Life can swing from feeling complete, to empty, joyful to overwhelming. We can feel that to the world and people around us we don’t matter at all. You do matter. That may sound like an empty sentence but the truth is you matter infinitely more than you can ever realize. Your existence is not an accident or coincidence or of no meaning. You are here and you matter deeply.
This is a concept that has been so easy for me to tell others but difficult for me to accept myself. Without knowing it and sometimes knowingly told myself I am not valued. People don’t care. My own family I come from didn’t seem to care. Abandoned by my father near birth at 2 years old and raised by a mother who loved me deeply but was very flawed by her own past of abuse and abandonment. This resulted in drugs being used in the home I was raised in alongside an abusive/neglectful stepdad and their friends, nights alone with my brother and sister while my mom was at the bar with the latest boyfriend. Due to this I was learning to raise and fend for myself at a young age.
The benefits were tremendous for success. The ability to adapt quickly to unpredictable situations when others were slow to move and change. The ability to not feel sorry for myself but see others in need and how I could help them. The self sacrifice became a characteristic of mine at a young age into my now 40s but at a deep cost of ignoring I was in a tremendous need as well.
It squeaked out against my wife, children, and friends when they didn’t live up to my expectations through complaints, snapping, or fits of anger and rage. It was disfunction. Here you have an adult capable of deep empathy for others feelings but being dysfunctional to the ones closet to him. I had to come to the realization that I was hurt, I wasn’t just flawed, but I was hurt by not being valued and cared for to the level I should have been early in life. I didn’t matter to the most important people in my world and this affected my self esteem and self worth. This lead to seeking approval of others and attempting to extract my value year after year from the ones around me in my adult life. When I would go unnoticed for my hard work, sacrifices and loyalty, I would become hurt, resentful, angry for not being recognized. This would cause me to either cope through self medicating with food, alcohol, online addiction, or arguing with those closest to me for not valuing me the way they should. All of this hurt my relationships which further hurt me and made me feel more unwanted and unneeded.
I needed to recognize I was wronged in my past instead of simply brushing it off. I needed to recognize I was of high value. I needed to recognize I was created for a purpose and loved deeply and others should have loved me from birth and into my early years the way I deserved without excusing them by relating to their addictions and their past trauma. It’s one thing to be thankful and recognize our parents are the way they are from where they came from and its another to recognize they should have done better and you deserved it. It took me off and on until year 40 to realize, I deserved better. I am important. I am valuable. I am needed. I am here for a reason.
It was important for me to acknowledge that I was failed and hurt by those I needed most. Not so I can resent or be bitter or get revenge, believe me at times I wanted to. But I believe it was important for me to allow myself to feel the wait of my abandonment and that I didn’t do anything wrong or to deserve that. Then I can process the fact that I did deserve better, that I was of importance even if I wasn’t shown I was valuable. They should have. From there I have to deal with the pain correctly through forgiving them for failing me. These steps I think are necessary to get unstuck from bad behaviors I had developed to see I was worth more and it wasn’t my fault. Forgiveness would then be the next step to my freedom.
Forgiving those in our past is needed for us to be functional and to move forward. It is fundamental to our freedom and success. To recognize we are undervalued is easier for some than others but I want to tell you who are reading this today, you are important. You matter. Please understand that. It took me a long time to realize this. I could tell others but I couldn’t tell myself.
As a Christian I will tell you, you matter to an All Living, All Knowing, All Loving God. Yes we can say if he knew all and loved us so much then why did he let us go through XYZ? But He gave us free will and the ones before us free will. He is God not human, we are human amongst humans and humans, including us, can hurt one another. But he is there still waiting for us to turn to him and to show us love through his son Jesus and the Holy Spirit. This is most important but I will leave you with this: You Matter.
Once we truly understand and accept this can we then help those around us that need us, and I guarantee you there is someone in your life who needs you. There is someone out there who needs you. Get better and go help them.
Make it a great week.