Am I Enough?

How many times in life have I felt like I wasn’t enough?

A lot.

I have often encountered feelings of inadequacies. Whether it was work, friendships, marriage, mothering, house tasks, or any other thing I have done in my life. I have fallen short. It’s easy to wonder if I am enough.

Am I a good enough mom?

Am I a good enough wife?

Am I good enough to write this?

Simply, Am I good enough?

Through the years, I have learned these fears must be addressed. When I hear the taunts, “You are not enough” or “You should be more than you are”. I now have an answer…

”You’re right.
I am not enough.”

(Didn’t see that coming, did ya?)

Truth is, I used to hate when I thought I had failed because I knew the answer, I had. Unfortunately, I didn’t know how to be a failure, so I would try to justify it, blame someone, or avoid it altogether.

Now I know, I must make room for failure in my life. Failure is a part of me. Inadequacy is a part of me. I am unable to be perfect at all times because I am far from it.

I seem to pendulum between a confident capable person and an INCOMPETENT idiot.

I had to stop and accept the truth, sometimes, I wasn’t enough. Sometimes, I would be the major screw up I feared that I was. Sometimes, I would screw up at work. Sometimes, I would fail at motherhood. Sometimes, I would suck at being a wife. Sometimes, I would be a bad friend.

I had been expecting myself to be some kind of robot that would perform at peak performance at all times. Constantly, knowing the expectations of every human being around me. Never letting anyone down, including myself.

I had to stop expecting perfection from myself and I had to accept others would not always approve of me.

This was WAY harder than it sounds for me to learn. I experienced a lot of anxiety as I accepted my life as a failure but I’m so glad I continued to learn the truth.

It’s ok if I am not enough for everyone all the time, i will do my best and offer grace for my failures.

and that’s enough for me.

Finding Confidence in a Surprising Place

I have a very outgoing personality. Most of the time, I naturally feel confident.

But through the years, I have learned that having an outgoing personality is not the same thing as being confident with who you are.

When life was going well, I felt confident. However, when I encountered circumstances that made me feel inadequate or insecure, I felt extremely aware of my negative qualities. In those moments, I felt ashamed and I lost my confidence.

How real is my confidence if it can be taken away by mere circumstance?

I wanted more.

For a long time, I thought the reason I struggled with confidence was because I possessed too many negative qualities. I tried hard to get rid of my “bad” qualities by working to grow my “good” qualities.

I thought that in time the good would eventually take out the bad, right?

Even after lots of effort, something would happen and my bad qualities would come and smack me in the face.

UGH!

I hated my faults. I viewed difficult circumstances as my enemy. I also became very defensive if anyone hinted that I was inadequate.

When my whole goal was to be perfect, it felt very personal when someone pinpointed my imperfection.

However, there was a major problem. I am far from perfect.

FAR.

In my life, I have been lazy, inconsiderate, selfish and self-centered. I have been rigid and defensive. I have been manipulative.

I have had many times of being flat “wrong”. I have projected blame on others when the blame lied with me. I have been quite blind to myself and have had an entitled attitude.

I have not always been a good friend. I have forgotten things I shouldn’t have and held on to things that I should’ve let go.

I have had many awkward moments where I find myself doing quite idiotic things. I am easily distracted and I can be weirdly paranoid. I am disheveled and forgetful. I often run late.

I can be a little “much” for some people.

It is common for me to speak before thinking and I often say stupid things. At the same time, I can overthink simple things.

I used to be utterly ashamed of these qualities.  I hated each and every one of them for making me feel so unlovable. I thought if I worked hard my "bad" qualities would eventually go away..

Makes sense, right?

Wrong.

I wasn't becoming confident. I was learning to hide. This was not my goal.

 I had to stop acting like I wasn’t broken. Whether I liked it or not, I was. It was time to face myself. The real me. It was time to decide if I really wanted to grow confident.

I was never going to find confidence until I embraced my brokenness.

I did not embrace these qualities to defend them. I embraced them so that I could accept them, I accepted them so that I could sort through them, then I sorted through them so that I could find healing.

Through years of learning to embrace my brokenness, I have experienced so much healing. I am more honest and authentic than I ever have been.

Who would’ve guessed that the key to finding confidence would not be in my perfection but my imperfection?

Not me.

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A Few Words for the Girl In that White Dress

Get ready for your adventure to begin. You are beginning a long voyage and there is no way to prepare you for what lies ahead. Your life may turn out to be everything you expect or nothing that you predict, or perhaps it will be both, all rolled up into one glorious experience.

I would like to encourage you to let go of some of your expectations. You are predicting a fairy tale when your life will feel more like a rollercoaster.

You will have tough times ahead. It's ok. Every marriage does. Hold your head up. You are strong enough to do this.

Stop thinking you will do this perfect. You can’t. You will fail. It’s ok. Take a breath. Failure is full of opportunity if you let it unfold. Don’t hate your failure. Hate your fear.

Don’t listen to those who come only to tear you down, including those thoughts inside of yourself. They come only to keep you intimidated from unlocking your full potential.

People will look at you and judge how you live. Let them look. Let them judge. But don’t perform for them. Don’t try to be anything. Just be you.

You will doubt yourself but don’t for long. 

Press on and don’t stop. Ever. 

Stop looking around for other people to tell you that you are worthy. Stop it! You are worthy. It is not your husbands’, friends’, families’, or anyone else’s job to give you worth. You must find it yourself and own it. No one else can give it to you.

You are a wife now, you are not a trophy. You were not meant to be put on a shelf or in a box. You only need to be you. You are enough.

Remember to never compare your life to those around you. Your life will never look like “their” life. Ever. You can’t be them. You suck at being them. (Just trust me on this.) You, be you. It is the only person you can rock. So rock it.

Your life can be every bit of adventure that you predict; however, your adventure will be lived through the years of time. Your days may feel long, but your years will fly by.

Marriage is often entered with the thoughts of companionship, but there are days that marriage can feel very isolating. Don’t stay in isolation for long. Life must be lived with others. Don’t allow yourself to stay in seclusion. Reach out. Please. Seek support. 

Be resolute in not living a life full of secrets. It is not worth it.

Marriage can feel beautiful, wonderful, exhausting, difficult, horrible, exciting and can be the absolute best experience in this life. If possible, don't give up.

I pray that your husband is a kind, respectful, honest partner for you to live beside. However, no matter who he chooses to be. Remember not to lose yourself in your partnership. Never allow yourself to disappear. You are essential to this world.

We need you to be you.

Much love and many blessings, Haley

My Search for Approval

Taken by Studio 951

After Carter and I got married, I remember being a tad disappointed. I thought that once we got married, it would be my final step in my journey of feeling love, acceptance and approval. But even after we got married, I still had plenty of days that I felt like I wasn’t enough.

I wasn’t pretty enough, funny enough, sexy enough… so on and so forth.

I remember talking to him and telling him that I needed him to tell me more often how beautiful I was or how great of a wife I was. Funny thing about Carter, he just doesn’t think like that. Don’t get me wrong. My husband is a wonderfully kind man, but he isn’t super “talkative” about how he feels all of the time.

He would try, but I began to have the realization that it was never going to be enough.

If he told me that I looked beautiful, I thought “why didn’t he say sexy?” If he told me in the morning, by the evening I wondered why he hadn’t said it again. If he told me twice, I needed to hear it three times.

The point is that no matter how many times he affirmed his love and attraction for me, I still questioned it.

I felt like I needed more from him.

One day I woke up and decided I was not going to depend on my husband (or anyone else) to give me my confidence. It wasn’t good for my marriage, and it wasn’t working anyway.

Since that day, I have been on a journey of realizing that no one else can give me love for myself. We, alone, hold the keys to appreciating who we are and what we look like. No one can give us self-confidence. We must choose to take that journey for ourselves.

Have you ever noticed that if someone tells you “great job” or “you are looking great today”, it feels so great? In that moment, you feel confident and happy with yourself. But then the next day comes and you feel like crap because no one has said anything positive about you? (OR, heaven forbid, they have said something NEGATIVE!)

No matter how wonderful our husband is, or our girlfriend, or our parents, or our friends, or our children, their words will never be enough to make us confident. Of course, it is wonderful to hear kind words spoken about who we are. But no matter how many kind words are spoken to us, it is never enough to give us lasting confidence.

I am a firm believer that this is because we are searching for outward words to cure an inward condition.

I am still on this journey of fully understanding and appreciating myself, but I am not where I once was and for that I am thankful. It has been so good for ALL of my relationships since I have released them from the responsibility of making me a confident person.

 It is not anyone else’s job to walk me on the journey to appreciating who I am. It is not fair (to any of us) to put my confidence in others’ hands. That’s not how it is supposed to work.

If you are still relying on others to give you confidence, I invite you to begin your own journey to confidence. We must choose to embrace who we are and move forward regardless of what others say, positive or negative.

We are not born with an unconditional love for our personality or our looks.

We must choose it.

Maybe you will be surprised to find that the love and appreciation you have been searching for begins with the person who has been there all along… yourself.

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