S2 EP211 – No One Appreciates Me

Transcription:

Hi everyone. Dr. Margaret Paul here with the Inner Bonding Podcast. Today I’m addressing the issue of appreciation – not feeling appreciated, seen, heard, and understood by others,

Have you ever heard yourself say, or said to yourself, “No one appreciates me”?

I used to say this to myself all the time. I was constantly giving myself up to please others, and then ended up feeling completely unappreciated and resentful – until I learned how to take loving care of myself and appreciate myself.

I encountered this with Jayden, a young man who consulted with me after his girlfriend left him and he got fired from his job as a construction worker. An alcoholic who had stopped drinking the previous year, he was back to drinking.  

“I gave so much to my girlfriend and worked so hard at the job. I don’t understand this. No one ever appreciates me,” he said with a resentful whine in his voice. Jayden was obviously feeling like a victim of his girlfriend and his boss.    

“Are you saying that your girlfriend and your boss never offered you praise or compliments?” I asked.

“Well, yes they did, but I still feel unappreciated, because she left and he fired me,” he answered.

“Were you able to take in their praise and compliments?” I asked him.

“What do you mean?” he asked.

“Jayden, did their praise and compliments make you feel good inside, or did you just ignore them?”

“I mostly ignored them,” he said, “because I didn’t think they meant it, and I was right. If they would have meant it, she wouldn’t have left, and he wouldn’t have fired me.”

“Is it possible that they fired you because of your attitude? You seem very angry, and you are acting like a victim – as if they are responsible for your feelings instead of you taking responsibility. Do you ever appreciate yourself?”

Silence.

“Jayden, do you ever appreciate yourself?”

“No,” he said, “I don’t like myself.”

“So you try to please everyone to get them to approve of you, but when they do you don’t believe them because you don’t think you are good enough. Then you feel angry and resentful because you don’t feel appreciated. It’s my guess that your girlfriend left, and your boss fired you because of your anger and resentment. Your closed, blaming, angry energy is tough to be around. Until you are willing to learn how to take loving care of yourself and value yourself, you will likely continue to have these problems. Are you willing to learn to do this?” I asked him.

Jayden indicated that he was. Here is what I suggested he practice:

“Start paying attention to your feelings, and whenever you feel angry or resentful, notice what you are telling yourself and how you are treating yourself that is causing these feelings. I know you believe these feelings are being caused by others, but this is not true. They are being caused by your own self-abandonment: giving yourself up to please others; judging yourself; turning to alcohol to numb your feelings rather than taking responsibility for them; and blaming others for your feelings.

“Imagine that you have an older, wiser self whom you can turn to for the truth. We have all been programmed with hundreds of false beliefs about ourselves, others, and the world, and these lies cause us much pain. When you become aware of one of these lies, such as ‘I’m not good enough’, or ‘No one ever appreciates me,’ imagine your older wiser self and ask, ‘What is the truth?’ and ‘What is the loving action toward myself?’ As you learn to appreciate yourself and treat yourself better, you will find your anger going away. Are you willing to start to practice this?”

“Yes, I am,” he said.

Jayden did practice and within a few months, he and his girlfriend re-united. She was able to tell him how much she loves him and how heartbroken she felt whenever he blamed her for his feelings. By learning to take responsibility for his own feelings and appreciate himself, he was surprised to discover that he now felt appreciated by her.

Christina asked me this question:

“What do you do when you feel you are not loved for who you are? How do you accept your relationship when you don’t feel appreciated, or you think it’s your fault for what happens in your life? How can you change your relationship? How can you make it better?”

There are two ways of dealing with this issue.

The first way is to explore within.

Are you appreciating yourself? If you are judging yourself and telling yourself that ‘it’s your fault’ for what happens in your life, then it sounds like you are not seeing or appreciating yourself. Frequently, others treat us the way we treat ourselves. Do you like yourself? Do you love yourself? Do you value yourself? These are the kinds of questions you need to ask yourself.

Imagine that your feeling self is a little child within. Does this inner child feel loved, valued, and appreciated by you? This is where you need to start.

If Christina were truly loving and valuing herself – rather than judging herself and then expecting her partner to make her feel appreciated – and if then her partner did not appreciate her, she would need to accept that her partner might not be a very appreciative person. But from the way she worded her question, it sounds like she is abandoning herself by not valuing and appreciating herself, which leads to pulling on her partner to give her what she is not giving to herself. Perhaps her partner is going into resistance against being made responsible for her good feelings about herself.

If you are having this problem in your relationship, one way to change your relationship is to focus on changing yourself. You have to accept that you have no control over who your partner chooses to be, but you have total control over who you choose to be. It’s quite possible that your relationships will change for the better when you are willing to take responsibility for your own feelings.

This means that when you feel unappreciated, you go inside and see how you might be abandoning yourself. Are you ignoring your feelings? Are you judging yourself? Are you numbing your feelings with various addictions? Are you pulling on your partner or others to take care of your feelings?

Another choice you can make is to explore with your partner.

Of course we all like to be appreciated. It feels sad inside when we are not appreciated. If you are taking loving care of yourself and truly appreciating yourself, then you can move into an intent to learn with your partner, saying something like, “It feels to me that you don’t appreciate me. There must be a good reason for this. Is there something going on with you or between us that makes it hard for you to appreciate me?”

Maybe your partner feels that he or she does appreciate you and feels that you don’t seem to take in the appreciation. Perhaps your partner is in resistance to some controlling behavior that you are not aware you are doing. Perhaps your partner doesn’t appreciate himself or herself. If this is the case, he or she can’t genuinely appreciate you.

Opening up the dialogue with your partner can lead to some new awareness for both of you – if both of you are open to learning about yourselves and each other. Intimacy is fostered when partners are able to talk about these kinds of issues with kindness and caring toward themselves and each other.

If your partner gets closed and defensive, then you need to manage this issue within yourself. You cannot make anyone open themselves to learning with you. I know that it is hard to let go of trying to get your partner to see and value you, but since you don’t have this control, focusing on seeing and valuing yourself will bring you much inner joy – and might improve your relationship.

A woman in Inner Bonding Village wrote the following to me:

“Dear Dr. Margaret, a year ago before learning Inner Bonding, my heart was sinking with loneliness. I was working so long and so hard to get my partner to change, get our relationship to change. Find a way to make our relationship work better, get our intimacy back. After 21 years, we were at the end, and now that seems like ages ago.

“Since learning Inner Bonding so much has changed. I’m beginning to learn how to love and value myself, be loving and respectful and appreciative with my partner, take responsibility for myself, my own feelings, and only my own. Before Inner Bonding I never really believed that I could make changes within myself and experience healing.

“I am so grateful for Inner Bonding. My partner and I are still reading, and discussing, and discovering new places within ourselves and each other to explore what we didn’t even know existed. Thank you so much for all your hard work, for sharing yourself, your wisdom, and most of all for Inner Bonding.”

The woman who wrote this did her own learning and this changed everything in her relationship.

Many of us were not seen, heard, or appreciated as we were growing up. This was the situation with Jessica.

“No one ever got me,” said Jessica at one of my 5-Day in-person Intensive retreats. I held her as she sobbed out the grief, heartbreak, and loneliness of never being seen and attuned to by her parents or other relatives.

As I held Jessica, I let her know that I got her. I got her aliveness and vitality. I got her sweetness and depth of caring. I got her brightness and deep intelligence. I got her desire to connect and her yearning to love, be loved and share love. I told her all this, but it was my holding her and allowing the love that is God to flow through me to her that allowed her to take it in. 

Jessica sobbed for a long time as I held her and rocked her. Slowly, I could feel that her nervous system was attuning to mine, calming down and starting to feel safe. I could feel that everyone in the room was sending her their love and that, on an energy level, she was receiving it.

When she stopped sobbing, she looked up at me and I could see the little girl who finally got a bit of the mothering she was needing. She smiled a warm, brilliant, innocent smile and I knew that some deep healing had taken place.

We all need to be seen and cherished for who we truly are in our essence. While we need to see ourselves, sometimes that isn’t enough. Sometimes we need another to look deep within our souls and love what they see. Sometimes we need another to reflect to us who we truly are. And sometimes even being deeply seen isn’t enough.

Sometimes we need to be held with unconditional love to feel it in the depths of our being. Sometimes physical nurturing will give back to us some of what we didn’t receive as children.

At another Intensive, Gabriela had just retrieved a very painful memory of being sexually abused by her dentist as a young girl. She couldn’t retrieve this memory until she was in the safe environment of the Intensive. I asked her if I could sit with her and hold her, and again she sobbed and sobbed, while I rocked her, pouring the healing love of spirit into her. As her sobs stopped, she looked up at me with the most beautiful smile. Something major had been released and healed within her. She felt seen, attuned to, and valued.

There are numerous methods for healing trauma, and while all of them are effective, none seems quite as effective as receiving that which we didn’t receive as children, which is loving touch. It is finally starting to be recognized that this form of healing is profound, but as Bessel van der Kolk, MD, stated in a webinar hosted by Dr. Ruth Buczynski, on ‘What Neuroscience Teaches Us About The Treatment of Trauma:’

(quote)”The big issue is how to instill internal capacities for people to feel safe and calm. What can most contribute to that are touch, movement, and breathing….”

He goes on to say, “Of course, nobody is exploring touch because touch is anathema in psychiatric culture. You can’t really get better from trauma unless it feels safe and comforting to be touched – to touch and be touched.”(unquote)

Dr. Buczynski said, (quote) “Yes. I think what you just said is very important and presents a problem for us in our profession: you can’t get better from trauma if you don’t feel safe being touched.

“We treat people who don’t feel safe, and we have a taboo against touching anyone.”(unquote)

I find this very sad. So much healing could occur if professionals were allowed to touch. Some, like in the book, ‘Healing Developmental Trauma,’ do it anyway, risking their licenses to become true healers. But safe loving touch doesn’t have to come from a professional. It can come from a loving motherly or fatherly person, or a loving grandparent who can hold you and truly see you and cherish you.

Being seen, heard, understood, and appreciate feels great and can be very healing, yet for this healing to take root, you also need to learn to see, hear, understand, and appreciate yourself.

How often have you heard yourself say:

“I just want someone to understand me.”
“I just want to be heard.”
“I feel invisible.”
“I just want to be seen and appreciated.”

I know what it feels like to not be understood, heard, seen, or appreciated as I spent most of the first 45 years of my life feeling invisible.

It feels terrible. I was very good at understanding and appreciating others, but I often didn’t feel understood, seen, or appreciated by them.

It took Inner Bonding for me to understand that what was really happening is that I wasn’t seeing, hearing, understanding, or appreciating myself, and the people in my life were reflecting my own self-abandonment. I had worked so hard to hear and understand and appreciate others, but I didn’t know that I had to hear and understand and appreciate my own feelings and needs. 

I fully believed that since I was good at hearing and seeing and understanding and appreciating others, they would do the same for me. That never happened until I learned to see, hear, understand, value, and appreciate my own feelings and needs.

It wasn’t easy to start to listen inside. I was so focused on others’ feelings and needs that I was completely out of touch with my own. And I had to come to grips with the fact that my listening and hearing and understanding and appreciating others had an agenda attached. It wasn’t coming from love but from neediness – I needed them to listen to and understand and appreciate me because I was completely abandoning myself.

Today, many years later, life is very different. Of course, I love it when someone hears me and sees me and understands and appreciates me – but now it’s the icing on the cake, not the cake itself. Now I can listen to others from my heart and truly see and understand them because I don’t need anything from them.

I don’t need anything from them because the little girl in me feels me with her – listening to my feelings, taking loving action on my own behalf, learning about what my inner child needs from me as a loving adult. Because the child in me – my feeling self – feels seen and heard and valued and understood and appreciated by me, I can offer my caring and understanding to others from a full heart. This is the inner work that we all need to do if we ever want to experience the wonderful feeling that comes from being truly seen and valued and appreciated.
 
The thing that was in the way for me is that I had always believed being seen and understood and appreciated by others was what was truly important and fulfilling.

Before practicing Inner Bonding, I had never experienced the profound joy of seeing, hearing, understanding, valuing, and appreciating myself. I could not even conceive of it feeling better than being understood and appreciated by someone else. After all, wasn’t my value, as the wizard said to the Tin Man in the Wizard of Oz, not in how much I loved, but in how much I was loved by others? Which, it turns out, is the typical false belief of a narcissist!

Now, I still love to be seen and understood and appreciated by others, but I don’t need to be appreciated by them to feel worthy and full within. Now, when someone important to me doesn’t listen or see or care or understand or appreciate me, I can fully and compassionately understand and care about the loneliness and heartache my inner child might feel, without taking their behavior personally. Seeing, caring about, understanding, and appreciating myself is profoundly powerful and fulfilling.

I work with many clients who are deeply devoted to having control over getting others’ approval and appreciation, and they spend so much energy trying to act in the ‘right’ way to have that control.

Do you ever find yourself thinking things like:

• I’d better give her a call, or she will think I don’t like her.
• If I do what I want to do, he will be mad.
• If I don’t explain myself, they will think I don’t care.
• If I wear the same outfit again, they will think less of me.

And so on….

Do you automatically adjust your behavior to try to have some control over what others think of you – trying to get approval and avoid disapproval? The need for approval and the fear of disapproval may be running your life. When your sense of safety, worth, and lovability are tied to what others think of you, then you constantly attempt to look “right” and perform “right” in order to attempt to control what others think of you.

However, since the very act of making others responsible for your sense of safety, worth, and lovability is a form of self-abandonment, the more you do it, the more insecure you feel. No matter how much approval and appreciation you receive, it never heals the inner insecurity that comes from abandoning yourself.

We all need approval and appreciation, but we end up depending on others for approval when we do not give ourselves the approval we need.

This concept can be confusing, because many people have learned to give themselves affirmations, such as, “I am perfect,” “I am lovable,” with no positive effect on their self-worth. Why is this?

When you give yourself approval and appreciation from your lower left-brain programmed mind – your ego wounded self – you will not believe what you are telling yourself. You will know that you are “just making it up,” so your feeling self, your inner child, will not believe you. Your inner child will especially not believe you if you continue to treat yourself in unloving, self-abandoning ways, such as judging yourself, ignoring your feelings, turning to addictions, and making others responsible for your self-worth. If you tell an actual child that he or she is lovable and perfect, but you ignore the child, judge the child, give the child cookies and material things instead of love, and try to get others to take care of the child, the child will not believe you when you say that you love the child and that he or she is lovable. If you give the child approval and appreciation and treat the child in very loving ways, then the child will believe you when you say, “You are so incredible. I love you so much.” 

Likewise, if you are connected with your higher self – your wise and powerful source of love and truth – and you are taking loving actions on your own behalf, then your inner child will believe you when you give yourself appreciation.

Self-approval and affirmations do not affect the core of you when they come from your ego wounded self, but they go deeply inside when they come from your higher self and are followed up with loving actions toward yourself.

This is what heals the need for others to see you, approve of you, and appreciate you. Obviously, in order to give this to yourself, you have to be connected with your higher self – whatever that is for you. The approval, affirmations, and appreciation need to come through you, from a higher source, rather than from your programmed mind, in order for your inner child to believe them.

I assure you that you will no longer hear yourself say, “No one appreciate me,” when you are able to truly see, value, understand, and appreciate yourself. This is what will occur with the consistent practice of Inner Bonding.

I invite you join me for my bi-monthly masterclass and receive my live help, which you can learn about at https://innerbondinghub.com/membership.

And, I invite you to join me for my 30-Day at-home Course: “Love Yourself: An Inner Bonding Experience to Heal Anxiety, Depression, Shame, Addictions and Relationships.”

And you can learn so much about loving yourself and creating loving relationships from my recent book, Lonely No More and from our website at https://www.innerbonding.com.

I’m sending you my love and my blessings.