You ARE Enough

First, I want to share a brief bit about my wellbeing story. You can find out more about me here.

Although I have been on a personal development journey for many years, with therapy, counselling, psychotherapy, mindfulness courses, reading all the books etc. It wasn’t really until lockdown that real transformation started to happen for me. And it was not pretty at first. I was very time-rich, living alone and being on furlough. With all the restrictions, my mental health took a huge dip. I tried to pretend I was ok, because I knew everything was ok really, and that others had it worse than me, so what was I complaining about? But this is when I met myself. I met myself in lockdown, with so much time to become aware of myself, my habits, my thoughts, my past. And I didn’t like who I met. Everyone had their own battles going on during lockdown and this was just mine.

But, I discovered breathwork and life coaches, who seemed to share strategies for coping in the moment and moving forward, rather than lurking too much in the past – I had done all that. It became mostly about developing language for me and being able to consider alternative perspectives that helped me. I discovered so much wisdom and insight that had come from the deep self-exploration of my past and eventually this led me to train as a transformational life coach in March 2021 and a breathwork coach in January 2022.

During lockdown and as I trained to become a coach myself, I learned 5 key things:

Some of these were applicable to me, but they were also applicable to some people around me, which also has its complications.

So, one of my most dominant stories I carried was “I am not good enough”. I felt unworthy of my friendships, any of my relationships, being loved, my job, my life in general – like one day everyone would find out that I wasn’t good enough. However, what I discovered, was that this feeling “not good enough” is a doubt that plagues most people on some level at some point in their lives. And here was I thinking I was alone in this thought. Everyone around me seemed so together, so sorted, so on the ball. But we are so used to seeing the highlights reel on social media, or when we talk to people, they present the best version of themselves. We ask, “how are you” and we usually reply: “Yes I’m good thanks” when actually people are often screaming inside too. So now, I often ask people, “how are you really?” and see if I get a different response.

Doubting that you are “enough” can affect your life in many areas: relationships, career, health, and personal wellbeing.

It may not come as a surprise, but psychologist’s research have found that feeling “not good enough” can come from childhood wounds where we learn dysfunctional patterns and perspectives from our family or those around us during childhood. But our thought patterns can be born from fairly low-level traumatic incidents as a child too. We might hang on to old stories of not being good enough at school, from not getting good enough grades in exams, or if we were rejected by someone in our formative years. We internalise these beliefs and they continue to form, with unconscious bias often at play, gathering evidence to confirm the story we have told ourselves, which becomes a dominant limiting belief we carry, restricting our growth to our fullest potential… Such as: I am not good enough.

Awareness of these is key. So perhaps a common ‘story’ for you is coming to mind now, if not, just be aware the next time you self-criticise – is it a familiar story? Get curious about where it comes from. Consider writing it down to help you explore more deeply.

There are some simple and effective ways to boost your “enoughness”, even if doubts and judgments of yourself continue to persist. Although I have done this work, I am not immune to being triggered, but what I now have is a toolkit to support me, and I trust that time to process things is a healer.

So, I have identified 3 tools from my wellbeing toolkit that help with self doubt: breathwork, self-love and gratitude. More on creating a wellbeing toolkit here.

Breathwork for me has become my anchor in many times of stress or anxiety and if I am emotionally triggered or nervous. You perhaps already have a wellbeing toolkit of your own and can identify your own anchor: your “go to” thing in these moments. Conscious breaths can positively change our mindset, our emotions and bring awareness and clarity into everyday life. It can help to shift perspectives in times of crisis. It is a powerful tool to add to your toolkit if you haven’t already.

We take for the granted the 20,000 odd breaths we take each day… but if we can carve some time to just check in with ourselves, notice our breathing and make adjustments accordingly, it makes a huge difference to our overall wellbeing.

How we think and feel affects how we breathe – but the opposite is also true:

How we breathe can affect how we think and feel.

A strong favourite “go to” breath for myself and to teach others, is BOX BREATHING: so, for equal counts, inhale, hold, exhale, hold and repeat. This is great for balancing our nervous system, and restoring a sense of calm and clarity.

I will share more on breathing techniques and the science behind conscious breathwork in another blog coming soon.

When we can recognise that the stories like “I am not good enough” are just old mind habits, old limiting belief stories, that are not actually true, we can start to cultivate self-love and compassion. The self-doubt holds less power when we can build awareness of where it comes from and when we start believing that we can actually change the patterns of our thoughts, with practice. So, alongside these well-rehearsed negative stories, the good news is, we can also start rehearsing positive ones too.

Grab your journal

First, identify the old stories or self-criticisms that you tell yourself and try to find what is the positive opposite is to them?

For example:

I am not worthy – I have value to add to other people’s lives

I am too old – I am older and wiser

I am too busy – I make time for the things I love

I am not fit enough – I am grateful for what my body can do

Now create a list of positive affirmations, sometimes known as “I am” statements.

Here are some to get you started, but feel free to use the prompts below to help you explore this further.

I am loved

I am confident

I am strong

I am empowered

I am caring

I am kind

I am…

I choose to…

I am learning to…

I am proud of…

I love…

When we are feeling a deep sense of gratitude for what we have and who is in our lives, this can also be a great technique for our wellbeing toolkit.

 If I catch myself in a lack mindset, wishing I had something I don’t, or complaining about something that has just happened – most of us do it often, probably without even realising - when we’re driving, in the supermarket, on public transport… but catch yourself and see if you can find something to be grateful for and notice the shift in your general mindset. Rather than thinking about what you don’t have, think about what you do have. Rather than thinking about what you still need to do, think about and celebrate what you have already done. The small incremental changes to our habits are the most powerful ones, positively impacting the neural networks of our brain, producing the happy hormones (serotonin and oxytocin) - so this is a habit I strongly encourage.

 Grab your journal once again

Write a gratitude list relating to home, people, work, anything at all that you can think of to be grateful for the last 24 hours:

I am grateful for

I am so thankful that

I have gratitude for…. Because…

I feel blessed to have….

I feel honoured to do…

Did you put yourself on the list?

Now write a list of what you are grateful for about yourself?

I love myself for…

I am learning to love myself for…

I love how I….

I love my body for…

I am proud of…

Having a wellbeing toolkit you can rely on, is so powerful, so hopefully this has given you some extra tools, or a different way of thinking. You can read more about creating a Wellbeing Toolkit here.

I would love to hear from you. How has this helped you?

If you’d like to know know more about coaching with me, read here.

Jen 💜