When Will You Be Enough?

I had other thoughts for what to start blogging about after my previous series, but I feel like I need to put this one out there first. Part of the reason for that is that someone posted a reply to one of my blog links on Facebook that she's a 73-year-old woman and still struggles with body image issues. And when I was visiting with my mom last week, she had a bunch of books out about learning to love herself and she's over 80 (don't tell her I said that publicly ;)).

And that breaks my heart.

I also know from personal experience that, even when I was thinner, I still had a lot of self deprecating thoughts and low self esteem. Yes, part of it was due to me rebuilding myself following the end of my marriage. But a lot of it was "other stuff".

I happened to read something interesting at the time that made me burst into tears: it was an article that essentially was asking when will you feel like you're enough? I'm quite paraphrasing here but it asked things like: You have a good career, you have a good life, you have all this goodness in your life, yet you still feel like sh!t? WTF? That obviously resonated with me at the time... and then I forgot about it.

It's so easy to forget. But I do think that I forgot about that because there now was a piece missing: my slender body. But to the point of my last entry, the size and shape of my body is such a small part of my life, why am I letting it overshadow everything else?

I think that it is extremely difficult oftentimes to admit that you are as awesome as you actually are. It feels first off like it shouldn't be said at all. And if you muster the will to say it, you feel like you're a fraud and/or that you're arrogant for doing so. You're neither. It's okay to say it and think it. And the more you say it, the more you'll believe it. Because you are. Lots of people think so. How come people believe in yourself more than you do?

Another concept of "when" is time. If you think that you'll reach some age when you'll have self confidence and will feel uber good about yourself, based on the above 2 examples (granted, it's a small sample size), there is no magical age when that happens. And, because of that, you might as well start working on loving yourself like right now.

And do ponder on what would it take for you to feel like you're good enough? What more do you need to achieve or be or whatnot? And is that really something that is needed or regrets? And are you using these as an excuse not to acknowledge how pretty darn awesome you already are?