“If you don’t make the time to work on creating the life you want, you’re eventually going to be forced to spend a lot of time dealing with a life you don’t want.”
Here’s what I know to be true based on my life’s journey and experience:
You matter. You are worthy of the life you want. You deserve a life you love.
When I share this belief with others, many agree but then stumble over and stop short at the words “You deserve a life you love.”
Some feel that to assume you deserve something, anything in this life smacks of entitlement. Deserving a life you love, though, does not mean you are entitled to an easy life or a life in which your every whim and desire is fulfilled. Deserving a life you love does not mean your life will be without struggle or sadness or hardship. Deserving a life you love doesn’t mean you won’t have to work hard for what you want and probably fail a time or two in the process.
Deserving a life you love means you are worthy of the life you want—not on a superficial level but on a soul level. It means owning what it is you really want for yourself and your life, and taking consistent steps toward realizing it. There will no doubt be triumphs and tears, wrong turns and gifts of grace along the way. At the end of the day, it’s knowing that you lived your life from your soul and not external expectations from your family, peers, or society that matters.
After I left my marriage, I set out to create the life I desired—one that reflected who I was on the inside—because the external appearance of the life I had been living certainly didn’t. I made some decisions that made my soul sing, like moving home to the Bay Area and buying my sweet little condo with the fabulous view.
I also made some decisions that didn’t honor what my soul self needed at the time. Instead, I made these decisions from my ego based on what I thought I should do because I didn’t truly believe I was worthy of what I desired for myself. I didn’t feel deserving.
Why is it so hard to believe that we are deserving of a life we love, whatever that entails—love, money, passion, belonging, respect, education, community, work, etc.?
For me, it was a message I received repeatedly, both implied and overtly expressed. The message was this: Whatever you receive, you better have earned it and be oh so grateful for it because, ultimately, you’re not worthy of it.
I remember an incident in which I skipped out on catechism class and lied about it right after my parents had ordered new bedroom furniture for me. Here’s the thing: Just because I did a bad thing didn’t mean I was a bad person. But that is precisely the message I received.
These experiences and the message that became attached to them forever shaped how I showed up in the world. From then on my focus was on what I needed to do to earn, well, everything in my life. When I was young, I did this by being a good girl—behaving accordingly (according to authority figures like parents, teachers, babysitters, priests, etc.), doing as I was told, and doing what was expected (regardless of whether those expectations were specifically expressed).
To a large extent, these beliefs and behaviors followed me into adulthood with one addition. As an adult, I learned to “earn my keep” by putting others’ needs ahead of my own.
These limiting beliefs showed up in my life in a hundred small ways every day. Primarily, though, they showed up in me accepting or settling for less than I was worth, less than I deserved. This included, among other things, my divorce, all manner of relationships (romantic, friend, familial), and jobs.
So how did I overcome the belief that I wasn’t deserving of the life I wanted? By forgiving myself for the mistakes I had made (real or imagined), radically accepting who I am, and allowing myself to believe that I am worthy. I even have a tattoo on my arm that reminds me to trust that I am worth so much more.
I also came to the realization that it’s not for anyone else to decide whether I am deserving of the life I love.
I’m not going to lie; although I have made significant strides in owning my worthiness, it’s a work in progress. Letting go of those old limiting beliefs is a tangled web that takes time to unravel. On those days when I slip back into unworthiness and settling for less, I remind myself that I am deserving of so much more than I allow myself to believe or receive.
So are you.
We all deserve a life we love.
I love what one friend said about this, “We all deserve it because it’s been given.” Yes! Embrace the life you’ve been given and make it yours. You don’t need to earn it. You just need to live it and love it.