I Deserve to Be Loved, Respected, and Valued
I recognize that I deserve to be loved, respected, and valued, and I’m not selfish or pretentious for thinking that. I want my soul to laugh and my heart to feel reassured for having found its place in the world.
It wouldn’t be crazy or arrogant to say these words loudly to ourselves. Declaring and convincing yourself that you deserve to be loved, that you are the most beautiful thing another person has ever seen, that’s rewarding. Being respected and valued is not a privilege, it’s a right.
Further, if you deserve to be loved, you should also know how to love, how to recognize the other person as a part of yourself. It’s an act of freedom and self-expression that makes us bigger, and that we all deserve to experience.
We all deserve to be loved by the people in our lives, starting with our families, continuing with our friendships, and finally reaching a romantic partner who can love us consciously, maturely, and mutually.
There’s nothing more worthy, no principle more basic, than to be loved, valued, and respected. Let’s reflect on this.
Along my personal journey I deserve light, not storms
The people who are like winter storms in your life don’t really know how to love or appreciate themselves fully. The people who treat you with contempt, indifference, and neglect are masters of unhappiness, and nobody deserves to be treated that way. Nobody should experience the emptiness of feeling unloved, unrecognized.
When we love in a way that recognizes and values the people in our lives, we plant our roots in the world that let us blossom in harmony, both inside and out.
On this site, we often discuss the importance of loving yourself, the necessity of self-esteem. Self-esteem helps you face adversities and define yourself, both to yourself and to the world. It lets you protect yourself and enjoy being yourself.
Self-love is essential, but since we live in social contexts and we need to build certain bonds, it’s also necessary to remember the following:
- Self-love is what that internal voice that tells you that you deserve to be loved: you want a love without tears, with sincerity instead of sarcasm, with closeness and collaboration instead of manipulation. You don’t want a love that’s controlling and loaded with misery.
- Self-love is also what tells you that you deserve respect. That nobody has the right to discriminate against you or your words. You know that offensive and dishonest words hurt, so you avoid the people that say them. You protect yourself and set boundaries.
- Self-love reminds you that you deserve to be valued for what you do and for who you are, and it’s not selfish to think that. Because the people who value your presence show you that they love you, because valuing people is giving them a place in the world. It’s recognizing them and giving them a voice, presence, and appreciation.
Love and be loved
Since we know what limits we have to set in order to prevent our rights being infringed upon, it’s also important to remember that as much as we ask to be loved, valued, and respected, we should also be able to offer the same to others.
There are two unbridgeable gaps in the world of emotions: loving intensely and receiving no love in return, and not knowing how to love the way other people love.
Some people only know how to demand things from other people. They need to be recognized, be attended to, be a priority all the time, be listened to, and of course be loved above all else, even before the other person themselves. These are people who devour and destroy.
If you want to be loved, learn how to love humbly, sincerely, and consciously. Love with an open heart and open eyes; give everything to others, but also expect to be recognized and reciprocated.
Loving and being loved, more than just a need, is a value that should characterize human beings: we should know how to love the people around us, and also how to receive affection and value it.
No parent should ever deny affection to their children, and no couple should understand their relationship any other way than through those daily gestures that build affection, passion, and admiration. And it should always be reciprocated.
Loving consciously and maturely is valuing the other person for who they are, recognizing them as a part of life’s plan, as a piece of one’s own emotional and personal puzzle.
And without a doubt, we all deserve a love that offers us happiness instead of sadness. We deserve sincere affection that squeezes our hands and makes fear and uncertainty disappear.
Images courtesy of Benjamin Lacombe
