Do you wonder if you’re good enough?

Does the question, “Am I good enough?” drive your actions to:

• Do better at work?
• Be a better friend, father, mother, lover?
• Lose weight, get fitter, run further, swim faster?
• Have a bigger home, better car, more friends on Facebook?
• Earn more money, grow your business, build your career?

That question has driven me for more than five decades and I hear these questions come up again and again with my clients: “How do I prove to myself that I am enough?” and “How do I prove to others that I am enough?”

We don’t often ask these questions explicitly.  Though they might be expressed in the sentiment of, “If I just do this, they’ll see I’m good enough for the promotion or the pay rise” or “If I do that for them, then they will show me that they love me” or “When I lose 5kg, then I’ll feel OK about myself being in my swimsuit this summer”.

It’s an inside job

The pattern and the trap of this is that we are working from the outside in, looking for external validation to feel OK about ourselves.  It just doesn’t work that way.  We might enjoy some reprieve from the anxiety of thinking “I’m not enough”, but it will swiftly return because we are constantly looking for confirmation that we are OK from the outside.  But it is not an outside job.  The job is done from the inside.

This is how it worked for me.

Driven to exasperation by being on this roller coaster of highs (validated) and lows (not validated), I took this to my coaches.  We explored that I had a judgement about myself that I wasn’t good enough.  It doesn’t matter where it came from.  The reality, here and now, is that belief that I picked up along the way and made my own, is driving my thoughts and behaviours.

I Forgive myself

My coaches* asked me, “Are you willing to forgive yourself for judging yourself as not being enough?” and I said I was.  They said, “We invite you to repeat this phrase to yourself, ‘I forgive myself for judging myself as not being enough’.  Slow it down, feel the words, let them in, repeat it over again, for 10-15 minutes if you need to, until you feel a shift.  Do it as many times as you need.”

And so that is what I did.  I took some time and space in my day to be quiet and undisturbed and repeated those words, until I felt the shift.  As I repeated the words, I brought the body of the Lover archetype to the process- softening, opening and loosening in the chest, heart, spine, shoulders and belly.  Releasing the tension and deepening the breathing as I repeated the words again and again.  The words that spontaneously came out of my mouth from Sovereign when I felt that shift and transformation were, “I AM ENOUGH” and I have been saying that phrase to myself daily ever since (OK, I miss a day here and there).

A Second Transformation

That moment happened about a year ago.  And it was not until last month that I noticed a second transformation.  Suddenly, I realised that I was no longer operating from a place of needing to prove myself to myself and to others.  I had begun to know that I am enough and that my actions are born from a joy, curiosity and excitement that leads to creativity, generativity, love and service.

Releasing that judgement of myself has allowed more ease in my body, mind and actions.  I can be more fully myself, which means that the Sovereign archetype is more present and powerful in my thoughts and behaviour.

It is a completely different “come from”.  I do, simply because I am curious to explore, discover and create, not to prove, make a point and get a pat on the back.  If I got a pat on the back in the past, it often felt unwarranted because I did not think I was enough to deserve it.  Now, I can enjoy it with more ease.

Having had that experience, I am using this technique to support my clients in their transformations.  It looks different every time.  And I know when they experience the shift they are on a new road towards freedom, love and greater kindness to themselves and others.

What are you doing so that you know you are enough?

*Thank you to my coaches, Sam Wilde and Lisa Hopper, for sharing this transformative coaching experience with me.