6 Steps to Combat “I’m Not Enough”

You’re fat. Lose weight.

Love,

A Friend.

Imagine my surprise when I opened an anonymous handwritten letter addressed to me and read that.

“Anonymous” said she remembered how thin I used to be. She was doing me a favor by recommending a weight loss product that really worked.

Well, she obviously knew me. Within the last year, I’d had a baby and still couldn’t fit back into my pre-baby jeans.

If you’re anything like me, you’ve struggled with being comfortable with who you are.

Maybe you fear not measuring up or meeting other’s expectations.

It can be frustrating and leave you feeling unworthy.

The note confirmed what I already thought about myself– I’m fat–but didn’t want to say out loud. Even though I thought everyone was thinking it.

Well, the “friend” turned out to be a weight loss company. It was a clever ad campaign. They sent out “anonymous” hand-written notes from “friends” with an ad for a weight loss product attached.

They counted on people feeling bad about themselves and being desperate for change

And, it worked.

As hurtful as it was, it was also genius. They’d tapped in to what a lot of us feel but are afraid to say: “Something’s wrong with me.”

That feeling has a name.

It’s called shame. And it can affect every area of your life, including your marriage.

Few know what it looks like, but everyone knows what it feels like. It’s the most common but least talked about of all human emotions.

It hides in the daily, the most familiar places in our lives: parenting, body image, finances, education, work, marriage, appearance, family, background.

It’s the feeling you get when you go on Facebook and see your friends’ happy faces and great vacations. Or read their long endearing love letters to their spouses on their anniversaries. You start to feel bad about yourself.

It’s the same feeling that makes you go to church Sunday morning with a smile smacked across your face when you really want to cry.

 Shame is that feeling that tells you you’re flawed. You’re bad.

It says:

• I’m not enough.
• I don’t measure up.
• Who do I think I am?
• I’ll never be as good as they are.

After reading the note–right on cue–I shied away from the very thing that could’ve helped me.

I was embarrassed. I didn’t want anyone to know. I even debated if I should tell my husband

Too many times instead of moving towards people when we feel shame, we move towards secrecy or isolation.

It’s only in relationships we experience compassion, empathy, and understanding. Healing. The only things that can soothe the feeling of shame. Hearing “me, too” or ” I understand” or ” “I get it.”

So how do you get a grip on shame, so it can’t keep its grip on you?

1. Tell someone.
2. Accept compassion.
3. Challenge your thoughts.
4. Everything can’t be your fault; if it is, that makes you God.
5. Recognize triggers.
6. Realize you can’t control what other people think.

Someone had said what I already believed about myself. And, I was hurt.

But. . .  I still told my sister. She told me her friend had received the same note. And her friend was just as upset as I was.

We got sucked right in because it enforced our own self-defeating thoughts.

No matter who you are or what you have, shame is a difficult feeling to escape.

But it’s not impossible.

What has you in its grip? And, what are you willing to do to get out of it?

Need skills to build intimacy?

1. Get on the waitlist for my next group coaching session–Change Your Mind; Change Your Marriage.
2. Visit my website,  like my Facebook page and  join my private Facebook group.
3. Check out my FREE resources and download  How to Be A Wife No Man Will Ever Want to Leave.
4. Apply for private coaching with Sheila.