Don’t you hate the times in life when you feel like a complete failure??? Ugh! I do. However, no matter how hard I try, I continually have moments I feel I should have been more than I was! This week, I discuss my revelation about myself and if I am enough or not…

I will teach my children many, many things in their life. I hope one day I look at my adult children and feel I have prepared them for this crazy life. Of the many things I hope to teach them, I feel one thing may be the most vital of all. Join me today in reading about an essential skill I try to intentionally teach my children.

In honor of Carter and I celebrating our thirteenth wedding anniversary, I decided to write about love. What is love? Here is a bit of what love is to me. “Love is surprisingly exciting and exceptionally mundane. It is found in traveling around the world together, but also sitting on the couch…” What is love to you?

I am sorry that I cannot be what you want me to be. You seem to have such specific requirements for me and I have disappointed you.

I didn’t want to let you down, but here we are.

I have been so focused on how you felt about me and my choices that I lost sight of who I am and the life I want to live. And sadly, I even started to blame you for my unhappiness. This isn’t fair and I promise to do better. My happiness is not in your hands and I free you from that burden you never asked to carry.

This has taken me some time to understand, but I see things differently now. I now see that I have to let go of your approval.

I have to let go of you.

“Haley, I don’t think you see yourself very clearly,” a friend said to me.

I had just uttered a self-evaluation of my physical appearance. It wasn’t a particularly encouraging or positive utterance. This wasn’t the first time she told me she didn’t think I saw myself accurately.

She is the type of friend who will tell me when I am wrong but has always encouraged me in who I am.

This time her observation stuck with me.

Did I see myself clearly?

And if not, why?

I began to think back on times that I have struggled with who I am.

I was in sixth grade the first time that an acquaintance told me that she didn’t like me. Nothing had happened between us. Just me being “me” was enough to arouse in her a very strong feeling of frustration and annoyance, and she needed me to be aware of it.

I was eleven years old.

So, I guess I could tell you that it was also in sixth grade that I began to perform for the world to accept me. I began to try to be what other people wanted me to be...

When I have frustrations in my life, my first instinct is to look around and find the source of my frustration. This usually ends in me finding the person responsible. Someone must be at fault, right? And it isn’t me. I then put my frustration on that person, whether in secret or to their face.

Only recently have I realized how truly unproductive this process actually is. This way of handling things is focused primarily on one thing and that is…

blame.

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...

Through my life, I have had different seasons that I have struggled with who I am. I will never forget a few years into our marriage, I got into a funk...

Welcome back to our “I Am Insecure” series! We are happy to have you here! If you are just now joining us, please be sure to check-out week one of our series, Find Your Person, before you read this! You will be glad that you did!

Week Two how do we react to our insecurities?...

I experienced a lot of fear during the first couple years of my marriage. Getting married made me think of the future ahead and I found myself overwhelmed with all the unknowns that life could bring. It felt like my responsibility to think of all the possibilities and prepare for them. Honestly, at first, my fear seemed like a good thing. It felt like my friend. My fear told me to be smart and get prepared for the inevitable doom ahead. It seemed to be protecting me from the bad things to come, but it all became too much, I started to become lost in it...

In our world today, we have many outlets to share our views. With that comes many opportunities to feel offended by the opinions that we hear. When we are offended, it is easy to make the choice to treat others poorly.

How do we react when we find ourselves offended by the opinions and actions of others?...

For a multitude of reasons, I found myself discouraged this week. I had a sick baby, some disappointments, a touch of rejection and other routine life “stuff”. All week I had a nagging, unwelcome visit from a long-time frenemy, Self-Pity.

Self-Pity and I grew up together and became friends at a young age. I thought we had a true friendship, but the more time I spent with her, the more I realized that she wasn’t my friend.  

She has a way of masking her true intentions...

From early on in life, we are compared to one another. It is amazing how we naturally begin to measure our value by the people around us.

Growing up, I was surrounded by a lot of very successful people, some of which were my sisters. I have four sisters and two sister-in-laws. They are all gorgeous and extremely talented. Through the years, my sisters have accomplished many wonderful things that I have not...

There is something you need to know about me. I am a recovering list maker, plan constructor, control freak. For most of my life, I have LOVED to have a plan and I did not like it if the plan didn’t go as I expected. The first ten years of Carter’s and my relationship were commonly filled with times that I was angry because circumstances didn’t go as I had hoped...

I would like you to do something for me right now, forget about your present circumstance and forget about your stress. Forget about the past few years that have not gone the way you expected. (Don’t worry we will come back to reality, just go with me for a minute.) Now, let’s go back to a simpler time, a time when you had your whole future ahead of you. You were filled with hope and excitement of the many possibilities ahead.

Stay here for a moment.

Who is this person? What dreams did they have? What kind of person were they to become? What kind of life would they live?

Ok, now come back.

This is it, this is your life.

Welcome to your future...

Have you ever felt discontent with who you are?

Several years ago, I found myself frustrated with my life. Don’t get me wrong, my circumstances were great. I had a wonderful family, great friends, I was a new mom, I was blessed with a job that I enjoyed and I was in a flourishing marriage, yet I felt disappointed with myself.

 I wanted to find a way to live content.

 I wanted to learn to be ok with who I was.

 I wanted to learn how to love me...