Are We Enough?
Over the past year, I’ve coached womxn in the non-profit sector. They are brilliant. They’re brave. They’re some of the best advocates I know. But they - like many others, all have one thing in common. There’s a fear that they’re not enough. They suffer from imposter syndrome. And the quiet voice that resides at the back of their minds serve as a constant companion that reminds them that they’ll never be good enough no matter what.
Where did this messaging come from? What’s your earliest memory of not being good enough? Who told you that, and when did you begin to buy into that argument for yourself?
I can’t remember the very first memory of being told I’m not enough. But I’m sure it had to do with being born a girl into my East Asian culture. I’m positive it was reinforced throughout my adolescence when we measured student success with grades and the colleges we got into. I’m confident that this message was further affirmed when I chose not to become a doctor, lawyer, or engineer.
The problem with this idea is that thinking we’re not good enough pushes us beyond burnout. We think we’re not doing enough or we’re not accomplishing enough, and so we work harder. We push through the exhaustion. We exhibit signs of stress, burnout, and vicarious trauma but yet, we continue to repeat to ourselves that we’re not enough. We absorb feelings of insecurity as though they are a part of who we are. And when we fail (which we all inevitably do), this messaging of not being enough serves as concrete evidence that these messages we’ve gotten were correct all along.
By continuing to tell ourselves that we’re not enough, we are only continuing to uphold an oppressive system that reinforces inequity. In some cultures, individuals strive to climb to the top, where it’s heavily white and male dominated. We buy into this perception that it’s only when we climb to the top that we think we’ve made it. That we’re enough. But is that the reality? For those who have made it to the top, they know that the top is lonely. And those feelings of being not enough don’t just go away because there are always more steps to climb.
The journey out of this rabbit hole begins with understanding where the roots of this belief lies. What if we dared to accept that we are whole? What if, when we woke up every morning, we said to ourselves “Yes! We are enough!”? How different would our self-esteem be? How would our worlds begin to change?