Reflecting On Low Self-Worth And Relationships
The ego wants to “ick!” at your exes, but misses why you were into that ick in the first place
My heart feels heavy as I write this article. It’s a culmination of my ruminating over the past months.
I have been thinking about the relationships, friendships, and situationships I have been in throughout my life.
My ego tries to “ick!” at the people I have been with or wanted to be with. But it’s not that kind of path here. But it does have a point. What the “ick!” reaction from ego is really talking about is how today, I have grown within myself, and learning to love myself and others in a way that I would not date / settle / befriend some of the people I used to.
I don’t like the “gives me the ick” attitude, however. It dehumanises and ultimately it’s just cruel. We are talking about human beings here not the clump of crumbs you scoop out of your kitchen sink.
We are talking about people who have their own stories, their insecurities, passions, dreams and hopes. These are people we once looked at and said, “Hey, I want you in my life”.
The “ick” is an attempt to paint a picture of superiority too and it is ripe for missing accountability for how your choices and actions influenced how the relationship played out and why you were there.
The people we end up in relationships with have always reflected how we feel about ourselves.
They have been mirrors of parts within ourselves that we may not have realised existed, but the relationships showed them and others that they were there.
My heart feels heavy because my track record with my relationships so far has shown how little I used to value myself.
From my last long-term relationship, where I have been releasing lingering unresolved emotions and feelings about it.
Three years after the break-up, I can see that even though I was an imperfect human (as we all are), I tried to be a great partner.
One of the reasons I first went to therapy was because I wanted to be a better partner for her. But because I wasn’t seeing this, and she wasn’t either, I let how she perceived me and my actions affect my self-esteem. I was trying to heal, and she wasn’t, but I still believed I was the only issue with our relationship.
Today I’m not only glad the relationship ended, I’m also aware of how important it is to go to therapy for you. To heal for you. Not for a partner. Your inner work and healing path is one you take by yourself and for yourself.
It’s not something to do for the sake of keeping a relationship either. Do it so you are solid within yourself with or without it. Do it so you can trust that you can walk away and receive love elsewhere.
But I didn’t know this back then.
Luckily, my attachment to the relationship and all the things I was doing to try and keep it meant that when she broke up with me, I had an ego death that catalysed my healing.
Outside of this relationship, I see the situationships my teenage and young adult self were entertaining.
My unhealed and unconscious wounds meeting my affirmation of my sexuality as queer meant that I was much too open and willing to be with anyone. (I have an upcoming article about this!)
I was constantly on dating apps, swiping through girls I often subconsciously judged as “above me”, based on their physical appearances and aesthetics.
The wounds related to my relationship with beauty as a consequence of Eurocentric beauty standards had convinced me that I wasn’t as beautiful because of my darker skin and African features still lingered underneath. Only presenting themselves when I edited my pictures to make my skin tone lighter and to slim my nose.
I was desperately seeking love.
Despite having my heart broken by my first sort of love as a teenager, I was still eager to experience a loving relationship.
As an avid reader and once self-proclaimed TV show enthusiast, my head was full of romantic stories that I dreamed of also experiencing. As a chronically online internet kid, I was following LGBT couples who were bravely posting videos of their relationships and the yearning for something like that for myself intensified.
I was convinced that all I really needed was a girlfriend too and I would be okay. In all the ways that underneath, I was hurting. I didn’t know about generational cycles of trauma. I hadn’t processed the sexual assault I had experienced in my teenage years. The incident with my mother’s physical assault on me was something I had placed far into the back of my head, convinced that it was all done. Resolved. In the past.
If I could just get a partner, all of these things would not only go away, but my partner could be the bandage on top of these wounds.
So I had conversations with girls hung up on their exes, and slept next to one for a few weeks, where we barely got to know each other except for making out, before she went back to her ex.
I entertained girls who made it clear they could not give me what my romantic heart desired, where I was yearning for a lover for a monogamous relationship, they were looking for lovers and exploring polyamory. I spoke to girls where we had weeks of intense and constant conversations, texting and FaceTiming, only for them to let me know they were with someone else now and their new partner wasn’t comfortable with them keeping in touch with me. This is the queer dating scene. Brutal!
I was a beautiful girl with a wounded heart and it was leading me to a Starbucks coffee shop date where the date stood me up. She called me later to apologise, but by then I had accepted that she wasn’t for me. She was just another queer girl in my small town and I was desperate for anyone.
I was a poet, gifting my heart to people who did not have the capacity to receive it.
I was a lover with a lot of love to explore but without the awareness I could pour that love into myself.
My past therapist asked me why I “kept collecting broken people” during one of our sessions when I was telling her about my friendships.
I didn’t have the answer then.
But today I know it’s because I felt broken within myself. The most hurt part of me had collected stories of shame and worthlessness and was now so convinced that was who I was too.
I was collecting these broken people because I was convinced that was not only who I was, but that maybe if I could love them and fix them, I would be loving and fixing this part of me.
It doesn’t quite work like that. This wound was calling in these people and they could only exacerbate it.
Until I let myself stop and face it, it would continue to draw in “anyone as long as it’s someone”.
I look at pictures of my past self with so much love and sadness.
After the last three years of my healing and awakening, my home is now in loving myself. It’s a non-linear journey. Some days the wounds of the past have sharp teeth gnawing at my ankles.
But I am home in loving myself, letting the truth that I am God and God loves me unconditionally and created me exactly as I am sink into my core. I am embracing my natural self, enjoying the freedom to just be. Without the constant worries of whether I am dating / marriage material.
These are things I have been shedding over the past year.
I read my old journal entries and I want to tenderly hold my past self but also shake her so she can see herself. So she can see how beautiful, intelligent, loving, passionate and caring she is. How her depths are what makes her light, and not something for her to ever hide.
I had a story in my head for a while on how my intensity and ultimately, being a poet could coexist in a relationship.
In my last relationship, I had tried to use poetry to express my feelings for my ex but she couldn’t receive it. She struggled with her own self worth and my picture of her wasn’t matching how she saw herself.
I’ve had the memory of sharing Mary Lambert’s Dear One song / poem after I had listened to it and thought of her. She had cried – not in a way of joy, but in a “this is too much for me”. What was intended to be a romantic and intimate moment, ended up as a scene of trying to comfort her and apologising for upsetting her. In our 5 years together, I wrote only a couple of poems about her.
My past self was writing entries and entries on how she doubted her worthiness and suitableness as a partner for people she had placed on a pedestal.
But by placing them on a pedestal, she was missing their humanity, she wasn’t seeing their flaws and ways they were acting from their wounded parts too. She wasn’t really seeing them so she couldn’t truly love them.
She was loving an idealised version of them born from projecting her self on them. She was loving their potential, and expecting them to meet it, whilst ignoring that not everyone is or wants to be on the path of reaching their potential.
She was questioning her suitability for them, not considering if they were suitable for her.
Sometimes I re-read my old journal entries and like a teacher marking my student’s homework, I circle moments of my past low self-evaluation and I write a “hell no!”.
Ultimately, these entries reflect the pain that was in my body and psyche for so long. I can see it today as something outside and separate from me because of my commitment to my path of embodying my Higher Self and reaching my full potential.
As human beings, we will always yearn for love.
The love we are seeking however is rarely found from that one person who messages you with “dtf?” on Tinder out of the other 20 people they have just sent the same message to.
It’s a love that is calling us back home to Spirit. It’s a love that arrives and reminds us of who we are, beyond all the pain, traumas and wounds. Beyond the labels and identities and what we have been told they mean about us.
It’s eternal love, timeliness and boundless. It is pure. It’s a return to our innocence, where all the parts of us that have been fragmented and discarded return and find acceptance. It is an antidote to the chasing and desperate search for anyone and anything that can promise to give us love or worthiness.
This is a love that calls for you to love yourself. In all your light and your dark. It is a love that reminds you that you are love.
When you enter into a relationship, you are exploring this love, you are learning this language. You are seen and seeing.
For the first time in my life, I am truly single.
I am not dating, or in any situationships. I don’t have a crush on anyone either. I have moments of soul connections where I entertain the thoughts for a few minutes, then I move on.
Every day I am learning more about who I am, and I am loving myself deeper for it. As I do so, the relationship I am calling into myself is one that aligns with the woman I am and I’m becoming.
The yearning continues. I accept the desire to explore another person. I am excited for the possibility of undertaking the adventure of loving another.
Healing is important because when you don’t heal, you are seeing yourself through a distorted lens. Your unconscious wounds are dictating your life, calling in your relationships and friendships.
But God has your back and will give you opportunities to see this. The people in your life are reflecting who you are, or who you can be. The people you admire especially are mirroring aspects of yourself you are seeking to reclaim. Everything you have ever loved in someone else also exists within you. You can see beauty in others because you are aware of the beauty within you.
In undertaking the humbling process of excavating and disentangling the limiting narratives and beliefs within us, we reconnect with these parts of us. They have always been here.
For now, no matter how deep the wounds of unworthiness run, no matter how loud the hateful voices get, you can always learn to love yourself.
“In an ideal world we would all learn in childhood to love ourselves. We would grow, being secure in our worth and value, spreading love wherever we went, letting our light shine. If we did not learn self-love in our youth, there is still hope. The light of love is always in us, no matter how cold the flame. It is always present, waiting for the spark to ignite, waiting for the heart to awaken and call us back to the first memory of being the life force inside a dark place waiting to be born – waiting to see the light”. – all about love, bell hooks.
Thank you for reading,
Laurel
