I Am Good Enough and So Are You

The other evening, outside a twelve step recovery meeting that would be starting soon, I was standing in a group of three or four people, chatting.

I noticed, from the corner of my eye, a young lady, a “newcomer”, walking along the side of the building, coming up from where she had parked to the door which was right behind me.

I smiled and said, “Hi *****! How are you?”

She didn’t react in any way. Apparently didn’t see or hear me.

Her eyes seemed a bit far away.

My immediate feeling was one of hurt, pain that she ignored me. That, of course, fit perfectly with the narrative that had been playing, on an endless loop, all of my teen and adult life.

The narrative? “I’m not good enough. I’m not interesting enough. I’m not thin enough. I’m not big enough in the right places. I’m not smart enough. I don’t have enough control of myself. I’m not attentive enough. I’m too selfish and self-centered. I’m too lazy".

“I’m not good. I’m bad. I’m defective. I’ll never be good enough”.

The list can go on, ad infinitum…

It starts in childhood. With love and the best of intentions, parents, caregivers, say things like, “Look how well Suzie does it. You can too!” “Do you want to be the only kid on the block who can’t do…