This post is also available as a podcast here: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/s-p01/episodes/Enough-e2ikdrq

I’ve mentioned it before. My deepest core issue is not feeling “enough.” I know I’m not alone in this. Some people use different words, but the feelings are similar. My story might not be yours, but I will do my best to unpack what “enough” means to me and why it’s such a core issue. Many people are not like me. I’m driven to be the best at everything, all the time. Most of my life I couldn’t fathom putting in partial effort and saying “good enough.” Nothing was ever “good enough.”

I’ve gone through my life feeling unaccepted. Moving a lot contributed to that because I couldn’t develop longstanding friendships. RSD contributed a lot, because any criticism meant failure. Naturally, any amount of failure meant I couldn’t be accepted. I got really good at the mask of perfection. Honestly, that mask further distanced me from people. Why? Because we all have flaws. By projecting my perfection, I isolated myself from others because the flaws show our humanity. The flaws are often the things that draw us closer.

Competition divides us. If someone feels that they aren’t on the same level as you, they aren’t going to want to spend time with you – unless they think doing so will help them advance to or beyond that level. It’s instinctual. If we all want to be our best self, then an opportunity for betterment will draw us in. By projecting perfection, I think people felt like I was expecting that of them. I don’t know, I’m not in their heads. However, people viewed me as someone who wouldn’t understand, someone who couldn’t understand. They didn’t know or understand the pain underneath all that “perfection.”

It comes back to that feeling of conditional love. I felt like I had to be perfect to be worthy of love. I’ve had an immense lack of feeling loved. So much so that when someone shows me a spark of love I am driven to it like a moth to a flame – but my moth is so big that it engulfs and kills the light. I’m starved for love. I’m working on that. I know I’m starved, but I’m like an animal. I have no control; I kill that light in my hunger to find it. I’m cultivating self love, but it’s hard. I’ve never been closer to finding peace in solitude, but I’ve also never felt so lonely.

Let’s unpack the worthiness. What makes us “worthy”? A dictionary describes worthiness as “the quality of being good enough; suitability.” or “The quality of deserving attention or respect.” Do we truly have to earn it? Yes, and no. The second we have expectations, we set ourselves up for failure. As soon as the word “deserve” enters into it, I feel like there’s too much pressure. We are “good enough” just by doing our best to be “good enough.” When people give up on being good, then perhaps – for that moment – they aren’t “good enough.” But, that isn’t a lifelong damning of their worthiness.

I don’t give up on people. I’ve had to accept that people can’t be changed, but that doesn’t mean I think they’re inherently unworthy. It sometimes means I can’t subject myself to the pain they cause me. I still hope they heal. I hope that I will heal. I also work to heal. I fail. Even in my attempts to be my best, I cannot be perfect. Neither can you. The intention matters. “Failing” because we give up feels particularly awful, but giving up isn’t damning. Sometimes life is asking too much of us. As I write this (which is always far from posting), life is asking too much of me. I suspect that is true for many at this time. We aren’t alone. It doesn’t make our work any easier, but it’s comforting to know that we aren’t broken for reaching our (human) limits.

Having limits is human. That doesn’t change our “worthiness,” if anything it prescribes a worthiness within us. We cannot be everything to everyone and make everything perfect – because we’re human. We can do our best, but part of our best is realizing our limitations. Accepting that our best is the best we can do. Perfect is unattainable. Most importantly, we still deserve love and support when we aren’t our best. Love is not conditional. When it feels conditional, it’s not love. It can be appreciation, or a mutual benefit relationship, but it’s not love. Love is amazing because it is not conditional. Worrying about being “good enough” for that love doesn’t serve us, it just separates us. We need the community of love in our lives, don’t ever cast yourself out.

My story this week is about a time I wasn’t perfect, but I was loved.

I don’t know how I would be without my adult friends. I spent so much of my childhood without good friends. I also spent so much of my childhood hiding my flaws. I think those things go hand-in-hand, but I didn’t learn that until my 30s. I told my stories, I’ve always been open, but I didn’t share my weaknesses.

I’m vomit phobic. Like, full panic attack level. Lost friends in college because of it. Why? They didn’t know and I hadn’t tried to manage the phobia, just hide from it. So, when they told me stories that involved vomit, I freaked out on them. When I was invited to parties I either used school as an excuse not to go, or I spent the entire party on high-alert and found a reason to leave early. I think this made me seem like a very high-stress person – everyone that knows me still thinks I’m a high-stress person, so maybe it just elucidated that.

When I was younger, people would pressure me to “fix” it. “No one likes vomit.” Like, my extreme reaction wasn’t a phobia, but just the same as everyone else – so why was I making such a big deal out of it? Get over it, S. All that did was make me try to hide it. It made me avoid social circumstances, and get overly paranoid.

When I got older, people started saying “Oh, that sucks. I have a _____ phobia.” We bonded in our “weakness.” We connected over something with which we both struggled. Y’know what? It wasn’t until that point that I started trying to work on my phobia. I’m a mom, so a very proud parent moment was catching my child’s vomit in my hands without having a panic attack. I would not like to ever experience their vomit again, but I did and I didn’t lose it. I once saw that on a “mom test” and hoped it was an exaggeration: it wasn’t. The hands are actually a very effective catching mechanism, as it turns out. My love for my child is greater than my fear in my phobia, and I think that is an example which shows that love is unconditional.

Acceptance, community, and love are the foundation to making us feel “enough.” We have to know we’re “enough” to let those things in and feel them. It comes from us, not from them.

I hope that you find your version of “enough.” Love, -S.