Just as painful and debilitating as a physical injury, many of us struggle with issues of trust and believing we are worthy of a love relationship. If you had a toxic relationship in you past it might surprise you how much the discomfort and feelings of worthlessness that pervaded that match are blocking you from seizing hope and happiness today. The reason you may be unsuccessful in creating a loving and nurturing relationship today is because you fear a duplication of that damaging situation. Do not let the bad actions of another hold you back from the joy and happiness you deserve. Try some of these hints to see if they make you feel freer to dare to experience love again.

Identify The Source Of The Relationship Poison

For some emotionally scarred people a former spouse or significant other treated them badly. This may set up an expectation within the person that no one can or should love them. For others the emotional abuse goes back even further to a parent or other supposedly nurturing adult in their past. When someone like your mother or father has withheld love when you were younger, replacing that sense of safety and acceptance most people feel from their family with a tangle of rejection and impossible to meet demands, it is easier to understand why it is so terrifying to let go and allow another person to love and care for you.

Determine Why You Let The Emotional Abuse Continue

parentsIf you were neglected or emotional traumatized as a young child it may be hard for your to even imagine what a healthy, loving relationship looks and feel like. A child cannot remove him or herself from the clutches of the emotionally unavailable or domineering parent. You may let others treat you in a similar way because you have no experience with being truly cared for and cherished.

Sometimes the emotional abuse starts later in life with a girlfriend, boyfriend or spouse who treats you badly. If you are unfamiliar with this kind of emotional toll on your self-esteem you may let it happen. This is because it took you by surprise and you assume it will change for the better. The darker side is if you begin to believe you deserve this type of treatment. Often because your oppressor repeats over and over again how unworthy you are of kind and loving behavior.

Learn To Love Yourself

When you absorb months or even years of garbage about why you are not worth it and are completely unlovable you need to reassert your basic right to be loved and cherished. Once you realize you are not the problem but that others’ twisted and unkind treatment of you is what makes you feel unworthy of happiness you can begin the healing by opening your arms to yourself. Write of list of things you are and do that are kind, loving and wonderful. Look around for your real friends and family members, the ones who truly care. Ask them what they like or appreciate about you. Build a self-affirming story of our life that rejects the unpleasant, unlovable version and begin to live it.

Get Some Professional Help

therapyRejection from the most important people in your life is devastating. And you are well within your rights to seek help from a therapist or counselor to lead you back into the light. As you begin to believe your emotional scars are not your fault but evidence that others hurt you and violated your trust you can begin to heal.

Open Up To Love

Step by step you will realize the pain of the past was not about you. It was about the unfortunate individuals who weighed you down with false self-doubt and loathing. Walk away from those memories and into the arms of people who will treat you well and earn your love.