To Myself, When My Heart Is Struggling to Believe I’m Loved
Dear self,
You are struggling. But you know that. There are a lot of outward physical signs that had manifested themselves and made your friends and family concerned. And even though you’ve, for the most part, overcome a lot of that, part of you is still struggling: your heart. I know that because it is hard for you to accept or even listen to truth.
Truth as in healing words. Truth as in the reality of your value and worth. Truth as in how much you are loved by God, your family and friends. The truths that should live your heart, the wellspring of your life.
Your head thinks you’ve accepted those truths. It just makes sense. You’ve heard them, verbally and in actions, your whole life. Why wouldn’t you believe that you are worthy, valuable, loved and accepted as who you are? But deep down, you don’t believe it at all.
When your friends start trying to encourage you and speak words of life, you find yourself avoiding eye contact and trying to change the subject, feeling too weird to even say thank you. This reaction runs deeper than you just disliking attention. When your inner voice starts critiquing every single action you do, you start, even sometimes subconsciously, doing better, being better. But it was never just an effort to become better; it was an endeavor, to maybe, just maybe, become good enough some day. When your friends text you the truths your heart desperately needs to hold on to, you end up weeping. You can’t avoid those words like in person. Your brain wants to believe them, but something inside of you refuses to open up and let them come and live inside of you.
It becomes even more apparent when your therapist hands you a list of truths and you have a hard time reading them because they are like knives to your heart. When told to pick the one you want to be able to believe, you can’t even utter it because it seems preposterous that you of all people don’t believe that you are worthy or worthwhile.
That’s when your eyes were opened and you saw just how empty the inside of you was. It should not be like that, devoid of any real life. But it doesn’t have to stay like that. Now that you are aware, you can choose to accept truth. Yeah, that’s hard. It starts like this: telling yourself these truths even if you don’t quite believe them yet. Reread all those texts and letters with an open mind and allow them to enter your heart. Listen to what your family and friends say to you. And live like you’re already walking in that truth.
And it’s not going to be easy. You’ve based a lot of your life living in lies instead of truth. But girl, I know you can do it. Already you are starting to believe. You chose to seek healing because you believed your life and well-being was valuable. You choose to trust your friends, to let them in and keep hanging out with them because you believe they love you. And man were those things hard. But you still did them!
So yes, your heart is still struggling. However, ultimately truth can and will reign, and healing is just around the corner. Keep hanging in there and believing.
Love,
A version of yourself living in truth
We want to hear your story. Become a Mighty contributor here.
Thinkstock image by Igor Skrynnikov