“I’m Not Good Enough.”

I’ve been feeling it lately.

The fear of not being good enough.

And I’ve realized it’s a belief that I picked up a long time ago and with good intentions.

Being raised in a pretty strict religion, there was a lot of emphasis on “choosing the right” and being righteous. Making God happy by making good choices and avoiding sin.  The righteous receive blessings and the wicked are punished.

My brain absorbed those thought like a sponge and what I interpreted all of that to mean was that for God to love me, I needed to be my absolute best.  The goal was perfection.  Anything less was failure.

Sure I’d mess up occasionally, but the focus was on the least amount of mistakes possible.  Always striving for better.  More loving, thankful, generous, giving, and patient. Always striving to be more.

But here’s the catch, I’m not perfect. 

I mess up. I lose my shit some days. I believe the worst about others sometimes. I’m not always loving and patient and sweet with my kids. I misjudge situations, take things personally, and miscommunicate.  

And when I’m not perfect, the first thing that comes up for me is shame. And from there, I usually want to blame.  To try and run away from the fact that I’m human and imperfect by blaming others for my feelings and actions.

Where this gets me though is even more disconnection.

The disconnection that started with abandoning myself from the shame that I’m imperfect, then morphs into disconnection from others as I blame them for my actions.

It’s a lose-lose for everyone, but as long as my goal is perfection, the cycle continues.

I use to live perpetually in this cycle, especially when I was married.  My life was a constant struggle and striving to be better and less “me.” 

But you can’t run away from you.

Coaching is what brought me back to myself. 

Learning that FEELING is just part of being a human being, and that I can FEEL anything. 

Jealousy, fear, sadness, and confusion. Nothing has gone wrong when these feelings are present. They are just part of living a human life.

And when I allow myself to be fully human and allow these emotions, I stop resisting and reacting to them. 

Then when I’m “imperfect,” I stay with myself instead of running away into shame and blame.

This practice is what has changed everything for me and makes the biggest difference in my client’s lives.

They learn that you don’t have to be “perfect” to be “good enough.” You are “good enough” just as you are.

Imperfections are built into the very fabric of being a human. And when we embrace the fact that we will fail, and mess up, and fall down, we let go of the shame and blame and can feel more connected to ourselves and all the other imperfect humans around us.

The Duality of Life

Lately I’ve been experiencing the duality of life – Love and loss, full and empty, open and closed, summer and winter, birth and death. 

All around us there are opposites that complete the other half of an experience.

This natural order to things can feel foreign to me at times. 

Part of me wants all love and no loss.  All summer and no winter.  All birth and no death.

Why do we fear these other sides?

We seem to have lost the ability to see the darker colors in life, and still find them beautiful. 

We run from the parts of ourselves that are afraid, and soft, and vulnerable.  We look in those inner rooms of ourselves, pronounce them unattractive, and shut the doors tight.

But these are the places that make us human. 

These are the places asking for witnessing and openness rather than shunning and abhorrence.

Everything dies one day.  Nothing lives forever.

It is in the embracing of your vulnerable parts – the fear of loss, the longing to be seen and loved, the ache of seeking validation that you are enough – that you become whole and stop running from your humanness.

Then you become round and full.  Able to hold the dark with the light, the sunrises and the sunsets, the inhalations and the exhalations, the births and the deaths.

The answer is not to run away and escape, but to stay, open your eyes wide, breathe deep, and allow all of it to be what it is.

Light and dark. Soft and hard. High and low.

Human.