Do you ever feel that you didn’t get enough attention as a child? Or maybe you got attention, but it was a negative kind, in which people pointed out your faults and failings, but didn’t appreciate the unique and positive qualities you have.

You’re not alone. Many people feel this way, and they carry these feelings of lack and failure into adulthood. When you continually feel that something is “wrong” with you, that you are underappreciated, that somehow you “don’t have what it takes,” it can be debilitating.

You can function you can do—more or less—what you need to do on a daily basis, but things feel much harder than they should.

And as time passes, there are always new circumstances, new challenges.

If that small voice is constantly telling you that you are lacking, then that sense of failure, sadness, frustration will remain.

But there is another way to live, even if you didn’t get the attention, the positive affirmation of your being when you were small.

You can use the challenges you now face as a door. Whatever is happening to you now is serving some kind of purpose. You may not be able to change it all at once, but you can make more space for it.

And how can you make more space? By allowing whatever is happening, and by giving yourself positive attention. Instead of criticizing yourself, and criticizing a difficult situation you may find yourself in, accommodate what is happening.

You can grow from the challenges as long as you become more open. Now is the time to give yourself positive attention and positive space. Then you will relax into a sense of expansion. Let it all be as it is. Make room for all of it.

The old pattern, the way you respond to a situation, has to be changed for something new to emerge. You can’t change the past; but now, in this moment, you can change your reaction to whatever happened then—and you can accept yourself now.

Give yourself the positive attention you need. Then you may be surprised at what changes naturally occur.

“The past has no power over the present moment.” –Eckhart Tolle

“If you can change your mind, you can change your life.”—William James