Do you feel you are good enough? Adequate? Sufficient? Acceptable and loveable as you are?
If you are not feeling enough, you are not alone, however much it may seem the case. It is a common, human issue to feel inadequate or somehow deficient, and to imagine you have gaps or faults for which you need to compensate. I sense we all feel that way from time to time, it is a problem though when it becomes persistent or pervasive.
The difficulty is, however hard you try to get better, be more, be good, give more etc etc, it does not seem to solve the problem. When the standard is a mis-placed sense of perfection, nothing you do or change will ever be enough.
Healing lies in the direction of honest and compassionate looking. When you turn towards yourself and find within the aspects of your being that live in fear of rejection and befriend them and help them heal, then beliefs update, frames of reference change, and you can come to know yourself as the already whole, sufficient person that you really are.
We all have wounds. We all have wrinkles, lumps and bumps psychologically. We are all both inherently human and connected, and yet unique. When you find a way to accept yourself entirely and completely, just as you are, then change is not only possible, it’s inevitable. When you grow and change from a place of adequacy and choice, the results are deeper, wider and longer. It’s not about complacency or believing its OK for things to stay as they are now, it's about accepting where you are starting from and the truth that you are enough, from here change is about choice and possibility, it can be energising and positive.
Here are a few questions which it may be helpful to ask yourself:
What repeating patterns do I hear from my own inner critic?
In what ways do I imagine I am lacking?
What talents and strengths do I have that I have been overlooking?
What do I love most about myself?
How have I developed and grown in the last year?
What would I like to make possible now?
It’s an irony that when you feel it is you that is at fault the way forward lies in becoming yourself more and more completely. Growth is an inside out job. If it’s one that is proving a challenge for you at the moment, why not find a trusted psychotherapist to travel the next steps of your journey with you?
