My best reading has been done when I am absolutely clueless about a topic and/or in desperate need of some answers! Seriously, I am not a big academic kind of gal, but reading and watching topics that inspired me and helped me carve (nice word right?) my own answers has shown to be my best teachers yet! As that nice cliché saying goes: when the student is ready… the teacher appears! 😊
So the other day I was reminded of how devastating it is to feel you are not enough: Not skinny enough, not promoted enough, not invited (lol) enough, not inspiring enough, not strong enough (emotional kind of strong), not fit enough, not healthy enough (okay… you catch my drift). It is soul depleting…
I was invited by a big corporation where I need to speak around issues of relationships and engagement. “Sure”, I said, “what a privilege it would be!” So then I sat down to grind out a short version of all the passion inside me around this topic. And a thought popped up saying: “what on earth are you doing? Why do you think you can speak on this topic to others? Who do you think you are, go back where you belong…” I was so taken aback by this negative thought that I stopped and did not touch the paper for the rest of the day, and needless to say guess what I did? Googled off course! 😊 As I said, the times I was in the most desperate places for answers I did my best reading and studying! So I read and I watched and I listened to stories told by people that felt the same, hurt the same, heard the same message: you are not enough…
After an afternoon of balling my eyes out of all the heart warming stories, it dawned on me… We are all together in this. No matter that I know full well where my lying thoughts of not enough come from (my own sad and heart warming story and past), there is a spark of hope for the future: we are all together in this (I am not the only sod feeling like this!).
Being a Coach, I have heard this before, exclamations of people realising that they are not the only one feeling like this and they are not the only one with a sad, yet heart warming (after we got to the healing part of it…) story. Yet our past stories tend to pop up every now and then, and tell you its old tale of not being enough and all that jazz. The key is to know that you have a choice… Yes, I lieth not! It is to be reminded that you have a choice and that there is the other side of this situation where a heart warming story is waiting to be told! Wise old Victor Frankl once said: “Everything can be taken from a man (and woman…) but one thing, the last of the human freedoms – to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way…”
Yes indeed so I read that: “For God did not give us a spirit of timidity or cowardice or fear, but [He has given us a spirit] of power and of love and of sound judgment and personal discipline [abilities that result in a calm, well-balanced mind and self-control].” 2 Tim. 1:7 (AMP)
“It shall come about, if you listen obediently and pay attention to My commandments which I command you today—to love the Lord your God and to serve Him with all your heart and with all your soul [your choices, your thoughts, your whole being]— 14 that [f]He will give the rain for your land in its season, the early [fall] rain and the late [spring] rain, so that you may gather in your grain and your new wine and your [olive] oil.” Deut. 11:13-14 (AMP)
So may you choose your response today when your lie comes, according to who you know you are, and why you know you are enough. You have yet another story to tell…
Stay in touch for my next release, as I am putting together some steps (yes, how structured of me…) to reflect on how to build up your knowing and choosing of why you are always enough.
Be switched on & go love,
Mariaan
