From the time we were little, through interaction with primary caregivers, extended family, educators, friends, and other people influence our personalities and we are partly shaped into who we are, and what we believe about ourselves, and how we interact with ourselves and the world when we are adults.
For some, this collective experience may have resulted in what is referred to as a balanced individual who has a healthy self-esteem, a balanced self-concept. We feel free and brave enough to go out into the world and flourish.
For others though, it may be fraught with challenges, where we do not feel good enough, do not trust ourselves enough and find the world a very scary place. The messages and beliefs we have taken on throughout our lives can cripples us, and life, and living can at times feel overwhelming.
When we have grown up believing we are not worthy of being loved, not being good enough, being less than, we enter the world looking externally for love, connection, and healing. It is in our nature as human beings so do this, and while there is nothing wrong with wanting to expand and enhance our love with other people, connecting in the myriad of ways possible, and heal more; if we do not start with finding and deepening those things within ourselves, we place the responsibility with others to make us feel better, to love us, and to make up for all the hurt and the pain.
Apart from the fact that it unfair on others to do so, the repair required from relationships built on a rocky foundation can be more difficult that doing the work on ourselves.
