To be loved, you must be lovable. This is something my Dad keeps telling me. To receive someone’s love, it is necessary you open yourself to it. We accept the love we deserve. So, it depends on us to embrace what comes our way.
I have a number of phrases on my Pinterest board that remind me of how I want to live this life. Also, these phrases (however cliché!) help me out in situations where I have nothing to say to people. One of these phrases that used to tick me off was, “if you want to be loved, you have to love yourself first.” There was a time when I thought I would never subscribe to this one. Come on, people use it when they want to sound all wise, but actually have nothing wise to contribute! At the end of the day, we accept the love we deserve.
Image source: Pinterest
But that was before my world turned upside down!
Suggested read: 12 essential things you MUST know before you convince yourself you will never love again
I was in a very happy and healthy relationship for three years. God, those were the best three years of my life! But things didn’t work out between us, and since it wasn’t meant to be, we broke off. I have always been a very confident person, but after the break up, something about me had drastically changed. I thought there was nothing I could do right. I blamed myself for everything that had happened. Soon I became this person everyone pitied. I wasn’t who everyone wanted me to be, but more importantly, I wasn’t the person I myself wanted to be.
Things went on that way for more than a year, but then, I met my current boyfriend! J
If you tell a person something frequently, and long enough, they start believing in what you say. After I was judged and criticised for turning into a different person, it started becoming hard for me to like myself. And so, I thought wasn’t worthy of anyone’s love too. Now that’s the worst thing that can happen to a person!
We accept the love we deserve
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I had psychology as my general subject in college, and so I know that when one is in a particular mental state, it is difficult not to view everything through the lens pertaining to that state. Let me give you an example here. Suppose you are walking on the pavement, and you pass a group of people laughing. Now if you have been going through insecurity about how you look, and how people think you look etc. you are surely going to think that these random bunch of people were laughing at you. May be it was something to do with your dress, or the way you walk, or the nervousness that’s quite visible in your eyes, you try to justify! The way we look at things, is how we react to what we see!
The guilt of not being able to save my relationship, and the way people judged me later, had totally tainted not just the way I looked at myself, but also the love I thought I was worthy of. I didn’t think I could be, or worse, should be loved by anyone. And if I didn’t love myself, why would anybody else love me? And that’s when I had an epiphany; that is when I understood what the phrase “if you want to be loved, you have to love yourself first,” meant!
Suggested read: 10 absolutely practical tips on how to love yourself the way you are
If you find it difficult to love yourself, how can feel capable of receiving love? Even when people shower their love on you, you will not be able to interpret it in the right light, because we only accept the love we think we deserve.
So, how does one stop feeling unworthy of love?
Here are 10 truths you need to learn.
1. Pardon yourself
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Why do you think you are undeserving of love? Once you address that, no matter what the reason be, you need to forgive yourself. If someone loves you and cares for you, it is because they see something special in you. They think you are deserving of love, even if you don’t think likewise. Let go of whatever it is that is holding you back from opening your arms and embracing the love that people around you are willing to give you.
Put your yesterday in the past, because that is where it belongs!
2. Identify the goodness in you
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Everybody tries to give their loved ones things that they think is worthwhile. If a person wants to love you, then you need to stop looking at yourself with a negative lens on! You need to allow them to love you! There will always be a trait or quality in you that you won’t like, and will want to change. That is natural, and essential too. But you need to stop focussing your entire energy on that one bad quality. The more you nurture the good things in you, the more will they grow. Don’t let your less desirable qualities veil your ability to be loved.
3. Look deeper into why you think you aren’t worthy
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If you have been limiting the love from people for quite some time now, you need to take a minute, and ask yourself why you’ve been doing this. Why do you think you don’t deserve to be loved? Why do you think you are not worthy of love from anyone? What makes you feel that you don’t have a right to be loved by people?
4. Work on conquering the fear
From my own experience, I have learnt that fear is one of the biggest reasons why people stop letting others love them. When someone loves us, we automatically start relying on them. By doing that, we are setting the stage for our loss and nothing else. Now that’s not the truth, that’s only what we think! We have spent so much time and energy protecting ourselves from heartache, we miss the best part of being in love: receiving love from someone! Stop guarding yourself from love.
5. Give the love you want to receive
Image source: Pinterest
All of us want a special someone who will love us with all their heart. But we seldom think about giving back the same kind of love from our end, because that will make us really vulnerable, right?
Unless you are willing to put in your cent per cent, you cannot expect the other to do the same. When they see that you are holding back, they too, will be skeptical about giving you their everything.
6. Stop stepping on the brakes
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The most difficult thing about letting someone love you is to stop being scared and putting the brakes on your relationship. I am talking about the push and pull feeling when you start opening yourself up. There are times when you think you are ready to take the plunge, and then more often, there’s the other side of you that makes you shut the door tight.
Whenever you think you are going to close yourself up again, resist the urge. If you feel alone even when you are with someone who loves you, you won’t be able to protect yourself from the hurt.
7. Silence the voices of doubt
There is voice that lives within all of us. This voice tells us who we are and who we are not. Sometimes we solely depend on it, and let it determine the way we are going to feel about ourselves. You need to stop doing that immediately. As soon as you will stop doubting your ability to be loved, you will realize that it was this voice all along that was limiting you.
8. Bid farewell to the past
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We all have been hurt in the past. We all have had our hearts broken. But those things are in the past now. If you keep looking back at these experiences while trying to walk forward, you are sure to stumble and fall.
Let go of what has happened. Acknowledge them one final time, and then don’t look back at them again. Stop examining the mistakes you made. Stop probing, Try and think of the ways you are going to do things differently this time.
9. Try to build positive experiences
It is high time you treat love with baby steps again. Let people enter your life. Let them love you. Every time they prove their worth, you need to accept them a little more. That way, you will be building on positivity. This positivity will mould positive outcomes. That’s the way the cycle works.
10. Think of yourself and others as a bottomless pit
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And not a tiny little cup! The more you let the other person love you, the more will your pit absorb. Love can never be a limited thing, and we are all fools to be thinking that way for so long. Love does not have a starting and an ending point. You can never have too much of it. 
Suggested read: Adorable illustrations prove that love, indeed, is in the small things
To receive love, one has to think of themselves as worthy of it. All that baggage you have been carrying, let go of them! Not only do you have to start loving yourself to be loved by others, but you also have to accept the love people offer you.
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