This is What I do When “I Don’t Feel Good Enough”
True stories about the pains and struggles I had and what I did about them
This thought in my head of “I don’t feel good enough” which makes me feel less than anyone else, started happening to me in middle school very frequently.
I started noticing I was not able to fulfill other people’s expectations and what is considered normal in our culture. I started feeling “not good enough” every time I compared myself with others who did something much better than me, according to what I heard or googled was “normal.”
This even grew into adulthood so I wanted to write about 3 simple ways to deal with the thought of “I’m not good enough.”
Pause and Feel all the Feelings
One thing that has helped a lot has been to simply pause, feel the emotion (such as sadness) and cry or let myself express the emotion in whatever way it comes out.
Also, perhaps, practice feeling the emotion (for example, for me it’s frustration) that comes from not being able to do some things to match any unrealistic expectations you have. We are not perfect after all.
From my experience, every time I paused and felt the feelings, I was able to eventually live more joyfully, appreciating my blessings and those amazing people who love me so well and eventually noticed being able to be more present, one moment at a time (and this last thing is easier said than done for me as someone who likes to plan for a lot of things ahead of time).
Process and Understand your Feelings
The next thing that has helped me has been to process my feelings and thoughts through talking to myself, a trusted person (for me, these have been people who listen, see me the way God sees me and encourage me) or also through journaling. This has helped me to recognize what type of situations trigger me to feel “not good enough.”
At times, I needed to process with a professional therapist to get to the root of things. No matter how much experience I have working as a therapist, I have gained a lot of insight from receiving insight from my personal therapists.
