Have you ever felt like you are not enough?
Not pretty enough? Not smart enough? Not good enough?
I know I have and DO all of the time. When something goes wrong in my life - I get into a fight with my friend, I disappoint my husband or I'm not successful in my career adventures -- I look back on the situation and feel things like: I'm not compassionate enough OR I'm not present enough in that moment OR I'm paying enough attention to that OR I'm just not good enough.
This is something that I've been really working on for the past few months because when I feel like I'm not enough, it eats me up inside. I fall apart. And feel like there's nothing I can DO to change the way I'm feeling.
And after a lot of soul searching, reflecting and talking with some gorgeously self-aware women, I've come to a startling realization:
I have been allowing others to define my worthiness.
I'm an overachiever. Type A. A self-proclaimed recovering perfectionist. And for so much of my life, I quantified my achievements as worthiness. I defined what I like to call my "enough-ness" by my attainment of goals and things that are outside of my control.
I would do so many things because I felt like IF I did them, then I would be worthy. And I put all of my identity and my self-worth in this one facet in my life. IF I lost 5 pounds. IF I could run a 5 K. IF I was making a certain amount of money.
IF IF IF IF.
Always focusing on the boxes I felt I needed to check off for my life to LOOK the way I thought it needed to look. On how others would perceive it. Instead of doing and placing focus on the things that LIGHT ME UP inside and make me feel GOOD.
But here's the thing...no one decides you're worthy except YOU.
There's no dictionary definition of what makes a person worthy. No universal boxes that can be checked.
So why do we constantly look outside to feel worthy instead of focusing on our insides. We make the rules. We have the POWER to decide how we measure our enough-ness.
So how do we CHANGE our mindset?
I am no expert in this, but here are some things that I have found super helpful along my journey to Enoughness.
+ What is the Root cause for your feelings of not being enough?
Did a parent tell you that if you didn't get a certain job or live a certain lifestyle that you wouldn't be good enough? Or maybe an ex told you you were "too emotional" and so you equate being good enough in relationships as not showing your true feelings? Or maybe you've been exposed to environments or people that have modeled certain behaviors that have imposed certain beliefs into your life. DIG DEEP. This is not easy and will likely uncover a ton of shit, but it's necessary to understand where all of these feelings stem from before you can actively CHANGE your perspective.
+ Declare that you are WORTHY
You are the one who gets to decide whether you are the worthy, so SAY IT. Will you believe it at first? Hell NO. But if you say it every single day, you will condition yourself to believe it. Write it on a post it. Put it somewhere you can see every day. You may not believe it now, but COMMIT yourself to getting there.
Say something like "I am committed to exploring my worthiness." OR "I am exploring what self-worth looks like." You've gotta start somewhere, am I right?
I can't believe that I lived DECADES of my life thinking that my worthiness was based on what happened to me in my life. I am so grateful that through my Personal Development journey, I have been shown the LIGHT. That it is POSSIBLE to change the way you talk to yourself about being Enough.
The first step? Being Aware.
And guess what? Chances are, if you're still reading this, and if this has resonated with you in some way, you're already done the hardest thing. Acknowledging the possibility that maybe, just maybe, WE can decide what it means to be ENOUGH in this world.
Life is a journey, one that I am definitely far from perfect with, but I think if we all strive to live our lives with JOY and COURAGE, we can find clarity beyond what we ever imagined possible.
This is a small part of my journey, one that I'm still and will always be working on. As always, I'm here for you if you want to chat.
Wishing you all the light & love in the world,
Amanda