You Are Good Enough

A few months ago my husband and I had a big blow-out that culminated in me scream-sobbing, "I'm not good enough!" over and over. It came out of nowhere and had nothing to do with the argument we were having (about, ahem, housework) except that it had everything to do with WHY we were fighting. That part of me that doesn't believe I'm good enough was severely triggered, yet I was ignoring it, until it came roaring out, quite literally.

A lot has happened since then, but I feel the need to reflect on it for a moment, because it's being triggered again in a smaller way, and I'd like to address it before it gets out of hand.

Where does this feeling come from? I've explored that, and I think it's a combination of childhood experiences mixed with the basic human condition. I think that many people (all people?) harbor this belief, consciously or subconsciously, to some degree. None of us had perfect childhoods, because no human is perfect. But regardless of where it comes from, what are we to do about it?

How about this- get acquainted with your belief. Today, what alerted me was this feeling of exhaustion. Just feeling drained of joy and enthusiasm for life, despite the fact that it was a beautiful day I was spending time with good friends. I looked inward and asked myself— what is going on? And I became aware of this feeling— not good enough.

Turns out my inner critic had been cataloguing all my failures over the past 24 hours without me even noticing. Things like- you’re lazy. You're not being attentive enough. The dinner you made tasted terrible. You're a bad mother.

This is crazy, because I should have just been enjoying the fact that I had friends who were taking it upon themselves to help me out with the kids. I’m often not a s vigilant with my kids as I think I “should” be. I let them climb on things by themselves, when other mothers would hover. I allow them to make messes instead of stopping them. The positive way to view this would be to say that I'm laid back. The fact is that I’m exhausted. And part of the reason I’m so exhausted, I’m beginning to realize, is that I’m always under attack by these negative thoughts.

So today, I just gave myself some space, created a little distance between myself and that belief. I don’t know how to banish it, or if that is even possible. Right now I’m just hoping we can be friends. Maybe the kind of friends that outgrow each other, drift apart and go their own ways.

Part of me knows that I AM good enough, but I’m not sure how to put that part of myself in the driver’s seat more of the time. So for now I just said, “Oh hello inner critic. I see you. Yup. There you are.”

That’s all. I felt a little better. And that was enough.

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