Enough!

“I will stop judging myself to be not enough.”

There was a time, not very long ago, where I found myself trapped in a constant state of “not enough”. I felt I wasn’t pretty/skinny/educated/rich/savvy/talented enough. I felt like “less than”. I compared myself to others waaay to often. “I’m not as fabulous as she is. I wish my relationship was like theirs. I wish I had as much money as she does. She’s prettier than me. Her hair is so much longer than mine.….” It was never ending.

I think I’d started using other people as a mirror or a key to what I thought I should be when I was in middle school. I was always the younger girl who had skipped two grades, trying desperately to balance fitting in with being myself. It continued (and probably got worse) in high school and right on through college. I was in a constant state of metamorphosis, trying to create in myself what I saw in others or what I thought people wanted me to be. And I carried that mess into adulthood—even spilling over into relationships! I can’t count the number of times I thought or said, “Well, I’m sorry but I can’t. I just don’t have the capacity.” UGH! Such limiting words, “can’t” and “don’t”. I was setting myself up for failure without even realizing it. I made everything in my relationships about me and everything in my life about my lack.

What I have discovered though, in the past couple of years, is that I am enough. I had to be broken down and stripped of everything I thought was important. I had to lose and lose and lose and lose in order to make a decision that I didn’t intend to live life as a loser. It was time to figure out who I was, what I wanted, and how I was going to get it. The days of comparing myself to others were over because I realized they weren’t going through my struggle and I hadn’t gone through theirs. I realized that I am completely unique. My thoughts/words/talents/hair/legs/arms/life lessons are all uniquely mine. No one can have more of them or be better at them than me--just as I can’t be successful at trying to be like anyone else. What I know now—through continuous prayer, meditation, yoga, reading, exercising and writing—is that I am enough! I am pretty/intelligent/talented/financially secure/funny/fabulous enough! Just enough. I am the perfect me and that IS enough. It’s enough for me and enough for anybody who dares to love me.

My life and my journey are not about what anybody else says/thinks/feels about me. I get to choose: how hard I work, how far I stretch, how often I push; I get to choose success over fear of inadequacy. I get to choose peace in my heart over judgment of my situation. I get to be true to myself every day all day, and to act on what I believe to be true about myself. Nobody else’s opinion really matters. All that exists is what I see in me.