Deciding You're Good Enough

​​It can be incredibly easy to get caught up in comparison, especially with social media. I see many posts people sharing they are living their best life and doing amazing things with beautiful photos. I've shared mine too. These things are awesome, however sometimes we don’t also see the full story. We compare to the highlight real and can begin to question and doubt ourself.

I definitely remember a time in my life of not believing in myself and remnants of that can still creep up if I am not aware. What I have learned, is that I do not have to bend and twist myself to fit an arbitrary mold. I do not have to be smarter or prettier, less sensitive or more capable than I already am. 

I am gifted and I matter, and so do you. We all have our unique gifts and talents. 

We celebrate the people doing extraordinary things– changing the world in big ways (and rightly so!). We put people on pedestals and hold them up as examples of what might be. As a result, some of us live with intense shame that we will never measure up and maybe we don’t even want to!

Self-awareness can create self-compassion and it finally occurred to me that I could choose to embrace myself as enough. I could shake off the shackles of comparison, shame, and perfectionism and refuse to hold myself up to an impossible standard. I decided in all of my imperfections I am enough.

Still, it’s a daily, conscious choice to love all my beautiful and cracked bits. To do the work to heal, to not get caught up in the comparison game, to let go of feeling the need to be “perfect” and being all together, all the time. So freeing.

​Deciding I am enough makes space for me to do step out and offer my gifts so that I can do the work I feel called to. Deciding I am enough allows me to show up with curiosity and joy and step fully present into my imperfect and beautiful life. 

Finally deciding I am good enough means instead of hiding, I take personal responsibility and use my words and life to help build the world I want to live in. I can impact the world in my own way with my own gifts.

Because millions of ordinary people intent on building and creating, small step by small step, will undoubtedly change and impact the world.

When I feel fear or the unworthiness or stories of not being good enough surface again – I remind myself that I am rooted in the truth that I do not have to pay rent for the space I take up in this world. I have nothing to prove.

And what happens is that this freedom to just be me permits me to freely give. This freedom creates space for joyful possibility. This freedom makes me determined to reach out my hand and lift up as many other weary people as I am able and make a safe space for them to realize they deserve to be here too.

I use my gifts to impact the world. I want you to use your gifts too.

If we struggle or fall, if people don’t like what we offer, if sometimes we run right back to hide out under the covers for a little while, this does not disqualify us from life. If we take two steps forward and another one back, and we cannot always see how we make any difference at all, still we offer up our voices or ask for help…. but we do not quit.

Maybe it is in being real and imperfect and showing up anyways that we offer hope and encouragement to each other and this is, perhaps, one of the most extravagant gifts of all. 

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