5 Love Beliefs Hindering Good Health
- 06
- Mar
Our health goals can be hindered by love beliefs that are misdirected. We may believe love has to come from:
- parents and family. They don’t love me.
- teachers. They don’t love or like me.
- coworkers. They don’t love or like me.
- my lover. He/she is just playing me.
- me, myself. Well, duh. Yeah, well, I put up with me.
Family & Parental Love
If you do not have any relationship with your family, all your relationships may feel awkward. You may want to retreat when others brag about a siblings’ graduation or share memories of their parents. A feeling of sadness may result, and sadness leads to below-the-line health.
Ask any adoptee about his or her birth parents. You will hear stories with many layers and much still untold.
The best way to deal with family revelations and secrets or lack of them, is to consider any family ties a blessing. Relatives are usually your first interface with the world, and you can practice who you really are on them. The same goes for guardians and whoever helped raise you.
No matter how relatives and folks who really know you feel about you, you can, for your health’s sake, declare your love for them. If you have that kind of agape love for humanity, this approach will be easy.
On the other hand, it may take courage to love “thosse crazy people” as you “should.” Be neighborly. If you live together or interact often, hold your chin up and make it work. Besides, courage in facing up to family is good for well-being. They are your proving ground in many ways.
In the meantime, sing along with Stevie Wonder’s These Three Words (YouTube audio). This song has lifted many a spirit.
Educator Love
I marveled when my children, nephews and nieces spoke of teachers not liking them. I asked, “Why should your teacher like you?” Smiles, verbal encouragement and classroom perks were the love/like signals they sought. Other children were getting them, and it meant they were valued.
Then I realized children’s emotions are like pearls in an oyster, growing and absorbing whatever the ocean offers.*
Other negativity included the ethnicity factor, cultural differences, and inability to connect within a “broken” public education system. Rare is the educator who guides, understands capabilities, and rewards kids equally, commensurate with their emotional needs.
Not every teacher is college founder Mary McLeod Bethune or “Stand and Deliver” educator Jaime Escalante.
Higher Ed Love
I encountered the sentiment among college students I mentored. They seemed to think they should be liked or receive attaboy or attagirl attention (coaching-style slaps on the back) from professors.
By the time you reach “higher ed,” however, you should know the learning environment is not a place to expect compassion or demonstrations of love.
Yet without recognition of effort or accomplishments, students of all ages feel ignored, unappreciated and therefore devalued. Compounded with low teacher expectations, too many students end up feeling badly about themselves, and their health suffers. Then they drop out or stay away from school.
Absenteeism does not equate to above-the-line health. It leads to dangerous behaviors that do not bode well for young or older people.
If you don’t recognize that schools equip you with tools and you need to get them and keep it moving, you are liable to take feeling disrespected right into your job or career environment.
Workplace Love
Everyone wants to be accepted, but work is not the place to express love beliefs. If you do love your job, but seem to do everything wrong in the eyes of coworkers, you may want to leave for greener pastures. Workday battles can wear you down to misery, which is very bad for health. You have two options:
1) Consider there is something to learn, because you (personality, behavior, habits) are being challenged. You are right, there should be more of a flow. You may need to upgrade skills, time management habits, and the like. Note also the positive aspects. “This job no longer fits. Could it be I’m being prepared for a better position?”
2) Don’t let issues stress you out. Do more chill self-care to relieve anxiety and tension. You’ll be more alert to opportunities right under your nose. A lateral move in the same company may work wonders.
Romantic Love
If you’re unsure whether you are fulfilled in your relationship, you are not. Play a few 1960s songs to test your love beliefs. Example: “Does he love me, I wanna know. How can I tell if he loves me so,” sang Betty Everett (and Cher, etc., The Shoop Shoop Song/It’s In His Kiss). Music soothes heart-wrenching emotions and is a great outlet for release.
Don’t wallow in feeling broken-hearted for too long. Find your voice. Words that are hard in coming feel caught in your throat. But to communicate how you really feel to your partner, you have to utter the words that will free you. These words will also raise your holistic health profile.
As my father once said to me, “Don’t let yourself get to the point of feeling bitter.” Bitterness is a no-no for healthy living.
Expressing how you really feel in the relationship is the balm for healing it. Communicating the full range of your feelings, if only to yourself (first), will help to clarify where you and your partner stand.
Self – Love
Last but not least, many people say, If you don’t love yourself, nothing will go right. That’s extreme. Some things will go okay, whether you love yourself or not. It’s about perspective and attitude.
Don’t take your love belief for granted. If you’re maintaining a good appearance while feeling disillusioned and unforgiving, you need to stop.
What is self-love, then, beyond singing “Don’t Worry Be Happy” or “Happy”?
The answer may be found in reflecting another’s love beliefs. A friend or relative may console you when you’re feeling down: I love you. You are worthy of love. Try to love yourself. You will get over this. Feel better.
You can accept their love, but love for yourself still seems missing. Hope is absent. Hope, life and love all feel like a lie. What to do now?
Reflect New Love Beliefs
Try to reflect their love as you see yourself through their eyes. Get out pen and paper and write down what’s going on. Wrong job or career, wrong mate, wrong neighborhood, wrong college major, wrong _____ (you fill in the blank).
Make lists of the benefits and deficits of the upsetting issue. It has you thinking self-love is a luxury! Weigh the benefits of putting up with yourself against the benefit of embracing all that you are.
Your belief is as strong as your constancy. Keep listening to your life to really hear the love beliefs that made you sick and can make you well. Repeat positive thoughts and behaviors. Note each small success and tell yourself the results are due to…
- how I responded
- how I took action
- leveraging my time and priorities
- making choices I can be proud of
- handling that situation rather well!
Let yourself become convinced of new love beliefs that serve you. Romantic, Workplace, Educator and Family Love will all shift to your advantage once Self-Love (or self-acceptance) is achieved.
Adopt your lovable you-ness as you might adopt a new pet. Don’t deny it your love and affection.
If that doesn’t work, ask questions of those who love you so you can reflect their vision and begin to really see who they are seeing in you.
–Rev. Niamo Nancy Muid
Aroma Freedom Technique (AFT) addresses issues that you deem ready to bring to the surface. Tapping also is great for releasing constrained issues. Consider reaching out to me to give these techniques a try.
Claim Note:
The HealMobile is dedicated to dramatically improving your life. However, services and information on this website are not substitutes for medical or psychological diagnosis or prescription, nor do we recommend treatment, caring for or cure of any disease. See a doctor or mental health professional for long-standing conditions. Share your interest in the self-care techniques mentioned here, and note his or her response.
*As a child I never thought my teachers should like me. My mother was a teacher, and I believed she didn’t love or like me because she kept giving me extra homework, beyond my schoolwork. I know why now, and I give thanks.
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