How do i convince myself I'm worthy of being treated well?
You don’t convince yourself, that’s the first understanding. Worthiness is not a belief you successfully argue yourself into. It is not a mindset you master or a mantra you repeat until your nervous system complies. The very question “How do I convince myself I’m worthy?” already reveals the wound: somewhere along the way, being treated well became something you felt you had to earn, prove, or justify. So, you don’t convince yourself you are worthy, you unlearn the stories you believed in that made you believe you were not.
We learn this story early on, when love is inconsistent. Worthiness questions are not rooted in what is wrong with you, but in what happened to you that made you believe that. When care is conditional. When attunement arrives only after achievement, pleasing, shrinking, or performing. The psyche adapts beautifully—and tragically—by concluding: If I were more worthy, this person would treat me better. So we try to become worthy instead of questioning the bargain.
But worthiness is not the problem. Safety is.
Being treated well is not a reward for good behavior; it is a baseline requirement for relational health. You do not need to convince yourself of this truth—you need experiences that slowly, patiently contradict the lie that mistreatment is normal or deserved.
The deeper work is this: noticing where you override your own signals for safety. Where your body tenses but you stay. Where something feels off but you explain it away. Where you accept scraps because asking for nourishment feels dangerous. These moments are not failures of self-worth; they are echoes of survival.
So the inquiry becomes gentler and more honest:
What taught me that I had to tolerate less than care?
Who benefited from my doubt?
What would change if I trusted my discomfort as wisdom rather than weakness?
Self-worth grows not through self-convincing, but through self-allegiance. Through choosing, again and again, to listen to what hurts. Through letting your “no” be sacred even when it costs you belonging. Through allowing your standards to rise not out of entitlement, but out of reverence for your life. You are worthy of being treated well because you are here. Because you feel. Because you are vulnerable to impact. Because you are not an object to be endured, but a being meant to be met.
— Paula Santos, LP
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