Post 6: You Are Not Enough
How many times have you been told this? Maybe you’ve been told this many times throughout your life without even realising it. Maybe there’s a voice inside your head that tells you this all the time. Maybe you’ve been told this a few times by people who you were close to or who you thought loved you. Maybe by your parents. Maybe you’ve never heard these words spoken to you in person but you’ve heard them in other ways, through the media and advertising. We live in a consumerist society that tells you to buy stuff to make you feel happy. Buy this outfit and you will feel more attractive. Buy this car and you will attract the girls.
We watch tv and films that perpetuate this empty feeling that we are not good enough. We compare what we see in this version of reality to our own reality. We see this in the filtered and curated world of social media every day. So why do we feel like we are not enough? Is it just an inherent part of being human that means we are always striving, always looking, always wanting more to fill that void whatever we feel we are lacking compared to what other people have?
Our programming starts early as as soon as we enter this world, this reality. We learn first from our parents as they do their best to teach us what they have learned, their programme. Soon though we question whether we are enough as we are told things like, “well your brother is good at sports why aren’t you” or “be like your sister and be more responsible.” We see our parents as our first “idols” as adults who are supposed to know all the things that as we grow we will need to uncover and learn. And then we enter schools to learn and be programmed even more, that there has to be a winner or loser that some one is better than you, more intelligent. In this environment it’s fight or flight as we try to comprehend this external reality and how it celebrates success through achievement and trophies and certificates or pieces of paper that represent your worth.
And so on it goes through tertiary education, the work place the things we attach our identity to in order to feel worthy and accepted in society. Societal pressure to be like this, do this, achieve this, a low level of anxiety a voice inside the head saying am I really enough just as I am, but I don’t own a home, I never made it through that university, I never got married etc. Finding your own inner truth, your voice, not your parents or teachers or mentors or religions voice.It takes a deep internal journey of uncovering who you really are and more importantly who you really want to be and create beyond those voices. I call it your true authentic power. The power to question your programming, who’s voice you’re listening to and why. Know your why then find the way into being.
The truth is you may never be enough in the eyes of your father, your mother, your lover, the world. But it doesn’t matter. Because the truth is that can set you free is knowing you only ever have to be “enough” for yourself. You set the boundaries. Only you can be you. As much as competition is available and in this reality we celebrate it, in essence it’s a game as there has to be a winner and loser. The real competition is with you. To honour and love the sovereign being that you are.