner’s behaviour is just that, it’s their behaviour; it’s not a reflection of you.
There are ways to help yourself, to make yourself feel good enough; these are all based on your view of yourself:
- Feelings. Name your feelings; allow yourself the time to feel the body sensations associated with that feeling.
- Critical thinking. Identify the difference between you and your mind’s voice, work out how your mind works and be prepared for when it starts talking
- Breathe. Focus on your breathing, take deep breaths and count to 5 breathing in and breathing out, this allows you to feel grounded
- Thoughts. Remind yourself that a thought is just that, a thought, nothing more. Thoughts are not always factual and maybe someone’s said things to you which your mind is repeating. That doesn’t make the thoughts true; it was just someone’s opinion.
- Love yourself. Learn to be kind and compassionate towards yourself, the more you do this, the less someone else’s behaviour will have on you. The less you’ll take what someone says and does personally.
It can and most likely will take time to challenge your thoughts, this can happen and usually does with consistency. Practice self-compassion, say nice things to yourself, reward yourself for positive changes, and acknowledge every single achievement regardless of how small it is.
