Am I Loved?

The way we see ourselves in the world, our sense of security, our relationships with ourselves and those we share space with, whether they are strangers or closer to us; our sense of belonging and deserving, and what we think we can reasonably expect of our lives, comes down to one question we ask ourselves in the deepest part of us, usually completely unknown to our conscious thought. A simple question that splinters into everything that makes us complex and informs our entire worldview:

Am I loved?

It’s a question our soul seems to know to ask, because it gives our brain the answer very early in life. In our first five years, our brain is figuring out the definition of us. Its whole job is to protect us, so it needs to know early where the pitfalls are, what to look out for, who is OK to trust and who isn’t, and most importantly, how we fit into this world.

Once it has formed a primary idea of the answer, our worldview and that of ourselves forms around it, and we not only see the world and our place in it through that lens, we continuously manifest from it, perpetuating that ideology and cementing it as our definition, not only in our brains, but in our souls. The symbiotic relationship between our soul journey and our brain function creates a reality that can paint the picture of our memories, making them even a polar opposite of siblings who were with us through all of those experiences, but because of the way their definitions were formed, have a completely different memory.

Whether you interpret your experiences as meaning that you are or are not loved, you will see yourself proven right in the experiences that follow. You will feel included, or not. You will feel deserving, or not. You will feel like you have the right to what you want and that you can speak up for yourself, or you won’t. And you will assume how others see you, whether or not it’s actually their perspective.

The good news – presuming you need there to be some good news – is that it is not carved in stone. There is a third component that gives us the option every day to rewrite that definition: our conscious mind – the bridge between the autonomy of the brain function and the subconscious nature of the soul.

When you have some grasp of what your soul and brain have been talking about behind your back, you can learn to set the record straight, and start to redesign what you choose to be the truth about you. It takes consistent, conscious decisions and self-training, but the results – even though in baby steps – can be immediate. I will write more in a later post about how to start your new path.

But it all begins with one statement, one you choose to confirm to yourself every day: Yes, I AM loved.