Parents Are Complex People
Our parents are people unto themselves. We have to remind ourselves they're just not our parents; they're people separate from us with their own identity. Believe it or not, they were people before we were born. They have different skills than us, good at some things and not so good at others.
You may feel like there’s a puzzle piece missing because of all the disappointments and frustrations with your parents. You may even think you’ll never succeed, be happy or live a fulfilling life. Going down this path leads people to try and find a puzzle piece to fill that empty space.
Despite their shortcomings, we are not carbon copies of parents. Many people struggle to accept this, even on my program.
You Determine Your Own Worth
This leads kids to ask, “Is it because of me? Am I crappy? Am I unlovable? Am I unworthy?” That’s when you see people answer their own question. “Yeah, I'm unworthy. So, I'm going to go out and do stupid things that unworthy people would do.”
If you’ve listened to or called into my program, you know your worth has nothing to do with how lovable you are. You're as lovable as you are toward other people and what you do for them. It's not what you did or didn’t receive in childhood. It's who you are to other people that makes you lovable, not if your parents filled all the spaces parents ought to fill. Some mothers and fathers are, as I call them, just egg and/or sperm donors.
If you can identify with all kinds of things in the universe, then you can identify with a lovable person and behave as such. Tell yourself: “I see myself as a lovable person, in spite of my parents. And since I'm a lovable person, I'm going to be lovable to other people. They're going to recognize my lovability because they see me being loving.”
That's how it's done, without 30 years of psychotherapy and medications.
