Читать книгу Are You the One for Me? - Barbara Angelis De - Страница 36

Sometimes it isn’t our parents’ influence that destroyed our self-esteem, but repressed feelings of guilt or shame we’ve been carrying with us since childhood.

IF YOU’VE DONE SOMETHING YOU HAVEN’T FORGIVEN YOURSELF FOR, OR FEEL IN SOME WAY RESPONSIBLE FOR SOMEONE ELSE’S PAIN, YOUR EMOTIONAL PROGRAMMING MIGHT HAVE CONCLUDED THAT YOU DON’T DESERVE TO BE LOVED.

CASE#2

Joanie was a vivacious thirty-two-year-old nurse who couldn’t seem to meet men, let alone start a relationship. I was surprised to hear Joanie describe her lonely life, since she was so outgoing and attractive. ‘I don’t know what it is about me,’ she complained, ‘but no matter what I do, I can’t find someone to love. All of my friends are either married or have boyfriends. What’s wrong with me?’

As we worked to uncover her emotional programming, we came up against something from Joanie’s childhood that she had never connected with her vacant love life. Joanie had a younger sister named Stephanie who was born severely handicapped. As a young girl, Joanie remembered helping carry her little sister everywhere, because she couldn’t walk, and helping to feed her, because she couldn’t coordinate her limbs. Stephanie was confined to a wheelchair at age five, and eventu-ally was put into a home for children with special needs.

‘I remember lying in bed as a child next to Stephanie,’ Joanie remi­nisced, ‘and looking at her beautiful face. I couldn’t understand why God did this to my little sister. She was my only sibling—my parents didn’t have any children after that—and I felt like she was taken from me. Everyone used to tell me how lucky I was to be healthy, but that only made me feel more … well, I guess “guilty” is the right word. I felt guilty to be so normal when poor Steph was so damaged.’

Joanie broke down and cried tears of grief and love for her little sister. We talked about the decisions she had made as a child—that she didn’t deserve to be happy if Stephanie wasn’t happy, that she didn’t deserve to have a husband and a normal love life, since Stephanie would never be able to have one. Joanie hadn’t been aware of what a powerful affect her guilt had on her as an adult. Somehow her feelings translated into behavior that kept men away from her. She was emotionally programmed not to fall in love. Now that she was aware of the source of her pattern, Joanie could begin to heal her feelings of guilt and give herself permission to be twice as happy—one dose for herself, and one dose for Stephanie.