Enough

I recently added these two words to my wall.

If you are familiar with Brené Brown, you’ll recognize their significance. If you’re not, well, I recommend becoming familiar with Brené Brown. I’ve wanted to write these on my wall since moving into my own place last summer. Finally, thanks to an amazing woman whom I met when we shared the stage at Female Storytellers a few months ago, my vision has become reality.

They seem like simple enough words. For me they carry so much significance. I have spent most of my life feeling like I was never enough: not a good enough parent, not successful enough, not smart enough, not talented enough, not disciplined enough, not strong enough… The list could go on. Sadly, this mindset overrode even my strengths, robbing me of my self-worth. No matter what I did, no matter how well I did, I heard a voice inside telling me that it wasn’t enough, that I had failed. And if I had failed, then I was a failure.

That voice inside my head was, at times, reinforced by outside voices. My dad, as much as I love him, did not freely bestow affirmation. My former spouse, for all her positive qualities, at times reinforced this message. It became a tape that played in my mind all too often, robbing me of life, of joy, of self-acceptance, of the ability to take risks. When you feel like you are not enough, you’re unlikely to step out and try something that you don’t feel confident at. Heck, even when you are fairly confident that you can successfully do something, you mentally focus on the ways in which you didn’t do it well enough.

One of the reasons I left Christianity was that this mentality enslaved me. I spent my life trying to be good enough for god. My inherent worth as a child of god was entirely overshadowed and destroyed by the sinfulness of my human nature. Sure, god would save me because god loved me, but would do so despite my being a miserable wretch. (Amazing grace, how sweet the sound, that saved a wretch like me…) I would strive to let Jesus transform me. I sought to live a good life, to respond to god’s love with love. I went halfway around the world in service to god’s kingdom. But it was never enough. I could never measure up. I felt the painful awareness of this all the time. I imagine some readers might be thinking about now, “Doesn’t she understand grace?” Sure I do. Grace is a lovely concept, but underlying grace is the idea that I am fundamentally inadequate, unworthy, not enough. That god in grace might choose to overlook that, didn’t change the fundamental idea that I was all those things. It was an unhealthy, destructive theology.

I’ve been working on breaking this thought pattern, on discarding that old tape in my brain. (I’m showing my age here a bit.) It’s hard to change a mindset established and reinforced over so many years. I have made amazing changes in my life. I have found empowerment, life, joy, fullness, and happiness that I had never dreamed of. I have built my confidence. I have recognized my self-worth. But when I encounter failure, when things aren’t going the way I want them to, when they don’t work out quite right, that old message is right there, ready to repeat itself. Just recently it started playing as I worked through some parenting issues that had arisen, leaving me feeling once again that I wasn’t a good enough parent, that I had failed, that I am a failure. Thankfully, I was able to share my feelings with a good friend, who listened thoughtfully, passed me tissues to dry my tears, and gently but firmly reminded me of the truth: I am enough. I don’t have to prove myself. I am enough. I don’t have to earn my self-worth. I am inherently worthy.  

You may not relate to this internal struggle. You may possess enormous amounts of self-confidence and self-assurance. If so, I envy you. But I suspect I’m not alone in this battle to affirm that I am enough. We live in a culture that regularly assaults our sense of adequacy. How often do we see articles on social media or in magazines or elsewhere telling us how we just need to do X to be better parents, lovers, friends, to be more successful in our careers, in our relationships…the list could go on for a long time. Those are all messages of inadequacy; subtle, or not so subtle, reminders that we’re not really enough. They slowly but steadily erode our sense of self-worth. They are lies.

I’m not saying I don’t have room for growth and improvement. I do, and I’m actively working on areas that matter to me. But I don’t want to do it from a sense of not being good enough. My inherent value remains whether I get that new job, nail that interview, bake that perfect cake, create a Pinterest-worthy living room, write that perfect blog post(!), find that perfect someone, raise the ideal child. My worth is not measured by how well I achieve some arbitrary standard foisted on me by others. My adequacy is not based upon my ability to measure up to some ideal. I am worthy and I am enough because I exist, because I am a woman, because I am alive.

I hung these two prints on my wall such that they are the last things I see before going to sleep at night, and the first things I see when I wake in the morning. I want to emblazon them on my mind as constant reminders of the truth that defines me, rather than the lies that have controlled me for so long. I am worthy. I am enough.