This may come as a total surprise to you but some people really don’t believe that they deserve much at all, and most of these people have no idea that they feel this way.

This is a problem that religions have been trying to deal with for a long, long time.
We all deserve a good and prosperous life here on Earth.
But some people don’t believe that they deserve much at all, you may ask yourself “Why?”

Mostly the problem stems from these peoples upbringings, they were not told that they deserved much, or they were told that they were not worth anything at all, maybe they were not told much at all and mostly ignored. When a child is ignored by both or one parent the child gets a feeling that it is not important to the parents or the family system (or even to society).

The child thinks “if I am  worthy of my parents love then my parents would spend more time with me”.
Remember that to a child its parents are the most important people in its life in those early years, even its brothers and sisters are not as important as child’s parents.
To children their parents are the pillars that hold up their little fragile lives, their external strength, their protection, guidance, without that parental input the child wanders painfully through life, they struggle to understand the world around them and are easy victims of older people who prey on them.

If you think that you are not worth much, then you are sure to believe that you do not deserve much during your lifetime.
The constant battle in a child’s ears during its lifetime helps the child create this false identity of itself and it probably has no idea simply because the child figures that it has had a normal upbringing so what could be wrong? I thought that I had a normal (a bit strange, but normal) life as a child, until I found out otherwise.
It took many years for me to realise this, but once I did many things that bothered me were explained away by events that happened in my childhood.
I spent most of my adult years thinking only of the good times that I had as a child growing up, I forgot abut the bad times, mainly because they were too painful to remember.
So I hid the bad times from myself and pretended that I had a normal upbringing.

This unhappy child wouldn’t have been taught about aiming to complete goals or how to live for their future.
We all need goals and we all need to feel that we belong to the future of humanity, parents (and the schooling systems) need to let children know what they are capable of and how they can achieve it, at the least they can set the child on the right path to a life of self-worth.

A child would also have a low opinion of themself if they are constantly beaten by their parents, guardians or care givers.
The child would assume, as all young children do, that their parents are always right and know what is best, so if the child is physically abused by the parent then the child assumes that it did something wrong even if it didn’t. Some parents beat their children for fun, or out of meanness, but the child is too young and innocent to believe that this is possible, so it thinks that it has done something wrong and therefore deserves the beating that it is getting.

This explains why many children do not report being beaten to authorities.
Some children are much too scared to complain about this bad treatment, but many naturally trust the instinct of the parent or elder person and the child blames itself for any wrongdoing.
This confuses the child because a child needs to know why it is being punished or hurt, the child feels lost and has hurt feelings wondering what it has done wrong.

You may find that during your life you think other people deserve the good life because you have sinned (This would depend greatly on what you define a sin as) or have done bad things.
You may say “Look at all the bad things that I have done, why should I get anything?”

You may also always be the last one to get anything in your family and, at every opportunity you put yourself last, you pretend that you are doing the honourable thing, but you put yourself last because you don’t think you deserve much in life. You may feel that you have failed your family, others or yourself so you think that you don’t deserve anything.

Your family and friends will never respect you if you don’t give the impression that you respect yourself.

We all have done bad, every one of us.
Even the most respected people on the Earth have.
We make mistakes and sometimes we act in meanness.
These are all normal human activities and all we need to know and do is correct them and learn to control ourselves better, be more organized with our thoughts and emotions, use them at the right time and not overuse them.

The religious cure for this problem is for you to believe that God will forgive you for whatever sins you have previously done, and from that day onwards you are trying to lead a better life. All you have to do is pray for forgiveness and ask for divine guidance. You must have total faith in Gods guidance.

What I am trying to say to you is to put aside the past mistakes that you have made. It is now time to turn over a new leaf and try again. Learn from those mistakes that you made in the past, don’t dwell on them, just consider them as lessons that you are able to use to your advantage for the future. Forgive yourself and work at being a better person. It takes time to change ones way of thinking, it takes time to organize your thoughts, so don’t punish yourself while you are trying. Just keep trying and you will get what you want.

And have faith, because You are Worthy.

All the best from
James M Sandbrook.
2004.