feeling loved

On feeling loved by our parents while growing up and what the echoes of that feeling of being loved create and how feeling loved by our parents can teach us how to love ourselves in a healthy way.

I will also share some thoughts on what the lack of love creates and how we can always learn to love ourselves in a healthy way no matter how we grew up.

We all know that the first people we encounter in this human experience are our parents. And for the first few years of our lives, they hopefully teach us everything that we need to know until we’re ready to face this world on our own. Hopefully we’ll equipped and by that I mean with the trust and the knowing that whatever challenges we face, we will grow through them and learn from them.

Growing up in this world I noticed that every family goes through challenges, there is nothing like the perfect happy family. Some challenges might be or feel bigger than others, but we all have to go through them at some point in our lives.

With the vast variety of family constellations out there, from single moms, to single dads, to queer family models, to the heterosexual norm, nowadays I feel like everything is possible and of course every single family model can be a safe and loving space to grow up in.

Being raised by a single Mother I can only reflect on that aspect speaking from my own experience.

But I’m always curious to know more about your thoughts and experiences, so if you feel like sharing in the comments or even write your own Blogpost about it, I would love to read it!

With everything my mother was going through with the separation from my father and raising us as a single mom and doing a full time job to bring the food to the table and have a roof over our heads my mother gave everything she could and we felt it.

In the beginning we might not be as conscious about it as I wished we would’ve been, because I know that coming into puberty it was kind of hell for my mother to go through all of the phases we were going through and doing everything on her own. When my sister and I reflect on it we have no Idea how my mother handled everything and how she coped with our very rebellious behavoir.. I’m sure you know these moments when you’re asking yourself ‘oh my goddess, how could I’ve ever treated my mother like that’ and with the mood swings and everything a teenie is going through a bow to all the parents that are still loving and patience even if things get heated sometimes.

So, we felt pretty loved by our mother, even if at that moment or in that unconscious state we were not very grateful and nothing my mother did seemed to be enough. But it had notihing to do with what our mother did and everything with the fact that we were simply missing our father, but blaming our mother for everything that went wrong.

I’m so sorry about everything when I reflect on it my sister and I we both feel regret when we think about how we treated our mother sometimes. Even when she always showed up for us providing for us and loving us in the best way she could.

My mother has a lot of love to give and she shows it with a lot of hugs and kisses and kuddles. That is how I learned what being loved feels like, and that is also how I show love.

I learned pretty late in my life that not everyone experienced the priveliedge of being loved in that way. I was shocked when I noticed that some parents don’t even say I love you, or I’m proud of you…

That’s when I realized how lucky my sister and I got even when we didn’t know at that point in time we sure as hell now how lucky we were being raised by our mother.

At some point my mother gave up trying to compensate for my father’s absence and I totally get it, that must’ve been so exhausting to try to be both parents and also try to fill up the space that his love should’ve filled within us.

To all the single parents out there I bow to you and you’re doing the best job!

And to all the teens out there! Be greatfull for the love you receive and even more gratefull that you have a parent that is taken care of you.

I see now that feeling loved by a parent and feeling loved by both parents can have major effects on the way we love and treat ourselves. I see it in people and I noticed that the people that didn’t feel loved by their parents have a harder time to feel love for themselves and treat themselves in a good way.

And there are some people that even expect their new partners or other relationships in their lives to fill the holes that the lack of love left in them.

 I hope that at some point we all realize that no matter how big the holes are, we can only fill them ourselves.

Because when we start to learn how to love ourselves in a healthy way, we know what we want and the most important thing is that we don’t expect something in the outside to fill something within us that we need to fill in ourselves.

Only when we filled the holes in ourselves we can receive love in a healthy way and also give love in a healthy way. Everything that is happening before that is imbalanced.

And if we are on the other side of that relationship and by that I mean if we try to be the person that tries to fill the holes in others we end up exhausted and it is clearly not a satisfying and balanced relationship, speaking from my own experience.

So let’s make things very clear at this point.

We are not here to fill anyone’s holes.

Everyone is responsible for themselves and they can always choose to learn to love themselves. That means they always have the free will to make that decision and than they have to do the work and walk the path. There is no other way around it, there is no magic cure for the lack of love, even if receiving honest and healthy unconditional love can reprogram and change something within them (and I do believe that true love can cure everything), but if they are not full of love from themselves chances are that they might even become addicted to the dose of love that somebody is giving them.

So, my shiny beautiful friends, this is an invitation to learn and practice how to love yourself in a healthy way, so you don’t need other people to fill in the holes that you’re supposed to fill in yourself.

And for the souls that were like me in the past trying to fill in the holes, ask yourself why you even think you’re responsible for that person and why you’re not choosing someone that is ready to receive the love you have to give in a healthy way.

Asking oneself these questions can reveal a lot.

You can learn to yourself.  

I know that, because I went through it.

And believe me when you know how to love yourself, the whole world will reflect that love back to you.

It might seem like a long way or a big mountain to climb, but if you’re willing to invest and work on a relationship it will pay of so start with the relationship with yourself, because that’s the most important relationship we have in our lives.

Cultivate that relationship with yourself.

Take yourself on dates.

Treat yourself.

Explore your inner oceans even if they seem endless and pitch black at some points, but these are exactly the places where the treasures are. And you carry a lot of treasures within you.

I believe in you my shiny friends.

And I kiss your hearts

With endless love

-jn