The funny thing about wanting to stop a feeling, you can't. That's like trying to stop a 300 mph bullet train in its tracks suddenly. Ain't gonna happen unless you have total control over your feelings, which is next to impossible as long as you're alive.

Feelings are part of what makes you human. So what can you do? Are you doomed to feel this way forever? Not necessarily.

Feelings are neither good nor bad. It's only “bad” if it takes over your life or affects you negatively.

The first thing you can do is to stop trying to stop the feeling. 

Whatever you resist will persist. That's life.

Isn't it true that for most things in life, the more you want to stop doing, thinking, or feeling something, the more that “thing” intensifies and you become more obsessed over it?

This is because most feelings are first generated from thought.

Everything starts with a single thought or idea, planted by yourself or by someone else, directly or indirectly, innocently or intentionally.  Then all it takes is for you to become attached and identified with it.  Now you believe it as true as the air you breathe.  In this case, “I can't be loved” is now your new belief system and the story of who you are.

Since your mind doesn't know any better, it believes whatever you tell it by looking for evidence or proof to reinforce it.  All of this happens automatically in your subconsciousness.

As long as it's real in your mind, it's as real as reality.

Years after years, you have plenty of practice feeling unloved and lots of evidence aka stories to back this up.  This is why it's not so simple to say just love yourself or stop feeling this way.  If it was that simple then there wouldn't be so many depressed people in the world.

The best way to “stop” this feeling is to first be aware of these “unloved” thoughts whenever they come up. You can't change what you're not aware of.  They may come in the forms of:

“I'm not good enough.”

“I'm no good/worthless.”

“I will never find love.”

“I'm a bad person.”

“I'm a failure.”

“No one will love me.”

etc...

Most of the time being aware of them is enough for you to detach yourself from the thoughts and therefore stop letting the feelings overwhelm you. You can still feel “sucky” or “bad” temporarily when it happens, but with practice, you can let it pass through you without becoming attached to it.

This takes self-awareness.  The more you are aware of your thoughts and feelings the better you'll be able to catch the train before it leaves the station and run your life unconsciously.

Another thing you can do is trick your mind to work for you instead of against you.

Try rephrasing the question to: How can I start to feel like I can be loved?

It's the same question as above, but with a more positive and proactive tone.  Now your mind has a new mission to focus on: looking for ways to feel loved and evidence that you're lovable.

Here's the caveat:  There are 2 ways you can feel loved: externally and internally.

External love is usually temporary, fleeting, and limited.  If you're not a secure person, seeking external love through outside validation (constantly needing to hear “I love you”), praises (social media's likes), material things, and people (romantic relationships) will never be enough.  It's an endless pit that can never be filled.  You may feel loved as long as you keep receiving them, but once they’re gone, you will feel unloved again, forcing you to search and replace that same high.  Enjoy it when it happens, but don’t look to this as your only source of love and happiness.

Internal love, on the other hand, is limitless and secure because it's self-generated from the inside out.  No one can take it away from you.  Instead of waiting to be a receiver of love and be at its mercy, you are the creator of your own source of love.  No matter what happens externally, you always feel the love within.  You don't love yourself any more or less based on your life's circumstances.

This is what true unconditional love is.  If you think this is impossible, think again.

As babies, we loved ourselves unconditionally.  We didn't care how silly or stupid we looked, we just enjoyed life.  We didn't judge other babies or compare ourselves to them.  We just do our thing, naturally without care.

It's our basic human nature to have unconditional love for ourselves.  It's with time and social conditioning that we learn to feel unloved through all the conditions our parents, culture, and society placed upon us.

Life then, is about unlearning these things and getting back to our core loving nature.  So the irony is, the love we have all been seeking has been inside us all this time, just waiting for us to reclaim and rediscover it.

To reclaim it, start by removing all conditions you think you need to be loved or earn love.

Do you need to be a certain size to love yourself?  Look a certain way?

Make a certain income?  Have a certain job?  Be with a certain person?  Own certain things?

Remember, all conditions are taught and externally focused.  You and you alone have the power to decide how much to let it affect your life, for better or worse.

This is a process, not an overnight fix, but it's not an impossible task.

So practice being aware of your thoughts, feed them the right things and eliminate what's not working:

- No self-judgment, criticism, or comparison.

- Plenty of self-acceptance, understanding, and compassion.

Water daily and watch your self-love grow!