Jim, 32 sat with tears rolling down his face, as he finally was able to acknowledge the truth about his life. “I never felt I had a right to exist, as strange as that sounds. I grew up in a home where I felt I could do nothing right. I tried to fit in and please my parents, but I constantly felt I was disappointing them. Although they said they loved me, they always found ways to let me know that I was falling short in their eyes. I felt I was always fighting for their approval and failing. They are both highly educated and successful in their careers. School never appealed to me. They were into their religion which I rejected but only with great guilt and shame, to reject my parents values is one thing, to reject G-d is another! I tried to discuss my feelings about things, but most of the time they couldn’t hear me. I remembering feeling depressed at a young age and started to feel that my very existence was a source of pain to them. I’ve suffered my whole life feeling I’m wrong for being me. I began to wonder why I was born. Was I born to suffer? “
Perhaps the most serious of all psychological and existential issues is a person’s questioning whether he or she has a right to exist. To some this might sound strange ,yet there are many who live a life doubting their right to be and question their worth as a human being. People who feel this way almost always grow up with consistent, rejection, judgment, and invalidation. People who grow up in such an environment are very likely to wake up every day feeling they must defend their right to exist and their value as a human being. One might think that it should be fairly easy to overcome such a core belief and start believing in oneself once it has been identified.. Unfortunately, for people who suffer with such self-negating beliefs, it can take an incredible amount of work, time, and help to discover and embody a new more affirming way to see oneself and to find the courage to be.
Perhaps the ultimate example of someone who was able to affirm himself in the face of rejection and invalidation was Abraham. Our tradition tells us that “Abraham stood on one side of the world while the rest of the world stood against him.” He was alone in the world; a world that rejected everything he stood for. Even his own family disowned him. Abraham surely could have given up, and felt he was wrong and shouldn’t exist, but he found the inner strength and courage to maintain his lonely stand and affirm his right to exist in spite of all the annihilating voices around him
No matter what emotional battles or trauma we’ve been through, no matter how much we feel the people who should have loved us did not, we must never give up. We must never give in to their invalidation and lose ourselves.
The ultimate source of affirmation and validation for anyone who feels that he does not have the right to exist is the knowledge that the Creator of the universe affirms our existence. How does one tap into this source of ultimate affirmation and validation? Every morning when a Jew wakes up she says, “thank you for giving me life again today. Great is your belief in me.” The very fact that we are alive is proof that the Creator wants and desires our existence. The fact of our existence means that in the eyes of the Eternal we have value and absolute worth. Our every breath attests to and validates our being.
No matter what, we must never stop believing in our right to exist. We must never let ourselves bow to the invalidation of others and become self-doubting. We must never forget that each of us is unique and exists to fulfill a special purpose that belongs us alone. Each of us has a unique destiny to claim and a special story to write.