Mar 17
How to Unlearn & Heal from Dysfunctional Love
Do you know really what healthy love looks like?
“Love does not dominate; it cultivates.” ~ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Let’s normalise Self Love. Let’s normalise healing. Not only are you worthy of the love you did not recieve as a child, but you are capable of so much more in terms of living your best life.
Understanding Love
We all grew up not knowing what self love was. Honestly, we grew up not knowing what LOVE was to begin with. We accepted the fairy tale versions of love as definitions of real love. We accepted our dysfunctional setups as normal love.
If that meant living in emotionally and physically abusive households, we thought that was normal. Not anyone’s fault, it was all we knew.
It was our normal.
Only as adults who suffer from pains and traumas, do we realize that past was not normal. It was a dysfunctional setup, that fractured our emotional growth.
Unlearning Dysfunctional Love
Unlearning dysfunction and learning what it meant to love myself and others was difficult for me, as I am sure it is for you too. I lived decades of my life accepting mild attention as love. But, as I learned to love myself and truly understood the meaning of love, healing from old wounds and dysfunctional love became easier.
Mind you, there was a lot, a lot of back tracking. A lot of slipping into old bad habits that I thought were normal and comfortable. Unfortunately our mind loves old comforts, even if they are dysfunctional or detrimental to us.
👉That is why identifying those old comforts and re-labeling them as dysfunction is imperative.
Deciding to start healing from my past trauma, pain, and heartache changed my life for the better.
It wasn’t easy at first. And there are still days that are hard to push through — but I have learned so much about choosing joy and healing vs. staying stuck in unhealthy cycles and patterns.
Constant Healing Reminders:
Today, as we normalize self love, as we normalize healing from dysfunction remember this:
1️⃣Positive change is possible and important for healing.
2️⃣Shedding old comforts is bound to happen as you live a self loving life.
3️⃣Trust yourself enough to let go of all that does not serve your highest good.
4️⃣Creating the life you want takes action. Simply reading or hearing how is not enough to create the life of your dreams. Doing is key.
5️⃣Choosing to love yourself is a daily practice. A practice in healing from past dysfunction.
Affirm to yourself daily:
“I AM worthy of healthy loving relationships even though I grew up in a toxic environment.”
💭❓Your Turn: What is your definition of love? How did you identify the dysfunctions in your relationships?
💗With Love, Zeenat Merchant Syal, M.A, M.Sc
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💗Zeenat Merchant Syal is a Practicing Counseling Psychologist & Spiritual Counselor. She writes on Healing the Mind, Heart & Soul on Positive Provocations & offers Online Counseling there too.💗
