Secure attachment goes a long way too.
In an ideal life, in the first few years of life we are emotionally supported by empathic, responsive, non manipulative caregivers. We are facilitated to have an experiential baseline sense of ourselves and our intrinsic value. We take off from that runway into a life of independence, creativity, and personal power.
But you know. This is Earth. Things go left.
We end up with a confused sense that something is wrong. We need something but we’re not sure what.
We seek out healing experiences and resources. And we end up making some f***ing heroic efforts. Some help, others not so much.