‘I feel like don’t deserve to be happy’. How many times has this thought crossed your mind? How many times have you felt how unworthy you are of the love, affection, and attention that you get? We have all witnessed such days in our lives where we felt like we do not deserve to be happy. We all wish to live a life that is happy and fulfilling, but every time when we are wrong about something, making mistakes, or not getting something done like it is supposed to be done, we get frustrated. But this is the thing about life; it is not perfect. If anything, life is all about good times and bad times, happiness and sadness, perfection and messiness. So why can’t we accept ourselves as we are? For the good things and for the bad things?
When we start believing that life is supposed to be perfect all the time, a minor inconvenience makes us think that we are a complete failure, how bad we are, and how unworthy we are. Hence, we start thinking to ourselves “Do I even deserve to feel happy?” But believe us when we say, life is supposed to be unexpected, messy and uncertain. But if we keep thinking how we do not deserve to be happy; we will never be able to move on from what’s holding us back and, therefore, live life half-heartedly.
Why Am I Feeling Like I Don’t Deserve To Be Happy?
All of us were born equal, coming from the same source of life. It’s not like you’ve always felt that you don’t deserve to be happy, right? You’ve had and still have good moments. Great experiences of joy, laughter, satisfaction, and peace of mind. But I guess something happened to you along the way. Something changed you.
What is the source of that something? How did you come about that?
Something We Did In Our Past
We all make mistakes. We have all done somethings we are not proud of, something we wish we could erase and undo, things that we regret upon. This inability of letting go of past mistakes and failures becomes one of the major reasons why a person feels and thinks he or she don’t deserve to be happy.
‘I did so and so, I should not be laughing’, ‘I don’t deserve these warm things that people say about me’, ‘I don’t deserve a happy moment’, such thoughts are an outcome of guilt. People who have had sinned in their past believe that being unhappy for the rest of their lives is how they will pay for their mistakes.
Traumas
Traumatic events are unfortunately shaping our way of living and perception of ourselves. Painful memories and feelings that are stored within us come back to haunt us, forcing us to struggle with old demons. Unfortunately many people are ‘loosing’ these battles, feeling like they are damaged and don’t deserve something good in their lives. And within that, childhood trauma is of the worst kind. It leaves scars that take forever to heal.
Children who went through a traumatic event, or even ‘just’ grow up in a household where they are not loved enough, grow up feeling as if they never deserved to be loved. Such children grow up feeling as if it is somehow their fault that they were not appreciated enough or loved enough in their childhood, or that they deserved to be hurt by the traumatic event that has happened to them
Death Of A Close Someone
When you love someone with all your heart, whether it’s a partner, a close friend, or a relative, you are seeing them as one of the foundations of your life. As something that you can rely on. So, when they die, whether it is your mom, dad, sibling, partner, or close friend, you feel as if life does not have a purpose. You feel gloomy and depressed. You feel like there is a never-ending emptiness inside of you and a void that needs to be filled. Laughing, talking, and feeling happy makes you feel guilty, and you question yourself, ‘why am I laughing? How can I feel even an ounce of happiness when someone so close to me has left this world?’
This kind of reaction is somewhat natural, but some people can’t cease acting like that and can’t get out of this loop.
The death of a close one tends to take a toll on our mental and physical health. We keep thinking about them, about how we did not appreciate them enough and how we could and should have done things so differently, filling our hearts and minds with painful regrets.
Believe us when we say, none of the above-mentioned reasons are so big that it stops you from being happy. There can be no reason in the world which is big enough to make you feel like you do not deserve happiness.
You Deserve To Be Happy
Before anything and everything at all, let us tell you, you deserve all the happiness in the world. No matter what you did, or what someone did to you, you deserve to be happy and live in bliss. You deserve to live your life like it is supposed to be lived. You deserve to be loved. If you are someone who constantly struggles with such thoughts, then there is nothing wrong with asking for help. If you believe you are depressed or your mental health is taking a toll on you, then ask for professional help.
Let me tell you, acknowledging your problems and struggles with yourself, and trying, even thinking, to work on them and make efforts to solve them is something you should be extremely proud of. Always remember, baby steps go a long way. A little effort towards betterment, a small step towards growth is all you need to build a massive life-changing momentum and get rid of the bitter thoughts.
You deserve to be happy and you deserve to be loved.
Make Amends With Your Past Mistakes
Keep reminding yourself how life is all about ups and downs. We make mistakes and it is okay to move on from them, as long as we are open to learn from them and genuinely feel sorry about them and asking for forgiveness. Forgive and Forget. Forgive yourself and others around you, and forget to allow yourself a fresh start. This is a key element in living a happy life.
If there is a mistake you made, a sense of guilt that has been haunting you and makes you think you do not deserve to be happy, make amends with it. Write a letter to the one you have hurt, write your heart out and ask for forgiveness. If it is someone who cannot be reached, still make use of a diary and write about it. Write and don’t share it, even just keep it to yourself, let your emotions and thoughts be exposed. Writing helps. This type of closure helps you get over a burden that you feel inside your heart. Whatever helps you, do it. Just make sure that you get the closure you want so that this chapter can come to an end.
I Did The Best I Could
We are human beings. We make mistakes, we try to do the best but life has its own way of twisting and turning things around. Not every situation you face will get the ideal response out of you.
Us humans are filled with regrets. We want to rectify even the smallest task that we do in our daily lives and somehow make them better. For us, it is very hard to come at peace with the fact that we did the best we could have done. No matter what it is, whether it is our past, or it is how we treated someone, with our children, etc. Always remember, what is done is done and can’t be changed.
We wish we had a time machine, but we do not. We cannot go back in the past and change what we did or how we were. So, what is the point of dwelling over something that cannot be changed? How about you dwell over something that CAN be changed? Like your thoughts?
The best solution is to learn. Learn from what we did and grow from it. Always learn from your experiences and never get stuck on them. Because if we keep dwelling over what is done, we will ultimately affect our future as well and hence, keep living in the same look of feeling unworthy and thinking that we do not deserve to be happy.
Remember, life has ups and downs, not everything is easy. It will feel easy for a day and take a 180 turn the next day, that is how life is. Getting out of such thoughts is not an easy task too. You have to deliberately make yourself get out of them by making amends with the past, forgetting and forgiving, and by getting the closure you need. We all deserve to be happy, we all deserve to live life to the fullest and we all deserve to move forward.
If others can do it, so can YOU. You got this.
