YOU WERE ALWAYS GOOD ENOUGH

A common recurring theme amongst clients I see for high anxiety issues is the belief that they are in some way not good enough.

The irony is that very often these people are very much high achievers. They have a long and impressive list of qualifications in their chosen profession and might even have a fairly high powered job. They work incredibly hard, often sacrificing their own happiness to help and care for others.

The problem is that nothing is ever enough to make them feel worthy.
They always feel like they are coming up short.
Every success and hard-earned milestone achieved is quickly discarded for the next target.

So why is this?

If it’s so apparent to all around you how amazing you are, how come you can’t see it?

There can be many reasons for this, but it generally comes back to what we learnt as a child. In some way, the influence of the key figures around us has given us the impression we haven’t quite done enough to deserve the love we crave.

This can very often be because of an emotionally or physically absent parent.
Often we can be left trying to work out why they didn’t love us.
What’s wrong with us?
How do we fix that?

Other times it can be that our parents desperately wanted us to succeed and so would continually drive us to do better and to make sure no avenues or options were ever closed off. They inadvertently taught us that only perfection would be enough to satisfy them.

But whatever it was that had us learning this particular truth it’s important to remember that even the very best parents get things wrong.

Their judgement or treatment of us says nothing about us... it says things about them.
Everything they taught us as we grew up, whether that be by absence, neglect, or pressure was based on their own understanding of life and in no small part their own limitations.

The good news is that we get to become an adult and we get to choose what we regard as true or false. We no longer have to seek the parental stamp of approval before we can feel we are good enough.
It’s not their judgement that counts anymore... it’s our own.

Turns out you were always good enough. You just didn’t realise it.