Self Love: I AM ENOUGH

There is this phrase we hear often in our heads “I’m not enough.” Scratch that. That’s not the phrase we hear. We hear: I’m ugly, they don’t like me, he doesn’t like me, he’s better off without me, I don’t deserve…, you need to lose weight, your teeth should be straighter, your hair should be this way, those clothes aren’t right, and the list goes on and on.

All those negative messages we hear from society, from others, from parents, and mostly from ourselves, really come back to the base belief that were are not good enough. Which then stems low self-esteem and self-worth.

Everytime we degrade our looks, our personality, or our character, we are telling ourselves we aren't worth anything or don't have value. We’ve all done it at one point or another. I know it’s haunted me for a long time and majority of that time I didn’t know what I was saying or why I was saying it to myself. All I knew is that I was constantly feeling like I wasn’t enough.

Then when we don’t feel good enough, pretty enough, special enough, we search for it in other people or things. Damaging thoughts swirls: if I just have the right clothes, if this guy treats me like I’m the most special person in the world, if I look like society’s view of pretty, then I'll be worth something. We think those outside factors will complete us, will make us feel whole. But here is the hard reality, NO ONE and NO THING can make you be enough. Instead of looking outward, we need to look inward.

Like I mentioned before, it stems from a damaging core belief that you have little value, little self-worth. Truth is it’s one of the hardest beliefs to rewire. When I say rewire I mean, you’ve convinced your thoughts to believe a certain way your whole life, it’s engrained. In order to stop doing that you have to rewire your thoughts and retrain your brain. That means EVERY TIME those thoughts come up you have to shut them down and instead say: I AM ENOUGH.

Oh, and I’m not sitting here preaching this like I have it fully mastered. I just came across this hard reality about a few years ago when I went through my divorce and was facing some seriously tough issues.

I’ve been working on it, failing at it, and succeeding at it ever since. You are thinking wait, how can you fail and succeed at it? Here’s how. It’s an ongoing, moment by moment, battle to rewire this thought. I’m not there yet, but I am closer than I was a year ago or two years ago.

I constantly still have moments that I believe that I’m not enough. That I need to change the way I look or dress a certain way. But I also have had a lot of successes in this past year. The first one being that I’m aware of this damaging untrue belief. The second one being that I started liking who I am; started being proud of who I was. The third being that many times I was so confident that when other people didn’t like me, I knew that it was their problem not mine.

I’m learning the value of being myself, of loving myself. You should try it, I think you’ll like it. Next time someone (chances are it’ll be yourself) tells you a negative lie, reverse it, change it, tell that voice to shut up. Whatever you need to do to stop believing the negative lies this life has pushed upon you, do it.

Go back to your child like self that loved every part of you. You are still that person. You didn’t change, only your thoughts did. It’s going to take some time and A LOT of grace. You will have to practice it over and over again. But I can tell you, it makes a difference. It lightens my shoulders, brightens my smile, and just allows me to live more freely as me.

Here's to believing I AM ENOUGH. To saying it over and over again until you believe it. Because when you do, your self-esteem will rise, and you will no longer look to others for your value, but find it within.