Deserving: Why Don't We Get What We Deserve?

This is an area that can not only create frustration, anger and confusion; it can also make one feel powerless and a victim of circumstance.

So here I am going to explain my current understanding, as to why we don’t always get what we think we deserve and can end up with something completely different.

Our level self worth or deserving, can apply to relationships, career, emotions, health and money.

So with the description done, lets begin to look through what I believe determines what we attract into our life.

Early Years

During the early stages of our life, our mind is like a sponge. Taking in and accepting all of the stimulus that our environment provides. And the messages that we received during these early years, although they can be inconsistent, are usually unchanging. Upon these experiences, we then begin to form an identity about who we are and what the world is like.

This all happens through association, with our ego mind (reptilian brain) coming to the conclusion that all that is familiar to us, is also what is safe.

So all of the messages we received from our environment end up setting the standard of what our mind will perceive as safe and what it will perceive as unsafe. Therefore, everything that we can allow into our life and everything we can’t is the result of what our mind perceives as safe.

Do As I Say Not As I Do!

I am sure at one point in out lives we have all heard this saying. And although logically this makes sense and would seem like a good saying, in reality this is far from the truth. This is because the majority of what we learn as a child is achieved by observing how others behave in the environments we are exposed to and not the result of what we are told.

For example: often marriages or relationships’ are held together for the good will of the children. And although the intention is one of love and care, the consequences are potentially disastrous.

This is because not only do we learn how to behave through how the people around us behave, we also form our own self-worth based on how the people around us are treated.

What Does This All Mean?

What this means is that not only is our self image the response of how others treated us, it is also the consequence of how others were treated in our environment. And through this, our mind starts to identify with what it saw, as it is familiar and therefore safe.

There is also an element of acceptance and approval involved.  When we are young we want to be liked and loved by the people around us. And if we act like the people around us we are more likely to achieve this. So at a deeper level we could be holding onto a dysfunctional self image.

Consciously And Unconsciously

So our conscious mind can want one thing, but to the deeper part of our mind or unconscious mind, there might be an association that it is not safe for us to have.

This brings in the importance of being the observers of our mind, and questioning what we were told as a child. With many years having passed since those days, it is easy to assume that it is all in the past and that it is not effecting what we experience now.

However, it is clear to see that if we want to be conscious human beings, we have to process our past to be able to truly live in the present and experience the level of deserving that is our true nature.

The Diamond

I believe our self worth is like a diamond. By this I mean that innately it is there and exists whether we embrace and accept it or not. The only thing that stops us from realising it is the conditioning we have received about who we are and what we deserve.

People around us can say we deserve the best and that we are unlucky or unfortunate. All of which are not particularly empowering and can just perpetuate our run of bad luck and misfortune.

Identification

The mind identifies with and therefore holds onto what it knows and as I have said, this is what is familiar and safe to the mind.

So by the act of observing our mind, looking at how we behave and the patterns that continually appear in our life, we will start to gain a picture of what is going on at a deeper level for us. And from that place, we will see what is attracting into our life the experiences that don’t match up to our true level of deserving.

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Oliver J R Cooper
http://www.oliverjrcooper.co.uk/