You Don’t “Deserve” It…
Your words have power. They influence how you perceive the world and others. They demonstrate what you believe about yourself and what you believe is possible for your life. They reflect the lens that you view your reality from.
Words Give You Clues About Your Beliefs.
A word that reflects a limiting belief about self-worth, is the word deserve.
How Using the Word Deserve Impacts Self-Worth.
When you say “I deserve” or “I don’t deserve” you are attaching something to your self-worth. Many people have a core wound of “I am not worthy” which gets correlated with what they believe they deserve.
The word deserve is transactional. When you use this word, you have to earn the thing you want. Your desire alone for it is not enough, which is the same thing as your subconscious saying, “you are not enough.”
The word deserve is subjective. There are things in life that have to be earned, like a degree or promotion. Those are concrete, you have to do X to get Y. Most people are using the word deserve in a subjective fashion. Saying things like “I don’t deserve to be loved” or “I don’t deserve to have the life I want.” What does somebody have to do in order to “deserve” love? Or “deserve” the life they want? If you can’t describe what you would actually have to do to deserve it, how can you allow yourself to actually receive it?
Believing you have to do something to deserve what you want holds you back. If your underlying belief is “I am not worthy” you are not going to allow yourself to have it because the thing you want doesn’t match what you believe about yourself. This can look like sabotaging a relationship because you don’t believe the person could possibly love you or look like you staying in a job that makes you miserable because you don’t believe you deserve any better.
Using the word deserve externalizes your power. Someone else gets to determine whether you have earned the thing you want. If someone else has power over you, you will always have a feeling of helplessness.
Deserve reflects a black and white thinking pattern. Either you deserve it or you don’t deserve it, there is no in between. A black and white thinking pattern means you have to be perfect in order to earn something. And since you are human and therefore will never be perfect, you’ll never believe you’ve earned it.
Reframing Your Thoughts.
Experiment with removing the word deserve from your vocabulary for the next 30 days and notice how it impacts your self-worth, motivation, and overall wellbeing.
If you slip up and use the word deserve, replace it with a more helpful thought. Here are examples:
Replace “I don’t deserve to be loved” with “I allow myself to be loved.”
Replace “I don’t deserve an easy life” with “I choose to allow my life to be easier.”
Replace “I deserve to be unhappy” with “I can allow opportunities for happiness into my life.”
The replacement thoughts start with “I” because it allows you to get back in the driver’s seat of your experiences and redefine your reality.
Challenge Your Thoughts.
One last way to challenge “I deserve” thoughts, is to ask yourself, “what evidence do I have that I don’t deserve it?” Evidence has to be something that can be seen, heard, or felt and would stand up in a court of law. “I feel like I don’t deserve it,” isn’t acceptable evidence because feelings are not facts.
How Therapy for Women Can Help.
Therapy for Women can help you explore how your beliefs about yourself are impacting your life and help you develop healthier beliefs. If you have questions about treatment for women or would like to book a session with me, use the Contact Me button below.
