My Eureka moment: There is nothing wrong with me

How acceptance and feeling my god damn feelings helped me to transform my deep-seated belief of ‘I am not good enough’ and realize that there is nothing fucking wrong with me.

I am a fixer. When I find myself in an unfavorable situation my first instinct is to fix whatever I feel is wrong. My analytical mind jumps in to figure out what is going on. Where am I right now? Where do I want to be? What are the steps needed to go from A to B? I come up with a plan and I get started on it.

I have been approaching my feelings in the same way too. If I feel stuck I like to go for a walk to clear my head and get a fresh perspective. If I feel unsettled I like to do some yoga in hopes that the feeling will change. And sometimes this approach absolutely works. But often it does not. Even if the feeling moves on or I am able to fix my situation I find that I end up in exactly the same spot not too long after.

There was one critical step that I had been overlooking for so long. Acceptance. In my effort to get myself out of a situation or an emotional rut as fast as possible, I had just tried to bulldoze my way out of it. The reason many of these situations and emotions came back knocking on my door was that I never acknowledged them. I never sat down and listened to why they were showing up or what they had to teach me. I never took the time to accept what was going on inside of me and outside of me and just surrender to the feeling or circumstance.

I found myself in a situation recently where I felt that I had fallen short of my own and someone else's expectations. I heard a nagging voice in my head saying: you are not good enough. Immediately, I felt two impulses. The first one was to overpower that voice with a mantra of “I am good enough”. And while that is probably true it felt like a lie. I could hear my inner coach going on: "You got this. Next time you will do better. If we ever find ourselves in this situation again we will just approach it differently." And so that voice went on and on as if my life was a football game and we just needed to change the strategy to next time score a brilliant goal. The second impulse was distraction. Just open up Instagram and scroll for a while. Watch something funny so that the feeling will go away.

After that, I still felt inadequate. But now I also felt a bit ashamed of feeling this way still. I laid down and closed my eyes and listened. I could see how I was still beating myself down for what I had done. I could also feel the discomfort that comes with not feeling good enough. This time I was just still. I asked myself what would happen if I would need to carry this uncomfortableness for the rest of my life. It was not the most pleasant thought but I could surrender to the idea. At that moment the beating myself down stopped. I experienced a void as if my body and brain were a little bit thrown off their game by the question. Unsure what to do next. I had reached the point of acceptance. I was okay feeling this way. I was okay listening to the story behind that feeling. I let go of the expectation to immediately feel better. I was just present. I could feel the urge to go back to the coaching voice or the distraction or even the shaming but I didn't. I made space for that feeling. I took it in like I would comfort a child that has tears in their eyes, not feeling good enough. I just allowed it to exist.

There are many ways to reach acceptance and the question in the example above was just one that worked at this moment. I have found that it is quite difficult to trick the mind into acceptance by asking a question or imagining a scenario. You can’t solve the problem from the same place that created it. This means that the key is to find a way to fully surrender emotionally. And that could look very different from case to case. But for me, it has to do with letting go of trying to fix my feeling or my situation and just really experiencing what it would take to be okay at this moment. To make room for that feeling and really listen. Why is it showing up? What is the message behind it? To treat that inner child of you that is having this experience with love and compassion. How would you tend to it if it wasn’t you who was going through this but your best friend or your own child? Sometimes it is easier to feel into how we would treat another and then allow ourselves to give that same love to ourselves.

I think I have always been afraid of acknowledging that feeling because I thought that when I do, it would become true. But it is the opposite of that. As long as we ignore our feelings or go straight into fixing mode they will always come back. Maybe the problem or situation might look a bit different the next time but the emotion and the story behind it will be the same. By lending an ear and accepting it we allow this feeling to be transformed.

Over the next 24 hours or so I witnessed something extraordinary. First I felt much more at ease. The heaviness of the feeling softened up. It was as if someone had switched my inner radio station. I was no longer haunted by thoughts connected to ‘I am not good enough’ and my overall mood improved. Second, I could see how slowly that belief of “I am not good enough” transformed. It was a process where many puzzle pieces came together, one after the other. Evidence from my life that I was good enough. Different perspectives on the situation that had caused the feeling in the first place. A more spiritual approach that showed me the value of every being on this planet and therefore ultimately also including me. It was all of a sudden so clear to me that we are all just doing our best. There was no way that I was the only soul here that messed up. We are all born perfect and enough and nothing we ever do can change that. In the end, I had a clear and unshakable understanding that I am enough. There is nothing fucking wrong with me. This was such a liberating feeling.

Since then I have experienced situations where I messed up. Where I was not proud of myself. For a moment I can see myself going back, playing with the thought that maybe that means that I am not good enough. But it doesn't stick anymore. It only takes me a moment to come back to acceptance and then a deep knowing. I am okay.