‘Not Good Enough’…
I have only recently been able to recognize that I AM good enough for the world. To be sure, I still have a problem remembering this (because I’ve spent about thirty years telling myself the exact opposite thing), but I KNOW it to be true. I can say with complete honesty that the real reason I’ve been so trapped in emotional pain is that I’ve thought over and over, a million times a minute, “the problem is ME”. And I see now – fully understand now – that problems have many factors: time, place, past events, environment, and involvement of other people.
I used to think that I could prevent new problems, and I failed often at that. My efforts just made the situation worse. Other times, I thought I could fix existing problems. Again, my efforts just made the situation worse. What did both types of solution and failure have in common every single time? The ‘problem’ existed in the minds of other people, not in my own.
I realize now that I’ve been trying to “fix” problems that I don’t actually have. I mean, I truly feel that a problem is just a temporary setback. It’s not the end all, or any definitive moment in time. It’s just a problem. To me, there is always a simple solution: “accept it and work with it”. I see that the other person or people are upset or affected, so I try to reduce that level of upset in order to make the problem go away. But, I don’t feel that there is a true problem at all, because I know I am being genuine and showing my true self to them and I know there’s got to be a way to work with the specific issue and find a solution. I see now that the problem is not with ME as a person, it is with how the other person or people’s emotions and thoughts and understandings of reality are being applied to the situation.
The real problem? There is no room for change or fluidity.
I am constantly changing. I know this. If you’ve read my writing, YOU know this. And so, I am not necessarily going to be the same person I was last week. I am not necessarily going to have the exact same perspective or understanding of the world I had last week. I am always growing. My goal is to find my way into the light – out of the incessant grating words of my mind, away from the clenching pain of my heart, removed from that burning anxiety in my stomach, and free of that quivering uncertainty in my guts.
In my life, this means I must expose the darkness for what it is: distorted thought processing.
Basically, I’m just a fucked up girl trying to find my way to peace. It’s going to take forever, because all I can do is move incrementally, but I see that I can’t get out of pain if I don’t face it. So, I write about what I am thinking and how I am feeling… because that’s the only way I can get it outside of myself.
When there is an external “problem”, though, I am still judged on some past mistake I’ve made or past word I’ve spoken, or just by the person’s definition of me as a person. There is no room for the reality that I’m a different person or the reality that I acknowledged my past error, accepted it, and adjusted for it. All that matters is that I’m ‘the cause of it’.
We both know that’s bull.
You know for a fact that when you get upset, it’s because you’re thinking negative things about yourself. But, you find someone else to blame it on because it’s easier to handle it that way. If you blame it on another person, you don’t have to make any effort to change YOURSELF. You don’t have to acknowledge that it takes two to tango, and you don’t have to acknowledge that you may not be entirely correct in your assumptions. Because, it’s the OTHER PERSON’S fault – S/HE needs to change, not you.
I’ve always known this, seen this. And, I’ve always tried to change for other people – I thought if I changed, they would ‘like’ me or accept me better. Until one day, I realized that there was no point trying to change for other people. Because other people will never be satisfied with ME, since they are never satisfied with THEMSELVES.
Let me say that another way: You can never be satisfied with anyone else until you are satisfied with yourself.
And so, I change for myself now. I’ve been working on it for several years, and will probably be working on it the rest of my life. I accept that. I know that the only way to peace is by breaking down my pain, by wading through it and understanding it. It has only been in the past year or so that I’ve become capable of understanding where the feelings come from and understanding that it’s entirely up to me how I react to the thoughts that arise.
I will not pretend this is easy to do at all. I find myself suffering every day. I’ve finally gotten to the point where I’m cognizant of when I get trapped in that hellfire (endlessly burning alive in my mind) and am able to step back and remove myself from the flames. It is only recently that I’ve learned to attend to my needs after I’ve escaped the pain: comfort myself, apply salve to the weeping wounds, stroke my face in care, and give myself words of love and encouragement.
I realize that I need to feel loved and cared for. I have just recently realized that I can provide that for myself. This is a very new concept to me. I am very independent overall, but the one area in which I’ve always felt needy is in the area of external care. I don’t think that will ever go away… And I feel pain to think of this deficit I feel. But, at least I don’t feel as alone now. I can love myself in the ways that I need to be loved, even if it isn’t as completely satisfying as the warm arms and smiling eyes and tender touch and gentle kisses of another human who genuinely loves me.
In the past, I did not feel like I had permission to love myself. I felt that if I loved myself, I would be doing something “wrong”. I felt that if so many other people told me there’s something defective about me, then there must really have been some irreversible flaw that made me unlovable. And so, I thought that if I changed to fit other people’s ideals of ‘worthy’, I’d somehow find MYSELF ‘worthy’. But, I was never good enough. Or, so I told myself. I always knew that it didn’t feel “right” to me, that I was doing that because I thought it was expected, not because I wanted to.
One reason I knew I was wrong to hate myself is that various people at various times of my life have said to me, “You make me want to be a better person.”
I never understood what that meant. I didn’t know what they were talking about. One of those people flat out told me that that specific thought caused him fear and anxiety, because he thought that it meant that I needed him to act “better” in our everyday lives, that he felt I deserved “better” than what care he could give.
And that didn’t make sense to me, because I don’t need anything from you, if I know you care. Because care is all I’ve ever needed.
Because I’ve always accepted everyone for who they ARE. I’ve never asked anyone to be “better” – there is no need for this, because I like people for who they are. I’ve always accepted people in their current incarnations, with the understanding that they will change and I will change, and that is fine because we can change separately while together and see each other grow and become who we each need to be. We can help each other along, and we can each be who we can when we can.
See, to me, anything is possible. Any change is possible. Anything you want to do, you can do. You are “good enough” for me, and there’s nothing “better” you can be than what you ARE.
Do you understand? You are good enough because you exist. You are good enough because you are YOU. You are good enough,and you have always been good enough. I’ve loved you because you are YOU, not because you are perfect. Nobody is perfect. Nobody can BE perfect. You are who you are, and I accept that. I accept you as you are, and as you were, and as you will be. Because, all we have is today. And, if we can’t care about each other today, we can’t care about each other tomorrow – there may be no tomorrow.
I accept you.
I accept me.
We are good enough.