3 Steps to Feeling Good Enough.
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By Lara Maurino.
I received an email recently from a friend who also happens to be a very successful speaker and coach in the realm of women’s spirituality and growth.
The email was announcing ticket sales for her upcoming event with other successful female speakers and coaches who work to promote women’s wisdom and empowerment.
Despite the very positive message of the email and the event, my first reaction was, “Ugh, I’m not good enough.”
The irony that this thought came on the heels of my own workshop, in which I work with women to remember their power and wisdom, did not elude me. In fact, it only made it worse. I felt like a fraud. Who was I to think I can help others step into their power when a simple email zapped my confidence?
I was judging myself. I was snowballing into self-criticism. Recognizing these old bad habits, I decided to coach myself — the way I would with a client — to remember that I am enough.
When we forget an aspect of ourselves, it is as though a part of us has gone missing. Therefore, to remember that we are enough simply means to feel whole again. Part of healing, then, is to reconnect with the forgotten part of yourself. There are many ways to do this. I use the following three-step process:
1. Tell the truth. The truth is your feelings about a given situation. In this case, I was feeling inadequate. I felt so much less successful than the women at this event. Another part of me felt excluded. Here is a group of amazing women, who are in the same line of work as me, all working together to create a fabulous event in New York City. I felt like I was on the outside looking in.
2. Stay neutral. Feelings are not always rational. That’s why they’re called emotions, not logic. I knew logically that I wasn’t being excluded. I don’t work with these women nor do I even know most of them! I also knew logically that I am successful in my own way. But at that moment, I was feeling not good and left out. If I were to immediately judge how unfounded my feelings were, I would be invalidating my truth — I’m sad, I feel inadequate.
Whether our feelings make sense or not, it is important to allow them to be without criticism. Staying neutral and allowing emotions to pass as they arise is a form of self-nurturance. If we judge ourselves — I shouldn’t feel this way or I’m being too sensitive, we inhibit the flow of emotions, which can create barriers to feeling good again.
3. Take responsibility for your choices. As I acknowledged my feelings and observed them passing, I began to think about what I do with my free time. What could I take responsibility for doing when I’m not being “successful,” as my mind was having me think?
When I’m not practicing therapy or giving workshops, I’m sharing my time with friends and family. I’m trying out new recipes and writing in my local coffee shop. I’m falling more and more in love with my boyfriend and looking up pictures of baby animals on Pinterest.
When I came to this last thought, I literally laughed at loud at myself. These things may not rate high on the typical success chart, but these are the things that bring me joy.
Remembering this, I was able to take full responsibility for where I am now. While I’m not a part of a large-scale event on women’s wisdom and spirituality, I have made a series of choices in my life that led me to this path — one where I am happy and at peace in my life.
Choosing to trust and follow my intuition to experience joy in my life is not only my definition of wisdom and spirituality, it is my definition of success.
Healing this temporary illusion of being anything less than enough not only felt better for me, it allowed me to feel excited for all the women who are going to experience this exact lesson at the other women’s event.
*****
Lara Maurino is a super-sensitive woman who was once a super-sensitive kid. She spent all of her youth, and half of her adult life, cursing this as a weakness. She masked her sensitivity by pushing past her comfort zones and her boundaries in a way that was very inauthentic to her true nature. This caused her a lot of suffering and created great disconnection in her life. She knew, on a deep level, that this was not how she was born to feel, and made a conscious decision to shift her perception of sensitivity and use it to her advantage. Through many teachers, adventures, and relationships, she began to delve deeply into the process of accepting and creating a healthy relationship with herself. Today she teaches the same modalities, universal truths, and concepts that helped in her practice as a therapist and facilitator of workshops for women.
{More than Enough}
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