Many who struggle with body image and comparison also struggle to feel loved. How do I know? Because I struggle and I've had this conversation countless times with clients and friends. How do we truly feel and know we are loved by God? How do we know and feel like we are loved by our husbands or boyfriends or parents or anyone? Sometimes, it's just hard to feel love. We may know we are loved, but we may not feel it.

What Do You Do When You Don't Feel Loved?

Today we tackle what's going on and how to get over some of the obstacles that may be keeping you from feeling love. From the narratives and "court cases" we create in our heads to the myth that self love will help us feel more loved, today we're going to explore this topic from several angles. The timing of today's episode is on purpose. This is a weekend when many feel sad and wonder if they're really loved or how they can feel like they are. If you're struggling with those questions today, I hope you'll know this episode is for you.

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Listen to the marriage episodes mentioned on today's show here: Marriage and Body Image

 

 

 

Transcript of today's show:

It’s Valentine’s Day weekend and we’re supposed to be in one of two camps -culturally – savoring the “love” we have with someone and celebrating it – or wishing we had that kind of love with someone. I know there’s a strong contingent of better off alone out there -but Valentine’s Day weekend and break even the strongest singleness advocate.

But love isn’t what the U.S. commercialized version of V day is all about. There’s a push that “if you loved you would…’ make reservations, buy flowers and candy, cards and jewelry.

Yet I wonder – how many of us have ever felt loved, truly loved by any of these things alone. Maybe you do –but that’s not me. It’s hard for me to feel loved sometimes. Even if all the valentine’s day boxes are checked. It’s hard for me to believe my husband loves me sometimes and it’s even harder to believe that God really loves me.

In fact – when I first got married – I remember Eric and I had so many conversations about love languages because I had such a hard time feeling loved. I was quite certain that perhaps the reason why I didn’t feel like he loved me was because he wasn’t speaking my language. I grabbed on to that concept as soon as I read the book. I took the “test” to figure out my language -and we tried to incorporate intentionally speaking each other’s languages.

And, you know what happened? Frustration ensued. I thought maybe I took the test wrong because though he was trying to do quality time and I still questioned if he loved me. We added some words of affirmation – maybe I was two languages – bilingual – and it still wasn’t enough. I analyzed my parents' love languages. Maybe I needed more physical touch? Maybe I needed gifts and acts of service. Was it possible to be ALL the love languages?

But it was never enough. I felt stuck. It felt too hard to believe he actually loved me. Truth is, it wasn’t until I sat in the counselor’s office probably 5-6 years into marriage and heard the counselor say the words, “It’s obvious just how much he loves you…” that I was finally able to start believing that maybe it was true.

Now, intellectually – I knew that he loved me. I knew that God loved me too. Neither God nor my husband had given me any reasons to doubt their love. But, I did anyone. I had enough self-doubt, questions about my worthiness, and noise in my head asking the question, “Am I really loveable” -that they didn’t have to do anything at all to cause me to doubt. I still struggled to feel loved.

So what I thought would be interesting today would be to just talk through what some of the obstacles are to us feeling like we are truly loved and how we can shift our thinking or outlook so these obstacles can be overcome.

And