Listen to my story of depression, anxiety and insecurity (18 mins.)
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I know the hell, the jealousy and envy of looking at other people who I believed had more friends than I did, who were more popular than me, who I felt had more education and a more prestiguos job than me. Then the resentment towards those who had more than me that later turned into terrible feelings of bitterness; feeling trapped as being inadequate no matter what I did and dreaming as if I could only travel back in the past to change the way I was and live life differently. Then the anxiety of trying to go out and change my life in attempts to be good enough. I'm here to tell you there's a path out of this illusion that you are unworhty.
Lau-Tzu once said, be content with what you have; rejoice in the way things are. When you realize there is nothing lacking, the whole world belongs to you. Does this seem impossible?
Self Awareness is the key to regaining personal power and faith that you CAN change, that you are capable to overcome these false beliefs that you need to be something that you are not in order to impress others and to accept yourself and life just the way it is.
You can change your feelings of insecurity with Self Awareness
You may find it hard to believe that it is really possible to end feelings of inferiority, unworthiness and truly feel secure or "as good as everyone else" given your past experiences and current situation in life. Perhaps you believe you need to obtain something like more friends or popularity, loose weight or perhaps achieve a promotion and get that certain career or degree, athleticism, love from the opposite sex or just general success to finally say ...I've done it! I'm finally good enough!!
I can tell you from my personal years of not feeling good enough that this accomplishment or acceptance from someone else you’re seeking to finally feel “good enough” is an illusion and only leads to very short glimpses of feeling happy before you seek another "image" to become in order to believe you're acceptable and feel satisfied overall in life.
It doesn’t have to be like this. If you’re like the old me and most clients I meet, you’re actually searching for a reason to truly accept yourself. This begins with a choice to admit that you want help and are willing to learn something new.
Two important components I learned to understand to finally end my years
of insecurity:
1. Images of What You Believe You Should & Need to Be to FINALLY Be Good Enough
Feeling not good enough comes from that part of you called the Judge. The Judge, or the inner voice, is the part of your mind that is always qualifying, judging or giving its opinion on nearly everything, especially yourself. The Judge begins by creating an image of what it thinks you should be but believe you aren’t. This is called an image of perfection.
The image of perfection is usually created over years of false beliefs layered on top of each other, of what you have believed it requires to compete in life, to please others starting with your parents, then teachers, then coach and pastor. Later in life, it turns into your peers.
This image is like a dream that desperately seek to make come true, that appears like reality of what we must become in order to feel content, satisfied and confident again in life. But this image is not real, it is just an illusion and it can never bring lasting happiness.
You don't need to become this image of perfection although you may not be able to believe this. You don't need to change anything in your life or do anything more than what you're doing presently. All you need to do is dissolve this image of perfection, this image of what you think and believe you need to be in order to be okay and you'll realize accepting yourself eliminates that feeling of insecurity and not being worthy.
I can't just "accept myself" ... my life is awful ... why not try to just become what I think I must in order to be happy?
The reason you create this image lies in your belief system and structure of agreements of what you’ve learned through life that you think “makes you secure and happy.” More friends, less body fat, athletic fame, a degree then a certain career title to "be somebody" and somehow travel back in time to change my past....these are a few that I believed would return me to feeling secure, confident, happy and being able to act silly in life again.
The problem with this is that we reject ourselves to various degrees as we wait and work towards achieving and obtaining these illusions that we believe we should be and what will change us to make us happy. Some levels of self-rejection are so subtle you probably aren’t even aware of what you’re doing. Others may be more obvious to you. The fact is anytime you reject yourself to any degree you are creating unhappiness. You by instinct without awareness resist that very unpleasant feeling of emotional pain and by resisting it, you create suffering. Fear of what others think of you, of not being accepted, of not being good enough can get layered on top of each other and create feelings of severe depression. Believing that you need these things outside of you logically creates fear of not getting them. This fear turns into feelings of severe anxiety.
The secret for me then was to first truly understand why I created these images of perfection. Again, true understanding was they key. Once I understood why I had the false beliefs and how and why I created these images, it was just a matter of learning additional tools to dissolve the images of perfection. This led me to a steady reduction of rejecting myself, more acceptance of just what is, until I opened my spiritual eyes and saw how beautiful life and I truly were and always had been. I naturally loved myself, others and life again as I did when I was a young child. You can too.
2. Comparing Yourself to Others
If you really think about this, the only way you can believe you or your personal experiences in life don’t measure up is because the Judge part of you creates an image of yourself, an image of your life and compare these images to others. The Judge then declares that the image of you does not measure up to the image it has created of others that it perceives as "being good enough." The part of you that receives the judgment and then punishment is called the Victim. The Victim then says, yes, these are the reasons in life that can only mean I am not good enough, poor me...there is no way I can change...I am inadequate.
The beginning is to understand how we compare ourselves. To believe you’re fat for example, you must create an image of someone else that meets your image of perfection, who you feel is perfect or is skinny and so on. But why do we begin to believe that we're fat? Because we have been conditioned to believe that being ourselves is not acceptable, not good enough; that we must be something else. Again, through our upbrining, our parents and others probably did their best to discipline us through reward and punishment in order to help us change our behavior and be aware of dangers in life.
We were young and didn't understand. All we did understand was that we desperately looked up to them, to try to please them because we learned that they controlled every part of our life. If they told us anything, we believed it and tried our best to become it. When they said for us to be this, we sought the reward. If we got the reward, we accepted ourselves. The reward might have been their attention, a cookie or the lack of punishment. When we did not meet their image of being a big boy or good girl, we got that punishment, learned that we ddin't like it and began to avoid it. We were then never taught how to be independent; to change this way of thinking.
It is important to understand again that this image is not real, it does not really exist. Even if you set a specific weight limit, or say a number of friends or an accomplishment to achieve in order to meet this image, you likely will just replace that with something else because this is the nature of the paradigm. To keep seeking other things to make you happy is a habit, a ritual if you will, to believe that you need something to “make” you good enough and satisfied in life.
Many told me to just quit comparing myself and I wouldn’t feel depressed or anxious. It’s my experience that it takes true understanding why I compared myself in order to begin to do it less and less until not doing it at all. You may feel like you constantly compare yourself negatively to others. Perhaps depending on the story you’re telling yourself that day, you may go in both a positive and negative way. You may even compare yourself positively to another one moment and then just moments later, turnaround for reasons unclear to you and reverse the comparison in a negative way! One day I was better than certain people, then moments later I wasn’t good enough …madness! Then on the rare occasion, I would find myself not comparing at all. It was a needless roller coaster of suffering than can be ended again without having to go out and do anything in life.
Why do we compare?
This comes back to the false image we have of ourselves and what we learned over time as to what we think will “make us” secure, make us content and make us good enough. Down the road, you'll learn that every self-image you have, whether positive or negative, is a false image and is never actually the real you. The real you is the one with no image where your mind is silent and you have nothing but love to express for yourself just the way you are.
To begin to understand, we’ll create an example of someone who believes they need more respect from others because they perceive they do not currently get enough, and they didn’t get as much respect as someone who was popular in high school. (Again, this is just one of many examples to illustrate). We’ll call this person “Jane”.
Jane's Inner Judge first creates an image of perfection as someone that was great in sports or anyone she believes that was popular for that matter that she thinks gets enough respect and attention. Because Jane believes that it is someone else’s love and respect that makes her secure, content and good enough, it’s easy to see that Jane will naturally crave respect and love, just like someone craving food that believes “food” will end the pain of hunger. (One is a lie while the other is obvious reality).
The Judge part of Jane’s mind then creates an image of herself as being someone she believes doesn’t get enough respect and love and then compares this image to the image of perfection she created of someone popular. Jane deducts she doesn’t meet this image, rejects herself and logically feels unworthy and inferior. The part of Jane that receives the self rejection again is called The Victim. Jane may hate the feelings of identifying with the Victim, but will likely choose this identity because she sees security and at least something to see herself as being. Having an identity of being quite, shy, not good enough or just completely worthless is usually perceived being more desirable than feelings of insecurity of not identity at all.
The Judge compares the image she created of herself to the “good enough” image or image of perfection because like everyone, through experience in life she has learned that feeling content is a wonderful, worry-free feeling. Because believing she is not good enough hurts, she naturally wants to obtain that feeling of security and contentment instead.
Jane’s structure of core beliefs and agreements which states what must happen to her or what she must be in order to be secure states with absolute truth that she must go out and do things to get respect in order to finally feel comfortable. Like the old me, Jane will spend a lot of time thinking about the past, regretting not being popular and believing if she had only been more popular, things would be different. She will also likely worry a lot about being rejected in the future.
All Jane needs to do is learn the tools to see the lies she believes, that by learning how to accept herself no matter what and keeping life as it is-is the only "secret" to overcoming insecurity. Once she realizes there is nothing lacking, she will experience true acceptance and find the inner freedom that never left she remembers having when she was a young child. By dissolving that image of perfection, through different steps in Self Awareness to change the false assumptions and beliefs that build on top of each other, anyone can learn how to dissolve that image of perfection and to experience real, lasting feelings of security and happiness again in life.
You've probably heard that you are 'good enough' but can't believe it
The old prophesy that you've probably heard from those who love you is that you are indeed good enough. So why is that you can't believe it?
You can't believe it because you have so many reasons to cite as to why you feel you need to put your faith into false beliefs which you agree to think it is the way life works. You must put your foot down and tell yourself that even though you are unable to see things being different, you will put your intent to doing your best to learn something new, to try something new with the belief that God created you perfect. From a non-religous point of view, Satan has created so many lies in the minds of other human beings that have no awareness of the lies they believe that they have passed them onto to you and you have chosen to believe them.
Jesus taught us to love God, and love others as yourself. But we often forget about the part as yourself. Some think this has something to do with selfishness. This is a huge misunderstanding. Going out, trying to help others to cure your feelings of unworthiness is not a healthy path because it itself is based in selfishness, trying to only help others with hopes that it will somehow get rid of that terrible feeling. It also doesn't work.
Through changing your false beliefs rooted in fear, you begin to not care about others being not good enough either. You accept them just the way they are and experience a lot less drama in your relationships because you are no longer dependent on them, no longer trying to control them, and no longer needing them to be anything else than just what they are.
No matter how bad life gets, you will always experience contentment if you just accept it just the way it is. Because just the way it is, is actually very beautiful. It is your judgment that takes away that beauty, takes away your beauty. You can learn the skills to accept yourself and your life just the way it is and once you begin to, you will regain the energy and power to make changes in your life not because you think you need to, but because you want to, because now your actions are based out of your love for yourself, not obligation or fear.
> Contact Jacob today for a free consultation to see if Self Awareness can help you be happy again.