Unconditional value

I understand that people start to feel better when they learn to value themselves. Often, individuals lack a sense of their own worth.

We gain our value through relationships.

The most important relationships that instill a sense of worth in a person are the “child-parent” relationships. Children acquire their value by receiving unconditional love and necessary care from their parents. Parents find their value by directing unconditional love and care toward their child.

Next come relationships with partners, friends, colleagues, and children. Within these relationships, information about worth is conveyed through understanding, support, and respect. Conversely, information about “worthlessness” is communicated through rejection, boundary violations, misunderstanding, neglect of feelings and needs, and violence.

People who have received ample information about their worth eventually stop needing validation of that worth through relationships with others as they grow older. They primarily focus on clear and understandable goals related to personal development. Their value is revealed in the new and most important relationship—the one with themselves. This can be envisioned as one part of oneself empowering another part with reinforcing information about its own worth.

However, there are many people who have not received sufficient information about their worth! They primarily pursue one goal: finding relationships that help them feel valuable. Relationships with work begin to serve this purpose: “I will achieve a lot and finally be appreciated.” Relationships with loved ones do too: “I care for you so that you will value me and need me.”

The main task for such individuals is to receive validation of their worth from others in order to finally grow into a self-assured person who stands firmly on their own feet, respects themselves and others, feels beautiful, and establishes clear boundaries.

Therefore, these individuals seek compensatory relationships: with God, with art, with a psychologist, with a teacher, with the universe.

I encounter people at this juncture.

They are not ready to believe in their unconditional worth. They want proof.

And this is where the complex work of the psychologist begins—to give form to worth so that the person can see it within themselves and believe in it.

Author: Katrina Markova