Here is the question, are you likeable and are you liking yourself enough or are you relying on others for your happiness? Do you hear yourself saying “If you would just love me, if you would accept me or if you would take care of me and all my emotions, then I will be happy.” When we feel this way, we are giving all of our emotional power over to the other person. We are not only giving our emotional power to someone else, but we are losing the ability to be in control of our own emotions. If you are relying on the behavior of other people in order for you to be happy, just how happy will you be?
We want to be likable and lovable because then we will be liked and loved by others, right? We believe if people like us then we will feel accepted and loved. Why are you relying on other people to create that feeling for you? Remember, it is impossible for people to create feelings for you. The reality is that they can't like you enough to make up for YOU not liking you. The real issue is that it has nothing to do with the other people in your life, it has everything to do with your thoughts about yourself. There are people that desperately want to belong yet they create an environment where they make it almost impossible to include them because they have so much resistance. They don't even realize that they are the one that is creating this type of environment. They think they're not liked so it's like they literally make themselves unlikable to prove that they don't belong. Do you know someone like this? Or does this sound familiar in your own life?
I love this analogy "You can be the juiciest, most beautiful peach, but there's always going to be someone that doesn't like peaches." It's okay if someone doesn’t like peaches. It doesn't say anything about the peach. It says something about what a person’s preference is. Give people permission not to like you. It is ok. People are allowed to do whatever they want and like whoever they want. It is 100% about them, not you. The last thing you want to do is try to be a version of yourself that only pleases others. In that case, you are not being you and you have lost your power. Once you become a people pleaser, then you no longer are in control of your own happiness.
If you want to be liked, you have to like yourself first. If you want to feel “like”, then like as many people as you can. Put the effort in. If you are not willing to put as much effort into yourself, then why would others want to? Investing in yourself and working on getting rid of bad mental habits is a positive step toward feeling better. Try to stay away from feelings that include disliking people that have more than you do, or hosting a “poor me” party for yourself to feel better which are unhealthy ways of dealing with feeling bad about yourself.
Here is what you can do, replace those old, undesirable bad habits with new and positive habits. Think a new thought to turn around your negative thinking. Then, once you have a new thought or habit, work toward building that up in your life and making that grow within you. You will definitely see changes happening for the better. Just remember, things don’t happen overnight, so you must practice this new way of thinking and feeling over and over. Baby steps, that is what it takes. I can help you kick start this process.
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