If you have ever said something like this or even thought in this way, you just need to read this article. The feeling of not being loved or living a “life that is not yours” sooner or later leads to chronic dissatisfaction yourself, your surroundings, life itself. How to find the way to your “real self,” learn to “be yourself” and stop playing other people’s roles? We’ll talk about this today. “Nobody loves me,” my clients say. Both singles and those who are in a couple. I will try to speculate about the sensations that arise in a person who feels loved, and in someone who considers himself unwanted. Let's start with the lonely. Loneliness can be chosen or forced. Chosen loneliness - this is when someone wants to be alone not in order to punish someone, but simply at the moment he feels an oversaturation of communication and wants to devote maximum time to himself. Then it is his own independent choice. And it’s great when you can be alone with yourself for a while, and then get out of this loneliness when you have enough of it. There is forced loneliness, when due to certain circumstances or restrictions you are left alone. Constantly or occasionally. For example, someone left you, someone left this life, your children grew up and left, your friend stopped communicating, your husband at some point chose not you, and now you are left without him. With prolonged forced loneliness, you feel depressed, detached, and resentful. and bitterness. One of my clients has been single for more than 5 years and is in despair because she has never been able to meet “the one.” Another client is widowed and has been missing his wife for several years. My divorced client began to be bullied by her ex-mother-in-law and friends of her ex-husband. As a result, the woman went into isolation from people... “Nobody loves me,” says each of these people. But what about people in couples? Many of them experience a similar problem. You will be surprised, but some of them even have two partners at once: a husband and a lover, for example. And yet they are alone together. “Nobody loves me,” they say. “It’s convenient for the husband, it’s nice for the lover, but the children don’t care”... So it turns out that this is the same “nobody loves” - a person’s cry that he has a need for love that has not been satisfied for a long time. This is how neurosis gradually develops, which is nothing more than a conflict between personal “wants” and the demands of the environment. Can a psychologist help in such a situation? Yes. But precisely one who has already closed his own deficits in therapy and treated traumas. Let’s assume you are in this situation. Or you yourself are a therapist and subscribed to me. How will therapy for such a client develop? Fritz Perls described 5 layers of neurosis: The first level is clichés and roles. These are all: “a man must”, “get married”, “without a partner you are a loser”. The world is objective. Man himself is a function. Not a person. Such people often say: “I didn’t live my own life, I didn’t know how to be myself, I was running somewhere all the time”... Or: “I lived for my husband, I didn’t know myself, I never became what I wanted, I don’t want anyone.” I don’t need it, I don’t understand how it is to love yourself.” False relationships. We don't want to be ourselves while trying to become someone else. The result is a feeling of dissatisfaction. We are not satisfied with what we are doing, or parents are unhappy with the actions of their child. They believe that one should live as an “ideal self”, and not as a “real self.” 90% of such clients come to the first session. The second level is phobic. Awareness of "fake" behavior and manipulation. But when a clear understanding of the consequences of sincere behavior comes, a person is overcome by fear. He is afraid to be who he is. He fears that society will not accept him this way and will condemn him. At this point, people often realize that they have chosen the wrong partner or the wrong job. The third level is a dead end. A feeling of hopelessness. If a person passes the first two levels, stops playing roles that are unusual for him, refuses to pretend to himself, he begins to experience a feeling of emptiness and non-existence. Getting to the thirdlevel, feels trapped, experiencing a feeling of being lost. This level is often accompanied by divorce, death of loved ones, moving, separation, depression. The fourth level is implosion. Here, through grief and despair, a person comes to understand how much he has limited and suppressed himself. Implosion occurs after a person breaks a deadlock. At this level, fear of death may appear. Sometimes a person even thinks that he is dying. This is an encounter with “finitude,” the experience of death and the experience of loss. A person begins by crying “like a dead person.” For a childhood that will no longer exist. By yourself past. He experiences a feeling of paralysis, numbness and the feeling that something terrible is going to happen in a minute. I've definitely been here. Some of my clients were here too. The fifth level is explosion. Once here, a person achieves an authentic personality, gaining the ability to experience and express his emotions. Explosion is a deep and intense emotional experience that brings relief and restores emotional balance. There are 4 types of explosion: true grief; orgasm (with sexual blocks); anger; joy. Sounds nice, right? But how many people can take such a risk - to face dead ends or losses? It is much easier to go into “achievement” so as not to feel melancholy and sadness inside. Discovery of the finitude of life, relationships, feelings. A way out of the illusion that the world is unicorns, and the Universe certainly takes care of people. M. Mamardashvili said: “As much as we can grieve, we experience the fullness of life.” Russian fairy tales clearly demonstrate a person's choice. A fairy tale is the transfer of experience from the older generation to the younger. Preparing for adult life. How are fairy tales and therapy similar? Koschey takes a person to the world of the dead and is himself the embodiment of death. Images that are next to him in fairy tales are like layers of neurosis: The chest is a cliché (there are no feelings, there are only rules). Open the chest... The hare is cowardice. Duck is a dead end level. An egg in a duck means the birth of a new one. The needle is the death of neurosis. When it comes to therapy, you can’t “bring the client out of his shell.” It must mature to this stage, like an embryo in an egg. That is why therapy is long-term. It is necessary to literally “grow” the client. Baba Yaga bone leg - death and life in one person. She is like a symbol of the therapist keeping the client alive. Yaga, like the therapist, has three roles: Giver - able to give approval and acceptance to the client. Child abductor - does not support the client’s childish behavior, his infantilism. Warrior - helps the client feel powerful. A person's maturation is supported by the mother and continues in the therapy room. It breaks through in response to a willingness to receive help. If you are now in a dead end, hopelessness and the state of “I don’t live, but exist,” “no one has ever loved me,” “a loving relationship is not available to me,” try to help yourself. After all, the ability to self-help is a quality of a mature personality. So, exercise. Think about how you felt the love of another in the past? Through a kind glance? Grandma's pies? Mom's hug? Games with dad? Sex with your loved one? Close your eyes and imagine the person who really loved you. Feel the connection with him (at the level of the heart, hands, uterus). Hear him say: “I love you.” Imagine another person who definitely loved you, and you felt it... Now put people around you in a circle who loved and love you. Feel connected to them. Perhaps someone is already far away from you, but the feeling of his love is still with you. Soak up this love. How do you feel now? Have you managed to be filled with true love? Have new vitality and self-confidence appeared? Do this exercise every time in moments of dead ends and apathy. But, of course, this method is just a “band-aid on the wound” a kind of “first aid” and the opportunity to temporarily stop experiencing pain and suffocating from loneliness. Healing is a long process. And he will follow the right path only if an experienced person is nearby..