I don't deserve anything good in my life.

At least that is what I feel like. I realized this in the last few months. It has come gradually. I couldn't understand that I felt like I had no value until I was treated like I had value. My husband to be treats me with value. He tells me all the time that he doesn't love me because I do the wash, iron or make meals. He's happy I do it. Or said he was. But his love was also dependant on my ability to perform. I got sickened in again. It was just a bit more subtle. I wasn't accepting half that he was offering me because I felt that I didn't deserve it. I have felt like I didn't deserve anything for years. I think that it has its' roots in christianity. That "I'm a worm, god only loves me because he can see me through his son. I deserve nothing but death but christ gave me life because he is so good to me." This has tarnished my view of myself since I was little. Of course, if I would have had a less intense, less performance-related personality, none of it would have meant anything. Unfortunately, my personality meant that I took all the god-shit very seriously. God loved me while I was yet a sinner and worthless. Note the "worthless". Meaning without god I am nothing. Meaning that with god I am something but still only a poor, sad, worthless being who has value only because god came to save me. Some would protest (as I once did myself) that that was the point! It showed that I had value because christ was willing to die for me. Unfortunately, deep down under that dogma is the fact that even though you are "saved", you are still worth nothing because it is only christ that covers all your worthlessness so you can somehow squeak into heaven. Anything good that I do is because christ enables me and anything bad that I do is because I, deep down, have a sinful fallen nature.

So how does that relate to the here and now? It means that I accepted to be treated like a less than nothing and worse than a slave for twenty years because I didn't deserve any better. It means that when my new boyfriend tells me he doesn't care if I go out and have coffee, I feel that I don't deserve it. I feel I have to somehow pay for that coffee. In reality, I had attracted another man who felt I was not worth the cup of coffee HE paid for. I was once again being taught that I did not deserve anything but disdain. So am I somehow worth less? Worthless? Am I somehow undeserving? It means that I have a hard time synthesizing the fact that I am allowed to be in a good place.  Why me? Like somehow I should still be in an abusive relationship where I am badly treated. That's horrible. My abusive ex knew and felt that. Abusers zero in on the victims, the ones that feel they should be mistreated. Christianity is the perfect front for abusive men. The bible gives them all the ammunition they need to make sure their wives tow the line. I'm glad I am seeing it now before it is too late.

What am I doing to change my thinking? Well, first, I dumped christianity and the bible. That was a good start. Next, I am trying to take the time to meditate. Meditate on the future I want to create for myself. When my thoughts go around and around I try to turn them around to the life I want. I imagine myself living the good things that I want. Travelling, having a nice car, being able to pay for my own coffees at Starbucks. Making more money than my fiancé (ah, those also were empty promises) Being able to see my kids and family when I want because I have the money to do it. Being free from the cancer that almost took me. Being at peace and accepting that I have worth, that I deserve better than what I have accepted up until not long ago. I have also started doing tapping (EFT). It sounds weird, but it is in a tapping session that I finally realized that I myself could sabotage any chance I had at happiness if I believed I had no worth.

Now is when I choose to live. I choose to be treated well. I choose the people who surround me and I won't accept people who trod on my self-worth and make me into their slaves. I have lost everything in this process. First I had to lose my health because of the mistreatment. Now, in my refusal to be treated like a dog, I have lost my kids, my house, my life savings and my reputation.  Abusers make sure that happens when they are clutching, struggling and screaming to get back the slave, the victim into their house. But you know what? I'm free. And I do deserve good things in my life.