Perspective

“How would you move through the world differently if you knew you were easy to love?” - Trauma Therapist Morgan Pommels (in a recent post on Instagram sharing things she recently has said during therapy sessions)

Earlier today, I was sent the quote above from a friend who came upon it in her Instagram feed. The words hit her like a ton of bricks. Sometimes, the simple questions cause us to realize just how deep our wounds of unlovability are. 

It would be easy to reflect on this question solely in terms of self-worth, but the other piece is not only another view; it is the theme of perspective itself. 

My friend who sent me this post is one of the most worthy and easy-to-love people I have ever met. But often, our beliefs aren’t shaped by the views of those who support our greatness. Instead, it is those who were never able to see us fully who live rent-free in our minds and hearts.

At any given moment, we are surrounded by proof of how lovable we genuinely are, yet we choose to look only for the evidence that reinforces the opposite. 

It is easier to feel unlovable and unseen than to honor how much we are loved and realize how much we focus only on the stories that cause us to feel unworthy.

When I was thirty, my first therapist asked me point blank if I believed myself worthy of love. It felt like the most straightforward question I would ever answer because I knew what my response should be. But in the pausing seconds that passed before I could even form a word to speak out loud, I realized quickly that, in fact, I did not.

It wasn’t that I didn’t have people in my life who loved and supported me. I had two incredible parents, a beautiful family, and friends. But all I could do was look at my life from the perspective of what was missing. I compared myself to anyone and everyone in an attempt to prove that I wasn’t enough, especially those who were created in ways that I would never be able to resemble.

No amount of evidence could convince me that I was lovable because, at that time in my life, I didn’t believe that I was, nor did I know how to accept the love those around me wanted to give.

I truly believed that I needed to look outside of myself or to be something other than myself to find the love I so desperately sought. I spent days daydreaming of moving to different cities and finally being free to be who I was meant to be, even though I had no idea who that was.

I was right that I needed to move away from everything I knew to find myself, but I also learned that it wasn’t my surroundings that stopped me from seeing myself; it was me. 

I needed to move to multiple cities and still show up in the same patterns with the same results to realize that I was, in fact, the greatest barrier in my life. 

It wasn’t that every man in three different cities was not eligible for a lasting relationship; I wasn’t open to one. 

It wasn’t the salary I was making at my job but my own relationship with money and my inability to believe I was worth more than accepting a small piece of the pie. 

When it came to my family, it wasn’t that they would never be able to see me; it was that I needed to heal the stories that I was still holding onto from the past to be able to see them finally.

I still have moments where I fall into old stories of feeling unseen or patterns of feeling like I need to change parts of myself to be more worthy of love. Deep cuts take time to heal for a reason, and expecting them to magically go away is a disservice. In the moments where we meet our old patterns with a bit more love and understanding, the lessons finally start to allow themselves to sink in.

Recently, I have been doing my best to go only where I am wanted. Instead of trying to “prove myself” to make other people see me, I am going where I feel most able to be me. 

I chose to join a sports team because they were the only ones who offered me a spot instead of trying to get on a “better one” whose radar I wasn’t even on. I have a monthly comedy in Austin at a bar that isn’t set up as a prototypical comedy venue. Still, those who work there could not be more happy to host it. 

In fact, everything I am building creatively are all outlets that, over the past few years, I have done hundreds of reps for; it’s just that now I am putting things out under my own name.

Nothing I am currently choosing in my life is asking me to be something I am not, which has felt life-changing.

It has taken me a while to get here, and I know that everyone is lucky enough to have spaces where they feel wanted. But a beautiful part of the journey is learning to identify when you are finally in the right place and what it feels like inside to be there. In those moments (and spaces), you won’t feel anything other than ease and the freedom to be who you are at that moment without expectation or judgment. 

I am at a point in my life where I am grateful that I am surrounded by people who love me as I am and make it seem easy to do so. In my gratitude, I also realize just how many people throughout my life have attempted to do the same; it just took me time to see it. 

I have never lacked love; my defense mechanisms just viewed the world from the perspective that I did. The only disease in my lovability was my own inability to see and honor it. And now, I am learning what it feels like to move through the world without believing that loving me is a burden to anyone else.

I have learned that so much of our lives are determined by the filter with which we view the world around us. If we are addicted to chaos, we almost subconsciously seek more fires to put out. If we believe ourselves unworthy, we will only compile evidence that supports our belief.

It isn’t easy to magically change how we look at our lives, but we can start tracking it by noticing our patterns. How often do we tell stories about ourselves that aren’t flattering? How frequently do we fantasize about being something outside of ourselves to get what we want? How many people around us, especially those who raised us, are doing the same?

The beautiful thing about perspective is that we have evidence of how differently we can look at our lives at any moment. Looking back at our younger selves, we see things almost with new eyes due to the wisdom of age. So, we know the power of being able to look at any given moment differently.

Maybe the problem isn’t that you are unlovable; perhaps you need to zoom out and look at yourself for all you are instead of all you lack. It isn’t always easy, but the days where you honor all that you are sure feel a lot better than the ones spent wishing you could be anyone other than yourself.

With Love,

Clayton