One of the most common questions that those of us with anxiety ask is “when is it ever going to be good enough?”. For those who struggle with depression, the answer (that we refer to as the cognitive distortion) is almost always, “Never!”. Many of us struggle with the “good enough” syndrome that is the exact opposite of what it sounds like. Good enough becomes synonymous with perfection—a quality that is the ideal and yet is a standard that we will never measure up to.
Many therapists and well-known authors have already given a lot of thought and writing to this topic. My recommendations are The Road to Character by David Brooks or Healing the Shame that Binds You by John Bradshaw. Another one of my personal favourites is the faith-based Wild at Heart by John Eldredge. For those of you book worms who motor through a book over a short afternoon tea, you can also pick up just about any Brene Brown book in your local library and read up on the topic of shame. In most of this kind of literature, you will find recurring themes like the need for self acceptance and addressing the wrongdoings that were thrust on us by our well meaning elders—usually the belief that we needed to measure up or fit into armour that we were never really fitted for. The words of the Hebrew legend rings true in this sense— that when Adam hid, God sought him out and asked him “who told you that you were naked?”. Isn't it even more ironic that the legend right before that one in the Christian Bible is an account where the Creator says that Adam right from the get go is... "good good good"? Somewhere down the line that young man forgets all about it and trades that belief for something else.
The sad reality is that many of our most brightest, highest achieving and hardest working people in our society are people who struggle with the good enough syndrome. The inner voice that constantly screams out to them that they still have much to do and that what they have will never be good enough. It’s unfortunate that so many of us have bought into the lie that we need to change in order to be accepted; and yet the good news is that the only thing that is not “good enough” just might be the perspective that we’ve held onto for so long.
So where do we go from here? Our Dialectical Behavioural approach would say to radically accept ourselves for who we; while our dear friend Victor Frankl would search for meaning in our past in order to make peace with our present so that we could live in freedom in our future days. The truth is that we have a lot of untruth that we’ve bought into and it’s about time that we uncover our dysfunctional thought patterns passed down to us and to address them now that we are able to stand on our own two feet. It’s not easy, but it’s worth the effort.
I believe in you. And I think that you can too… because you are actually good enough. Maybe you just con’t see it yet…
Until Next Time,