RD&T’s contributing writer, John Amodeo, PhD, MFT, discusses how people who feel shame will struggle to receive love. As soon as we learn to unclog our love receptors, we can learn to receive love.
Many of us grow up with deafening messages that something is wrong with us, we’re not good enough, and we don’t measure up. When the water we swim in is saturated with shame, we may not notice casual acts of caring or spontaneous expressions of love.
When we’re valued for our accomplishments, rather than for whom we really are, our self-worth becomes linked to our net worth—or the power and charm of our personality. Scrambling to create a self that we think will win acceptance and avoid being shamed, we lose touch with our natural self—our basic goodness, beauty, and innocence.
