Here is this week’s question:

I’m beginning to sense that I have deep seated feelings of unworthiness around relationship. I desire a quality, healthy relationship, yet come up against feelings of lack of entitlement and the strong feeling ‘it could never be me’. I know these feelings go back to messages absorbed in childhood. My emotions get triggered and the little negative voice talks away in the background and I often shut myself off as a result. Do you have any tips for dealing with this sense of unworthiness when it comes up in interactions?

Yes! First of all, if you haven’t already, download my free report on my home page called “HOW TO GRACEFULLY RECOVER FROM AN EMOTIONAL TRIGGER!” It will give you step-by-step advice on how to deal with your emotional trigger during interactions with others.

Secondly, let’s talk about feelings of unworthiness in general. Humans are hard-wired for survival, and anything in us that would make us “unacceptable” to our tribe is something our Survival Self is constantly on the watch for. This was useful programming in tribal times, because if you were to risk being ostracized by the tribe, you WOULD die. So this is a very powerful message from our unconscious mind, from our ancestors, from our bloodline, and probably from our parents and other authorities, however well-meaning they may have been (because THEY were programmed this way…).

The important thing to realize when you are feeling the unworthiness, is that THIS IS NOT WHO YOU ARE. It’s not YOU. Certainly it’s not the TOTALITY of who you are. This is the message of your Survival Self or Ego, which thinks it is helping you by pointing out how you may be unacceptable so that you would fix that and belong to the tribe again.

On a spiritual level, it is IMPOSSIBLE not to be worthy of love and relationship. On a spiritual level, you are a Divine being, made by the Creator, sharing in all of Its Highest qualities, and so you are innately worthy of love and relationship, and it is absolutely natural that you manifest such in your life.

That little nagging voice in the back of your head – that is your ego’s voice. And you know what? It’s RIGHT! Your Ego is NOT worthy of love and successful relationship – it’s your Divine Self that is! Your ego wants only survival for you, and if necessary will keep true love and successful relationship out of your life if it thinks that will keep you acceptable to your tribe somehow. It thinks it is protecting you, and so you shut down and crumble, whether you want to or not.

Now, you may understand this intellectually, but how to get it into your body, into your nervous system, into your subconscious mind? In the moment of shut down, you need to wake up and own your Divine power. This takes practice over time. For a while, you may not remember to wake up – you’ll remember later, a day or two after the shutdown. Then you’ll remember a few hours later, then you’ll see it as it happens, and finally you’ll see it and be ready to take action on it in the present moment. It does take a commitment and intention to stop the old habit and begin the new one.

What does it look like to wake up and own your Divine power? ln the moment you feel unworthy and start to shut yourself off, I’m sure you don’t like that feeling. That should cause you to wake up and wish you could feel better. When you remember that you CAN feel better in that moment, you choose to remember that this feeling is from your false self, and you choose to remember that your True Self is created by the Divine and therefore you are a Gift to the world! In the truest sense – that you have a lot to offer to someone in relationship – not in the egotistical sense that you need others to prop up this false sense of yourself. This is what you practice over time until it becomes a habit, and the old habit falls away from lack of reinforcement. It is the true action of “remembering your SELF” – who you REALLY are, not your false self / ego.

As always, if there are feelings that come up around this, give yourself some alone time to process the feelings – in the ways I’m always describing about how to deal with your Shadow.

Make sense? Have any other thoughts about this? Let me know what you think by posting a comment below or on my Facebook page here. And be sure to let me know how else I may serve you on your Journey to Love!

Blessings!