When Your 'Enough' is Not Good Enough

The age-old questions of self-love!
How come I feel like I’m never enough?
How can I love myself?
How can I love myself… more?
Jump ahead to 10 Steps to Becoming Enough for You (click)
Recently, I flicked over a journal entry from a year ago. Life was pretty sweet then, nothing to complain about. I was making moves to start my own business and covid had given me a nice hiatus at home. Outwardly, happy and humble.
But that’s nothing to suggest of what can be going on inside our minds and hearts. It may be fleeting – the self-doubt popping in for an hour or a day to wreak havoc – or it can be a fixated tumour that won’t leave our perception of self no matter how hard we try. Layered in the trifle, no matter how much ‘work’ we do on ourselves, there’s still those spots which are too dry or have too much jelly and not enough custard. The balance is out and it’s not pleasing for the palette.
Mirror Mirror
I share this snippet with you today as I feel it’s important to show the vulnerability and insanity we can ALL feel at times. To remove any illusion that so and so always has their shit together. I promise you, so and so doesn’t!
This was prompted by a course I was taking with the outstanding Alicia Power, where I was to write on a trigger sentence about not being able to feel my heart due to the overwhelm of life. I’m sure a condition many can align with at this current point in time.
So here goes…
When this happens, I lose strength. Sanity omits itself from my consciousness and I become a manic mess.
When this occurs, I cannot see myself in my truest union with soul. It is like I have abandoned ship and for that moment in time, I feel like the world around me has fallen away and I stand alone on an island of hatred – self-hatred.
I cannot honestly move. My heart holds me silenced and still, and I feel judged by myself. THAT I AM NOT GOOD ENOUGH.
That I quibble about the smallest things and still cannot open the door to my own heart to find the harmony. That I shelter under the pretence of faith yet do nothing of the sort to relieve my pain. I do not hold myself in good esteem. I walk only to the depths of the shallowest waters and then retreat from feeling what is truly at play.
The power my heart has over my soul is vast BUT I DO NOT LET IT LEAD ME. I STRUGGLE TO CONNECT AND FEEL THE POWER REFLECTED UPON ME AND I DISCERN POORLY.
The Epidemic of Not Good Enough
The not good enough epidemic is non-selective. It touches all ages, genders, shapes, and sizes. For those touched with a case of the not good enoughs, there is no mask big enough to cover up your pain and self-criticism. You can hide from others to an extent, but when the mask comes off in the privacy of your own homes, please know there are hordes of people across the world feeling equally lost, equally depleted, equally dissatisfied.
Over 970 million people globally are affected by mental health or substance use disorders, approximately 1 in 5 Australian and US citizens. Look around… every fifth person you walk by is feeling far less than satisfied with life.