Feeling Guilty For Making a Mistake? Feeling Used or Unworthy of Love?
Have you ever felt unworthy of love? If you think you have not, I would like you to think again. The truth is that all of us have felt unworthy of love at one time or another. In fact, that feeling is much more common than you may think. Let’s explore this.
Generally speaking, we feel unworthy of love when we feel guilty about something.
Women, for example, often feel guilty for receiving something or for asking directly what they want in a relationship. It often takes a lot of maturity for a woman to ask for what she wants in a trusting tone, honestly feeling that she deserves it. Often for women to feel that they are worthy of love, they first feel like they have to give more, or somehow show their worth to a man.
This is also part of the reason that many women often end up feeling used in a relationship. They may feel like they gave and gave but did not get enough back. In other words, instead of taking responsibility for receiving more in a relationship, they first tried to prove that they were worthy by giving more instead of asking for more. If she is worthy, then surely he will start to give more. (Incidentally, men generally don’t have a problem asking for more.)
Many men also feel unworthy of love. For example, after making a mistake in a relationship, most men feel very guilty. Rather than accepting their mistakes and apologizing, most men will try to justify their mistakes for fear of losing love. Most men feel very embarrassed or even ashamed as well as unworthy of love after making a mistake. It takes a lot of maturity for a man to take responsibility and to ask for forgiveness in a way that considers the woman’s feelings and expresses an understanding of how he has disappointed her. Again, I am not saying that women don’t feel guilty for making mistakes, but they usually have no problem saying they are sorry. That’s where the men fall flat.
This feeling of unworthiness is also the reason that many men stop caring about others. Some men feel that the mistakes they’ve made in the past can’t be forgiven. So, instead of forgiving himself, he continues to behave in a manner that does not take into consideration the feelings of others. He feels that he is not worthy of anybody’s love the way he is, so his attitude becomes: Why even bother? Nobody will love me they way I am anyway.”
As you can see, most of us can attest to feeling unworthy of love at some time or another. While all of this is normal, if you find yourself getting stuck in any of these feelings for more than 30 minutes, it maybe that you have gotten stuck in guilt. So let’s for a moment explore where this epidemic feeling of guilt come from? Most of us have been raised by parents who either used guilt or the fear of punishment as a way to control us. While our parents often justified the use of these negative parenting techniques all in the name of love, the unfortunate consequence has been that most of us have grown up to some degree feeling unworthy of love.
I am not trying to blame our parents for any of our current problems or imply that our parents did not love us. As adults we can take responsibility for ourselves. All parents sincerely love their children to the best of their ability, and no parent intentionally hurts their children. Even violence or mistreatment of children are on some level done out of ignorance. However, although our parents loved us, they were not perfect. And because they were not perfect, they made mistakes, and those mistakes have caused us feelings of unworthiness.
Little girls are often raised to be “nice,” and either directly or indirectly are given the message that it is not okay for them to voice their wishes. Many girls (and sometimes even boys), after becoming angry for not getting what they want, often hear messages such as: “Don’t be angry, you should appreciate what you have,” or “Don’t yell, be nice, Daddy has had a long day at work,” and so on. While I am not suggesting that parents should give in to their children’s wishes, it is very important that children’s feelings be heard and be validated.
The problem with these indirect messages of shaming the child for feeling angry is that the child feels like she does not have the right to want more. This makes her feel guilty for wanting more. When these messages are heard often enough, the child will form a mistaken belief that she is not worthy of more or that her feelings do not matter.
These beliefs are carried often subconsciously or unconsciously into adulthood, explaining why sometimes a woman even in a very abusive relationship feels like she does not deserve better. It is as if the abusive behavior validates her beliefs that say that she is not worthy of more.
Similarly, little boys are often unnecessarily made to feel bad or guilty for making mistakes. For example, let’s say six-year-old Tommy is running around the house and breaks one of his mother’s expensive glasses. If the mother says: “Why weren’t you more careful?” And she says this in an upset or lecturing tone, the message she sends is that he was bad and that he should be ashamed of himself. While parents often justify this type of lecturing, the consequence is that the children end up feeling guilty.
This behavior will make it much harder for the child to develop a healthy self-esteem and feel that it is okay to make mistakes. Furthermore, it does not teach children how to take responsibility for their actions. Even as adults, most of us still don’t know how to take responsibility for our actions.
So what can you do to feel more worthy of love? The First step is to realize that we all make mistakes and we all deserve to be forgiven. It is okay to make mistakes and you deserve to be loved just the way you are. It is also okay to want and deserve more.
The second step is to realize that you are now have an adult brain and you are fully responsible for creating the life you want. By taking responsibility for your circumstances and by becoming more aware of your limiting beliefs you will start to break away from them.
If you are a woman, a good exercise to become more aware of your feelings of unworthiness is by giving more to yourself and doing more for yourself. Do anything that you like. Take a nice bubble bath, prepare a movie and dinner, and go for a walk in a park, go shopping, or do anything else that makes you feel good. As you start giving more to yourself, become aware of any feelings of guilt or unworthiness that may come up. The more you become aware of your own limiting thoughts, the easier it will become for you to consider their validity. Once you realize that you are really the author of your life, soon you will begin to break free from those limiting feelings of unworthiness.
If you are a guy, start taking responsibility for your mistakes by first accepting that everyone makes mistakes. Realize that you deserve to be loved, regardless. By accepting and taking responsibility for your mistakes and by forgiving yourself you will start to strengthen your love for yourself. Another good exercise to get in touch with your feelings of unworthiness is to visualize what you want in life, what kind of car you want to drive, how much money you want to have, what kind of wife and family, etc. Give yourself the freedom to want anything your heart desires. As you do this, become aware of any limiting thoughts or feelings of unworthiness that may come up. Again, the more you realize that you are actually the author of your own limiting beliefs, the more power you will gain to create the life you want.
These types of exercises, as well as many other self-help exercises, are very powerful. There are hundreds of books and tapes that can help you tremendously to move through and become aware of any feelings of unworthiness that say you don’t deserve more. However, if you feel like you still have trouble shaking away your limiting thoughts, it may be that your beliefs are more ingrained in you than you think.
In my e-book that is coming out soon, I will describe an incredibly powerful way of moving through limiting feelings of unworthiness, and generating very deep-level healing and well being. Until then, I hope these little exercises will help.
Wishing you good luck in love, life, and your relationships,
Mikko Kemppe
