Education and devaluation 2

The result is that many people don’t have faith in their own resources and so are unaware of the enormous power lying dormant within them, with which they could forge ahead in life and fulfil their true potential.

So you see self-esteem isn’t always easy or straightforward to build, because we are often the subconscious victims of our own negative beliefs.

For the child to create a positive belief in the area of love (or in any other area) he or she must have received sufficient parental attention and affection. This will then allow the child to develop confidence and security in adult life, and be able to express its emotions and feelings, and share them with others.

If this doesn’t happen, the negative belief will gradually crystallize in the mind of that child that it doesn’t deserve to be loved - or that it doesn’t deserve to live… or that it is worthless, and so on.

Deep down inside, the child acquires the certainty that he or she is not worthy of love, because they are not « valuable » enough.

The repercussions in their life will be major. They will have to choose from among several “life strategies”: for example, emotional isolation, or behaving in a way likely to arouse the rejection of those around them, or lose themselves in a false personality that will be more pleasing to their parents, but detrimental to their own identity, etc.

For example, if a father has never said to his daughter that he thinks she’s beautiful and worthy of his love, if he has never proved to her that he loves her, she will form a « negative » image of herself. Later on, as a woman and a wife, this image will work as a « maleficent filter » in her relationships with others, and particularly her relationships with men.

She will think, subconsciously, that she doesn’t deserve to be loved by her partner either. It will be just as if, without her realising it, the image of her father is coming between her and her male partner, like a negative filter that fogs reality.

You can easily imagine the misunderstandings that could cause within the relationship, while the woman is treating her partner – and interpreting his reactions – as if it were her own father!

In the subconscious belief that she doesn’t deserve to be loved by her partner, the behaviour of this woman in the relationship will reflect her fears and negative belief.

In fact, to « confirm » her belief, she will, subconsciously of course, do everything possible to ensure her partner neglects and loses interest in her – until their relationships breaks down irretrievably.

This example relates to the area of love and relationships, but this negative conditioning mechanism has harmful repercussions in other life domains, such as career, material and financial success, etc.

The truth is that, since there is no such thing as a perfect, ideal education, every little boy and every little girl suffers, in their childhood, from a « shortfall » of some description. They will undergo negative psychological conditioning, specific to their family circumstances.

This will lead them to form a negative belief about their value and their place in the world.

 As they reach adulthood, this belief, if they are not aware of it, will tend to exert a harmful influence on their life and deprive them of the happiness that is theirs by rights.

As you can now understand, it is basically negative beliefs, acquired during childhood through education, that constitute the major obstacle to a truly fulfilling life.