I Am Enough

I am enough. This resonates so deeply with me. I also know that it hits home for a lot of women. I’ve shared in other posts about who I am and how it has led to what I do. I’ve been married for 27 years (in a couple of weeks), we’ve raised 3 boys. I’m also a daughter, sister, aunt, friend, healer, educator, leader, co-worker, community member. All of the things. I have spent years trying to ‘fix’ myself, trying to find the magic bullet that would help me to feel better about myself. To have the confidence to be myself. To know that I am successful enough, pretty enough, skinny enough, fit enough, smart enough, kind enough. To know that I AM ENOUGH.

As I was thinking about how to tackle this topic for this post I saw a Facebook post by the page called The Law Of Attraction: You are enough. You are good enough. You are beautiful enough. You are kind enough. You are brave enough. You are enough and always will be. As I read that I felt validated in this thought and knowing that we all have this need to believe in ourselves.

I know you’ve been there. You have felt like you don’t measure up to your own or someone else's expectations. Add to that the comparison game that we all play, especially with social media, and it is easy to call ourselves into question. To wonder if we are achieving success or doing as well as others. First of all, let’s remember the perception created on social media often isn’t even close to reality. But most importantly, let’s remember that we each have our unique path to follow. Our own skill sets, our own strengths, and our unique values to offer the world.

So, how do you move past that feeling - that limiting belief - that roadblock to your own success and happiness? A really good place to start is self-awareness. Self-awareness is the key to recognizing your own worth and your own capabilities. It allows you to understand your thoughts, feelings, and behaviors so that you can identify your potential areas for growth and work on developing a more positive self-image. It is about giving yourself grace, allowing yourself to make mistakes and learn from them instead of beating yourself up for not being perfect.

Let’s start with just creating awareness. Having honest conversations with ourselves about the reality of a situation. Journaling or free writing might make this easier but a conversation by yourself while you are commuting to work or taking a walk will work too. Start by asking yourself questions. What am I unhappy with? Why am I unhappy with that? Am I unhappy because I’m not reaching my potential or because someone else set an expectation for me and I took that on - or maybe I created an expectation that no longer serves me? Is this still something that I want? No? Awesome - what do I want? Yes? Cool - what are the realistic actions that I need to take to work towards that?

Once you work through those questions, and I mean dig deep - this isn’t a 2 minute conversation, this is taking the time to really get to the core of what and why - then take the time to reflect, to decide if it’s time to pivot into something else or just make some minor changes to keep on the right path. Whichever the case, give yourself grace. Learn from your mistakes and make sure that you are talking to yourself using positive language. Start complimenting yourself for what you have done, successful or not, you tried, you put in the effort, you learned, and then you persisted. Create positive momentum. Because you are enough.

Use affirmations to help support you in this work. Find one or two that resonate with you - it’s ok if they feel like they are a little bit of a stretch, that’s something to grow into. Say them out loud every day. Make it a habit along with brushing your teeth or doing your hair or driving to work. Wherever it fits for you. Here are a couple of ideas:

• I am enough.

• I am worthy of love and respect.

• I deserve to be (fill in the blank).

Over the next couple of weeks we’re going to work on making this shift. In the meantime, I am doing a Self-Care Sunday each week live on Facebook. I’ll announce the time that I will go live and we will spend 10-20 minutes getting ourselves in the mindset to tackle the week. Guess what we’re going to do this week? You got it - we’re going to talk about how to approach this conversation and then I’ll lead a guided meditation to support it. I hope that you can make it!! https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100086901287299

All the best,