What if I told you there is nothing wrong with you? Nothing at all.
What if you believed that?
What would your life look like?
What would you be propelled to do?
What would need to let go of?
What is believing there is something innately wrong with you protecting you from?
Does it serve you?
I believed I was broken for my entire life. I believed there was something desperately wrong with me. That I was born with a defect that meant I was less than everyone else, deserved less than everyone else, and was inferior to everyone else. Under this belief, my needs were not important.
So I tried to “fix” myself and figure out what was wrong with me.
I mostly blamed by body, believing it to be the source of the defect. I pushed myself to the extreme with exercise and unrealistic food regimes, forcing my body to assume its fittest, slimmest form. I hoped this would be the solution, but the belief remained.
I was at a loss—if not my body then what was it? When my health failed, illness became the evidence I needed to fuel my case. As long as I was sick, there was something wrong with me, something to fix and something to excuse me from exposing my fears buried inside.
This belief was ingrained in me. It was part of me. I couldn’t even consider questioning it.
This belief became both a painful abuser and a loving, protective friend. It debilitated my life, preventing me from participating in it fully—from connecting, allowing, receiving, or even recognizing myself.
The search for my fatal flaw fed my limiting belief and kept me safe. Safe from vulnerability, safe from showing myself to others, safe from admitting that I’m not perfect because I believed perfection was a prerequisite to love. The belief that there was something wrong with me allowed me to prevent all the things I truly wanted from coming in.
This belief meant I couldn’t have a relationship because I couldn’t offer a partner what he expected or deserved. I isolated myself and deprived myself of fun, believing I didn’t deserve the pleasures it would bring. I didn’t follow through on creative projects I worked hard on, blocking the success and recognition I longed for from taking shape.
Instead, I focused on my spiritual healing. This allowed me to put life on pause and promise myself I’d get out there once I was “healed,”
I wasn’t manifesting the things I wanted, not because there actually was something wrong with me, but because I genuinely believed I didn’t deserve them.
The belief, not my inadequacy, was blocking my desires from actualizing.
We’ve all had life experiences, circumstances, pain, and suffering that have led us to believe there is something “wrong” with us. People have mistreated us, hurt us, and convinced us we have no value or worth. Other people can inspire this feeling in us through their harmful words and actions or, more often, in a in a less recognized form—ignorance.
Emotional ignorance and neglect are the most painful acts of all. When someone is hurting us, we still experience it as recognition. Even with negative recognition, we are still receiving attention, which feels better than neglect. Ignoring our emotions and our needs creates complete isolation within our souls. As beings of oneness, nothing is more painful than the feeling of internal seclusion, it’s a completely unnatural state to us. It’s traumatic and, quite literally, soul destroying.
We take on traumatic experiences as a reflection of who we are. We believe we were a victim because it was what we deserved. We believe these experiences were part of our lives because there was something wrong with us. But our trauma, our pain, and the hurt others caused us are not who we are. They are a byproduct of that person’s trauma, which is a byproduct of someone else’s trauma, which they are now carrying forward by acting out on us. This does not in any way condone the behavior, but it allows us to see how the way we were treated is not (and never was) because we are unlovable.
There. Is nothing. Wrong with us.
It’s time to unidentify with other people’s action and see who we really are underneath. There, we find a part of us that exists and always will. Let it come up for air, let it be seen, let it take center stage where it belongs. Allow it to be born again.
It wasn’t until I exhausted all other paths to healing, to making myself “better,” that I surrendered.
Until this point, self-love nauseated me. But my biggest annoyance is now my only option.
I take small steps, I use kind words with myself, I don’t beat myself up, and I am beginning to allow fun into my life again. I allow myself to receive compliments, recognition, and help from others. I allow myself to rest. I let my heart make decisions and look inward to determine what is most loving for me in that moment.
I feel different now. I feel seen and cared for. I look upon myself with compassion and love. Through these newfound eyes, my critical belief can no longer be true. I can see my own truth.
Self-love evolves. It is the accumulation of continual thoughts, actions, and decisions we make in putting our own happiness first.
Take one small step each day to be more self-loving than the day before, and love will give herself back to us fully.
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Author: Kerrie O’ Reilly
Image: Brooke Shaden / Instagram
Editor: Danielle Beutell
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