11-21-05

As I've found certain articles that are appropriate to what this site is about, I'm quite surprised at this point at how much I've done right without knowing it !!

As I mentioned, the thrust of this site has to do with love/emotions/relationships --letting go,moving on. However, what I've found is while these assorted topics addresses loss of love for the most part, many, many of the principals of how to cope with it can also be applied to so many other incidents/situations.

This is where 'my' surprise was...that I did these things! --in one form or another...granted, not all to do with loss of romantic love. So many of the examples cited here of 'what to do', 'how to do it' and others througout the various topics really work and work for all sorts of situations...I can atest to it!

Must just be good old common sense ! I sure didn't have the internet available to find such articles 'way back then' ;)
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11-12-05

Letting Go

What do those two words mean to you? Letting go. For me there are really two questions that spring to mind here. What are the kinds of things we want to let go of? and Why should I do this? i.e. What is the benefit for me?

Holding on causes tension and restricts freedom.

Letting go does not mean losing or having to give something up.

Letting go means allowing things to exist as if they were in the palm of your hand.

Letting go is simply making a decision ~ no longer to allow something from the past to influence your life now or to reduce your inner sense of peace and well-being. So all we need to do is to let go of the beliefs and attitudes that prevent us from experiencing the joy of the moment. The problem comes in identifying exactly what that means; we have so many beliefs that prevent us from being in the here and now, from being content and peaceful within.

Taking Responsibility for Our Own Lives
One of the worst attitudes is 'Things happen to me', not from me but to me; a degree of victim mentality. At any level we really need to accept the full responsibility for whatever happens to us.

Or we can take the responsibility to accept that what happened to us five minutes ago is no longer of any importance because that was five minutes ago and this is now. If we are holding onto the incident, we continue to hurt ourselves. What happens subsequently is important but not what happened in itself. Something happens, and it sets off a sequence of events. So let go of the bit that happened back there and deal with the bit in the sequence that is actually occurring now.

The important thing is not holding on to anything any longer than it actually lasts. In reality, all we need to do is experience the learning and move on immediately.

Learning from Experience
Sometimes we convince ourselves that we need to 'hold on'in order to extract the learning from it. If you are repeating big patterns, you can retain the memory in terms of what not to do next time, but not the emotional content it aroused in you. Thus you can get the maximum amount of learning but ultimately that'S still part of the letting go process. If it's a traumatic experience that's teaching you a lot, keep it as something to learn from, while letting go of your attachment to it, let go of it emotionally. That's the basis of letting go of our beliefs and attitudes that anything happens to us, that we are a victim of anybody.

Making Choices
Life is a series of choices of how to behave. Often we make these choices automatically, without really being aware of what we are choosing or why. But no matter what anyone does in any aspect of their life, it is still a choice they have made. And, of course, in making choices we also make mistakes. It is from those mistakes that we learn about ourselves and others. And we learn how to make different choices next time if we remain open to the process of making mistakes. But one thing stops us learning from choices and that is fear. Fear of judgement and criticism, which is usually felt as shame or guilt.

So the second thing we have to let go of is all of our judgements and values and ideas of what should be or what shouldn't be. We should have no values, no judgements, no morals, no criticisms, no ideas of what is or should or shouldn't be. None at all. Because if we have an idea of what is or what should or shouldn't be we are making a judgement on something that is as it is, as God or as the Universe intended. It is as it is, and it is perfect as it is for the people who are involved in that scenario. That applies to us in our lives, but because it is a principle it applies equally to the people in a war crisis, for instance. And that's where the understanding becomes really difficult to accept. You may say, 'Hold on, this is not right' but it is, it's right for them, and I'll go back to a previous point. The angrier everybody gets about a situation, the worse it gets. This is not at all pleasant or emotionally intelligent but judging won't improve it either; it will make it worse. If everybody stops being angry about a situation it disappears; the war will not happen.

Keeping Neutral, Learning Acceptance
If we see something and make a judgement or a criticism about it we are adding our angry 'energy' to that situation. We are actually increasing it. If we collectively say, 'What is happening in this war or that country now is terrible', we are adding to the energy of that event; we are making it worse for the people in it. What we need to do is to stay completely neutral and know the highest truth i.e. what is happening there is as it should be for those people, however traumatic.

We've all been through equivalent experiences one way or another, so we've got to let go of the idea that it's right or wrong; that's just the way it is for those people. The most important point to make here is that making choices is not making a judgement. It is just saying, ' choose not to behave in this way'. Eventually, if we allow everybody to learn without fear, then the mistakes stop being so terrible and the results stop being too damaging and dramatic on individuals and society. But it has to happen that way round ~ that we suspend the judgement before others stop doing whatever we originally judged. We cannot expect them to stop before we stop judging.

What we can do is make our own structure for the choices we would make but without saying we are right, and that is wrong. It is saying this is what we would do as far as we know at this moment. Period. Not that'S right or wrong.

So what if we saw an old lady being mugged in the street? Should we just walk on?

No. If possible, and not to the detriment of your own safety, you can choose to intervene with the action but what you mustn't do is add your judgement or criticism to it. You must not judge either party involved. That is the tricky bit. Saying 'that's not my choice of behaviour but I accept their right to do that ~ and I will intervene because that is my choice'. We have to accept the consequence of that choice, which might be that you get mugged.

People and Behaviour are not the Same
Something that gives a depth of understanding is to recognize that the action is not the person. You can say that action is not good, but the person is perfect, they are perfect in as far as they have got in their own learning about life. We cannot possibly see what the master plan for the Universe is, so if we start judging and criticizing we are saying we know better than God, the universe, energy or whatever, and we don't. We have to let go of the assumption that we know.

The trouble with a little bit of enlightenment, a little bit of spiritual awareness, is that you suddenly get into a kind of spiritual judgementalism: 'I know, and you all don't'. It's a very difficult ego state to get out of. Eventually you do get kicked out of it because you realize that you're not that much different to them. You just realize a little bit more of what you're learning next, you're a bit more aware of it. It's very important not to assume that we have some greater understanding.

All spiritual teachings include a section about not judging because to do so would be hypocritical. None of us has always got it right, or, should I say, made the best choices. But if we learn from it and don't repeat it that is the most anyone can ask.

So we do have to separate the behaviour from the person and take that to the highest levels, such as a war crisis, which appears so horrendous. We can choose to keep our thoughts out of it and know that that situation will heal itself when everybody has learned what they can.

Becoming More Emotionally Intelligent Helps the World Too
If we replace judgemental values with a sense of our self-worth, and how we wish to express that essence of us to the rest of the world, we choose to live in a way that helps to heal ourselves and other people. We accept it in a way that is unconditionally accepting of ourselves and of other people, so we drop our barriers in order to help heal the world. We help to heal everything in the rest of the world by dropping our sense of what is right or wrong.

There is a fine line between making a decision about how to behave and making a criticism or judgement of behaviour in others. Once you can see where it is, you can stay on the one side of it. Just consider for a moment how differently you respond if you feel critically judged compared with being accepted as you are. That applies to the whole universe too.

Fixed Ideas of What Will Be
The next thing is expectations of outcome: if I do this, then that will happen. Our disappointment is always based on what we think should have happened or what we hoped would happen or what we thought the other person should do. It is never based on what has actually happened, it is based on our disappointment that what we wanted didn't occur. So we want to control the universe, thinking we know better than God etc. again. If we decide what we think should happen is right we are getting back into judgements. But God is neutral. It doesn't say, 'You are bad because you made that mistake today and you are good because you did that'. God acknowledges: 'You are learning, you are going in the right direction and doing the best that you can do at any time' and that's what we need to start working from.

My understanding is that God is the supreme intelligence but is also an evolving consciousness, and as our consciousness evolves we contribute to the evolution of God-consciousness. We are all God, or spirit, having a human experience and when we raise our consciousness individually we are also, in a collective way, raising God-consciousness, because we are all God anyway. That is the point of creativity; that is the point of intelligence. Evolution occurs as a result of intelligence, not the other way round. So if God-consciousness is the ultimate intelligence that lets go without judgement, then we have got to emulate that by letting go without any judgement or questioning about anyone else.

God lets us go where we want, to expand our consciousness, including making some stupid mistakes and making some wonderful discoveries in human terms. If we are allowed to do that, so then is everyone else.

Interconnectedness and the Oneness
Why is it important for us to raise our consciousness and let go of our beliefs in order to help everyone else comes back to the connectedness of everything in the universe?

Some people want to move and grow faster and others grow more slowly. All travel. Some are trying to slow the others down and some are trying to speed the others up, but whatever each one does affects the others next to it. We are all units of vibrating energy, according to quantum physics. So our emotional energy will affect the people around us. Miserable people are a drain on us; we call them a drag, and they are dragging our energy down. We want to vibrate more lightly, more harmoniously, and they are slowing us down. By lifting our vibrations through our self-development, and releasing our sense of judgements, criticism and control, we are actually allowing everybody else around us to speed up as well. So ultimately we have one responsibility and that is to raise our consciousness sufficiently to help raise the other ones around us. So we have to choose to let go of the illusions of what was or what will be, of right or wrong, and to increase our vibrations. And then we automatically raise the vibrations of those around us.

The final belief that we need to let go of is that our individual humanhood really matters. Everything will be as it is. It doesn't matter how it is because however it is and wherever it is going it will get there because it can't not. Probably where it's going doesn't matter because there isn't a decision about where it's going to go. There is no limit to where it's going to go. If you decide it's going to go from 'here' to 'there'you are immediately placing a limit on where it can go to, but it doesn't matter where it's going. So we have to let go of the idea that humanhood really matters. We are in it and it is part of our experience and we do have to live with our feet in both human and spiritual worlds but we have got to let go of the idea that this matters.

Changing One's Perceptions
One of the best ways to deal with this is to think, 'will I feel this stressed about this situation tomorrow, or next week, or next year or in five years'time?,and the answer is usually no, not if you let it go. If you go straight to that feeling of detachment and let go of 'what I am feeling now'it becomes much more comfortable. Try using these statements in your life:

* I can't control what is happening in the world;

* I can say loud and clear that I want this or that to happen;

* I can accept that if it doesn't, there is some good reason for it though I can't see what that might be;

* I'm not God and I don't know what that good reason is now, but if I remain open then I will find it;

* I have to let go of what I think it should be and I will find it is far better.

So we've got to get away from what we think things ought to be and get to our free will. Our free will is our choice and we are affected by the wisdom of our choices. We are not right or wrong in the choices we make. It may not even be the same choice for the next day. You might make a different choice, but for that moment in time it is right and that is the same for everybody. We have to let go of a sense of being right or wrong and allow things to be as they are, to accept the process of change in ourselves and others and give each other the freedom to change and learn without judgement. We have to let go of our thoughts and learn to listen and wait. We have to let go of our expectations and let things and people be as they are and we have to let go of the need to do and simply allow ourselves to grow and change daily.

What are the Real Benefits to Me of This Approach to Life?
So what is the point of it all? This is easier.

* If we learn to let go we acquire a greater sense of being in the present. A greater sense that our needs actually are being met, because at any given moment they are, so don't worry about what's going to happen tomorrow because today everything is fine.

* If we let go of expectations and judgements, we find a sense of calm and inner peace, because we are not in conflict with what we think should be. We also have a far greater sense of strength, and respond to the moment instead of the past. Our vulnerability is never in the moment; it's in what we fear will be. Have you ever noticed that you are usually frightened after or in anticipation of what will happen but very rarely in the moment? So we get a sense of our strength because we are right in the here and now. We lose our vulnerability which is based on what if, not on the here and now.

* We have greater acceptance of others and therefore we make a greater contribution to raising their awareness, a greater sense of truly going with the flow.

* We gain a sense of fun and freedom in all we do. How often do we go out and dig a hole in the garden and then fill it in again just for fun? Adults don't often do that, kids do and really enjoy it but adults don't really do that kind of stuff, they want to be sensible. But that is what being is, digging holes and filling them in again, just for the fun of it.

So start thinking about what you're doing and have fun with it. It's a weird sense of just letting go and not having a reason for doing something. Do it because you really just want to. Have you seen how much energy people put into building a sandcastle, just to watch the sea wash it away? And you may think what a waste of time, but it's not, it's a wonderful thing, you're in the moment, you're there and you just did it for the hell of it. Live all of your life as if it was building a sandcastle. There can be no better reason for doing something other than you're enjoying it.

Actually it's the best reason for doing something. Enjoying something is our choice.

Becoming fully immersed in what you're doing, called mindfulness in Buddhism, is a very good way of letting go, letting go of all the other stuff around you, so that all your concentration is based on what you're doing.


You're not making judgements; you're not having expectations of outcome. The key thing is that the more we let go of these attributes of victimhood and judgement, the more we move into our true nature. Living without judgement means living in a state of being.

Being reveals our true identity and oneness with creation. It allows us to release concepts of who we are and allow the spiritual identity to emerge. Being places us beyond the world's effects and allows us to live at a different level of consciousness. It allows us to have without fear of loss, without needing to control and judge, to live and be truly free.

So begin to let all your life become one big let-go experience and then see what happens next. Allow each day to unfold for you not as you would choose but to reveal to you your true nature. That is the true meaning of intelligence.

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11-18-05

Are You Afraid of Change?

By Brian Maloney

Change, no matter how you cut it, can certainly be a daunting task. There are so many ways to change; your image, attitude, environment, perceptions, addictions, and how you treat others.

However, let's explore the reasons for change. Firstly, aspects in your life that negatively affect self progression, whether put upon yourself or not, scream loudest to be changed.

Many times the guarded vaults inside ourselves mask this need for change, due to false pride, or the mere misperception of how change can improve our quality of life. As a result, a vicious cycle of negativity will hover if these changes fail to be made.

So then, how do we know when to prioritize a needful change so that it can be properly made?

No matter how blind one can get, signs from friends and family, or negative reactions to your conduct by others can definitely be the most telling, and that's where you would start.

This recognition is a crucial beginning point, because if you can't recognize and then admit, then you will always be in denial of your infractions.

For example: If you are a drug addict or any type of addict for that matter, the only way you are going to get clean of that chemical is not by force from the state or your family, but from within.

This introspection, though through a haze of chemicals or denial is tough, cannot be overstated in its importance. Although, when done with logic and perspective, it can be utterly empowering.

How does someone muster up enough will to make a critical change?

Despite what everyone else will think, whether bad or good; knowing yourself through introspection is indeed the best route with which to take, and will nullify all those external forces.

This, in part, is where your power to make that change will be generated. Instead of worrying how others will perceive you in your plights, simply put, ...don't!

Trusting yourself above everything else is fundamentally how change can start to be implemented. In addition, when a change for the better has been made, subsequent changes can and will be made more smoothly with less internal conflict.

Understanding the power of your own mind and how it can heal itself when given a chance is what I hope people can take from this article.

You do not have to be afraid of change!

Positive changes in life should always be sought out, and dispelling your fears through self trust can arguably become your best ally in making your next change.

--by Brian Maloney-ValuePrep.com
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11-21-05

Serenity - Accepting the things we cannot change

By Robert Burney

July 28, 2002

"One of the gifts that came to me early in my healing process was a little expression that helped me start changing my perspective. That expression was, "I don't have any problems - I have opportunities for growth." The more I stopped focusing on problems and obstacles, and started looking for the gifts, the lessons, attached to them, the easier life became.

I became a part of the solution instead of getting stuck being the victim of the problem. I started seeing the half of the glass that was full instead of always focusing on the half that was empty. Every problem is an opportunity for growth.

My subconscious Codependent attitudes and perspectives caused me to take life personally - to react emotionally as if life events were being directed at me personally as a punishment for being unworthy, for being a shameful creature.

Life is a series of lessons. The more I became aligned with knowing that I was being given gifts to grow from - the less I believed that the purpose of life was to punish me - the easier life became.
Codependence: The Dance of Wounded Souls by Robert Burney

I had stated in my last article that I would devote the next couple of articles here to discussing discernment. However the Universe just provided me with a wonderful example of how very blessed I am to have learned how to practice the Serenity Prayer in my life, so I am going to postpone that discussion and devote this article to the power of acceptance.

I just got back from an annual summer trip that I take with my 12 year old son (who lives in Albuquerque) to visit his grandparents - my parents - on the farm I grew up on in Nebraska. Some years in the past I have flown into Albuquerque and rented a car so we could drive up. Last year I flew him out here and we took an Amtrak ride back to the Midwest. This year, because of time and financial constraints we flew. I got us tickets that would allow us to meet in Phoenix and fly together from there to Omaha, and then return the same way.

Both on the trip there, and on the return, we had delayed flights that caused us to miss our connections. On the return I got to spend the night in Phoenix at the airlines expense.

Delayed flights and missed connections are a supreme pain in neck. I was not happy that these things happened. I did not like that it happened. I was however, able to very quickly accept what was happening and take responsibility for what I could change. On the initial trip that involved calling the airline as soon as I realized I wasn't going to make my connection so I could see what was happening with my son's flight. I had to smile when I found out his flight was delayed also. That meant he wasn't going to be stuck by himself in the Phoenix airport for hours. Everything worked out okay - both going and coming. I took the action I could take, which was primarily making phone calls to coordinate things - and did not waste a lot of time and energy being upset about the reality of what was happening.


It had taken me several years in early recovery to realize that I did not have to like some condition to accept the reality of it. As I have mentioned elsewhere in my writing, a large component of personal empowerment is accepting reality as it is and making the best of it - instead of wishing it was different. Wishing it was different puts me in a victim place. I spend my life prior to codependency recovery being the victim of life not being what I thought it "should" be, of people not acting the way I thought they "should" act. It did not serve me. It was a dysfunctional way of relating to life because, not only did it not work to help me find happiness and serenity, it created the opposite result. I was always trying to control life and other people - and being the victim of life events and other peoples behavior. And because of the toxic shame at the core of my being - which drove me to find some reason that it wasn't my fault that things were as they were - I would always look for someone else to blame for the reality of my life. In my former life, in my codependent black and white thinking, I would have blamed the airline because the other option was to blame myself for choosing the "wrong" flights.

That is what I got to watch at the airports I was in the last few weeks. People absolutely freaking out - experiencing major melodramatic trauma dramas - because their plans were disrupted. People crying and screaming, abusing airline personnel (I asked the woman I dealt with at passenger assistance if she got combat pay.) It wasn't the people behind the airline counter that were at fault - but that didn't stop people from abusing them because they did not have a clue about how to accept something that they didn't have the power to change.

Delayed flights are life events. Life events happen. Combing a common phrase in our language with something I say in my book: fertilizer happens. Life events are opportunities for growth - in this case, a very clear reminder to me of what a gift twelve step recovery is in my life and how much progress I have made in my recovery. I was able to accept reality and flow with life instead of fighting reality and creating a lot of artificial stress.

In some writing I did just before the trip - for the personal journal I share in my Joy2MeU Journal ( http://Joy2MeU.com/Journal.html ) - I talked about how life events used to be like an 8 point earthquake in my life. I reacted - not only to important things like delayed flights or car breakdowns or losing a job, but also to small things in people's behavior or the way my day was unfolding - as if they were life threatening, as if my whole world was being destroyed. Learning to apply the Serenity Prayer has helped me to stop creating so much artificial stress in my life because I wasn't accepting reality as it was being presented to me. About 90% of the stress I used to experience in my life was artificially created - was created by my attitudes and expectations. As I say in that journal entry:

"So, I accept whatever it is that I perceive as deprivation today - and make the best of today. That doesn't mean that it doesn't generate stress for me. But the stress is like the 3. earthquake as compared to the 8. earthquake that my perspective of life used to generate for me.

The great majority of stress felt by any codependent is manufactured out of dysfunctional beliefs and definitions - perspectives and expectations that cause us to feel victimized. Most of the stress I used to feel had to do with trying to figure out how to control life, worrying about what is right or wrong, obsessing about trying to change someone else. By learning to accept the things I cannot change, and integrating a Spiritual belief system into my subconscious programming and emotional relationship with life, I reduced my perception of stress by maybe 10,000%. Learning to let go has removed the illusion of stress from my life that was being caused by living life as if it were a test I could fail. There is still some legitimate stress that is caused by life events and circumstances. It is not bad or wrong to feel stressed. There are times when it was real important for me to own that it was OK to feel stressed - what was important was not to let the impending doom, fear based programming of the disease blow things out of proportion."

By learning to be discerning enough to accept the things I cannot change, I am able to change something that is in my power to change - my attitude towards the things I can not change. By learning to let go of any attitudes I am empowering that are causing me to not accept reality, I have found a level of serenity in my life that is mind boggling to me at times. It is also kind of mind boggling to be reminded that the majority of the people in the world still do not have a clue about how to make their lives easier and more peace filled.


It is the inability of people to practice acceptance in their lives that is the cause of so much of the conflict in the world. When enough people learn to apply the Serenity Prayer in their lives is when we will be able to create world peace. It is through focusing on our individual recovery that we will heal the planet.

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11-28-05

Letting Go of Unavailable People
By Robert Burney

"In our disease defense system we build up huge walls to protect ourselves and then - as soon as we meet someone who will help us to repeat our patterns of abuse, abandonment, betrayal, and/or deprivation - we lower the drawbridge and invite them in. We, in our Codependence, have radar systems which cause us to be attracted to, and attract to us, the people, who for us personally, are exactly the most untrustworthy (or unavailable or smothering or abusive or whatever we need to repeat our patterns) individuals - exactly the ones who will "push our buttons."

This happens because those people feel familiar. Unfortunately in childhood the people whom we trusted the most - were the most familiar - hurt us the most. So the effect is that we keep repeating our patterns and being given the reminder that it is not safe to trust ourselves or other people .

Once we begin healing we can see that the Truth is that it is not safe to trust as long as we are reacting out of the emotional wounds and attitudes of our childhoods. Once we start Recovering, then we can begin to see that on a Spiritual level these repeating behavior patterns are opportunities to heal the childhood wounds."

"I spent most of my life being the victim of my own thoughts, my own emotions, my own behaviors. I was consistently picking untrustworthy people to trust and unavailable people to love. I could not trust my own emotions because I was incapable of being honest with myself emotionally - which made me incapable of Truly being honest on any level."
(All quotes in this color are from Codependence: The Dance of Wounded Souls)

Codependency is an incredibly insidious, treacherous dis-ease. It is a compulsively reactive condition in which our ego programming from childhood dictates how we live our lives today. As long as we are not in recovery from our codependency, we are powerless to make clear choices in discerning rather someone we are attracted to is a available for a healthy relationship - we are in fact, doomed to keep repeating patterns.

Emotionally we are drawn to people who feel familiar on an energetic level. That is, people who, on an emotional vibrational level, resonate with us as being familiar. It feels to us as if we have a strong connection to those people. In other words, we have an inner radar system that causes us to be attracted to people who resonate vibrationally in a way that is familiar on an emotionally intimate level. We are attracted to people whose inner emotional dynamic is similar to our most powerful and earliest experience of emotional intimacy and love - our parents.

No matter how much we are making an effort on a conscious level to not pick anyone like our parents, energetically we feel a strong attraction to people whose inner emotional dynamic is similar to our first experience of love. It was very important for me to get aware of the reality that if I met someone who felt like my soul mate, I had better watch out. Those are exactly the people who will fit my patterns - recreate my wounding.

It was very important for me to recognize the power of this type of attraction. And also to realize, that on a Spiritual level, these people were teachers who were in my life to help me get in touch with my childhood wounds. It was vital for me to start being aware that if I met someone who felt like my soul mate it did not mean we were going to live happily ever after. What it meant was that I was being given another wonderful, and painful, opportunity for growth.

Becoming conscious of these emotional energetic dynamics was a very important part of owning my power. My power to make choices, to accept consequences, to take responsibility for my choices and consequences - and to not buy into the belief that I was being victimized by the other person, or my own defectiveness.

Recognizing unavailability in the other person does not mean that I have to let go of the relationship - at least not immediately, it could be something I will decide to do eventually.

What is so important, is to let go of focusing on that person as the cause of, or solution to, my problems. As long as we are focusing on the other person and buying into the illusion that if we just: work a little harder; lose some more weight; make some more money; do and/or say the right things; whatever; that person will change and be everything we want them to be.

Codependents focus on others to keep from looking at self. We need to let go of focusing on the other person and start focusing inside to understand what is happening. Our adult patterns, the people we have been in relationship with, are symptoms - effects of our childhood wounding. We cannot solve a problem without looking at the cause. Focusing on symptoms (which our society is famous for: war on drugs; war on poverty: etc.) will not heal the cause.

The reason that we get involved with people who are unavailable, is because we are unavailable. We are attracted to people who feel familiar because on some level we are still trying to prove our worth by earning the Love and respect of our unavailable parents. We think we are going to rescue the other person which will prove our worth - or that we need them to rescue us because of our lack of worth. The princess will kiss me and turn me from a frog into a prince, the prince will rescue me and take me to live in the castle, syndrome.

We need to own our own worth - our own "Prince or Princess" ness - before we can be available for a healthy relationship with some one who has owned their own worth.

It is not possible to love someone enough to get them to stop hating, and being unavailable, to them self. We need to let go of that delusion. We need to focus on healing our self - on understanding and healing the emotional wounds that have driven us to pick people who could not give us what we want emotionally. We need to develop some healthy emotional intimacy with ourselves before we are capable of being available for a healthy relationships with someone who is also available.
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You are listening to Cristofori's Dream by David Lanz

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