Introspection: Am I Enough?

I share these thoughts hoping they are of help to someone else.

Comments are always welcomed.

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Am I Enough?

Don't fear, because I am with you;

don't be afraid, for I am your God.

I will strengthen you,

I will surely help you;

I will hold you

with my righteous strong hand.

Isaiah 41:10 (CEB)

You say I am loved when I can't feel a thing

You say I am strong when I think I am weak

You say I am held when I am falling short

When I don't belong, oh, You say I am Yours

From "You Say" by Lauren Daigle

One year ago, as I shared my final thoughts for 2018, I stated my decision to focus on cultivating  self-worth in 2019.  My goal was to be able to say, with conviction, that "I am enough," contrary to what the figurative tapes that play in my head keep telling me.  Early in the year, amid a time of frustration, I admitted that the reason I chose to focus on self-worth is that I often feel stuck in life.  I don't feel that I have what it takes to get what I want in life, so I hoped that my search for self-worth might lead to some self-confidence as well.

When I started doing my homework on self-worth, I learned that an important part of self-worth is self-knowledge, and that an important thing for one to know about oneself is what one wants in life.¹  I made it a point to read more fiction this year, particularly stories that I thought would speak to me personally or inspire me in some way.  One of the books I read was The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho.  As I read the story of a young man who set out to realize his "Personal Legend," I begin to reconsider that maybe I too have a destiny, a path I'm meant to follow in life.  I wondered if maybe the restlessness I often feel is evidence that I do indeed have a destiny and that I'm not living into it.

I learned about changing the tapes that play in my head - in other words, my negative inner dialogue.  I learned to first take notice of the negative things I say to myself, to demand evidence that such things are actually true, and then to replace the negative messages with messages that are truer and more positive.²

I realized that one of the things that is probably keeping me stuck is my tendency to live in the past.  I realized that the story I had been telling myself about my life was a story of loss.  As I looked back on some of the losses I experienced over the last few years, I realized that I have regained much of what I had lost, and I realized that my painful experiences got me to where I am today, which is a good place.  I put some of the pain of the past behind me, and I reclaimed some of the things I once enjoyed, like contra dancing.  I attended nine contra dances during the latter half of the year.

a selfie I took at the dance hall before my first contra dance in four and a half years

At least a couple of my experiences from the past year turned out to be important object lessons in self-worth, particularly as it relates to to my relationships with other people.

In early March, I walked a prayer labyrinth at my church.  I made it a point to wait until the person ahead of had me made her way out of the labyrinth before I started working my way inward so that I wouldn't get in her way.  While I was in the center, other people arrived and started walking inward, and I had to negotiate my way around them on my way outward.  The experience taught me that the possibility that I might figuratively bump into someone or step on someone's toes in life is not a bug in the system but is rather a feature.

This was a very important lesson for me - a lesson with which I still need to sit a bit longer.  I've noted in the past that I tend to worry about what people think of me.  The truth is that I fear people's disapproval more than I desire people's approval.  Whenever there is any conflict or any friction whatsoever between myself and another person, I tend to assume that I am the problem.  I assume that I must not be considerate enough, kind enough, thoughtful enough, or loving enough.  I don't consider that the other person might share at least partial responsibility, and, if I do cast blame upon the other person, I do so because I desperately don't want to bear the blame myself.

With more than seven billion people on this planet, conflict in unavoidable.  All we can do is to work through it to the best of our ability when it comes up.

I arrived at church one Sunday back in August and realized that I had forgotten about the potluck luncheon after the service.  I initially planned to skip the luncheon since I did not prepare a dish, but, by the end of the service, I had decided to show myself some grace and to attend the luncheon anyway.  I figured that simply being with my church family was actually more important than having something to offer them.  This too was an important lesson for me, because sometimes I feel that most people don't really care that I exist until they want something from me.  The truth is that I'm worth more than what I can do for people.

Toward the end of the year, I started to see that what's keeping me stuck in life might not be a lack of self-worth but rather fear.  In September, when I created a profile on a dating app only to delete it a few days later, I realized that I have a fear of dating.  Nothing makes me feel that I'm not enough quite like the prospect of dating.

My non-adventures with the dating app made me realize that the things I claim I want most in life, like intimacy and purpose, are actually the things that scare me the most.  I also realized that debunking some of the lies I believe about myself might require measures more risky than simply changing my negative self-talk.  For example, if I want to stop believing that I'm not worth dating, I need to put myself back out there and risk confirming the lie in the hopes that I actually end up disproving it.

I chose to focus on cultivating self-worth this year because I feel stuck in life.  I think I might have chosen to focus on self-worth because it seemed like a safer alternative to what I actually need to get myself unstuck.  That said, I've decided to focus on cultivating courage in 2020.  The prospect of cultivating courage is scary because it will require me to act courageously, and I can only act courageously in the face of fear.  Virtues like courage are not possessed but rather practiced.

Now that I've looked back over the past year and chosen my focus for the next year, I return to the question at hand: Can I say with confidence that I am enough?

For more than three years, I've been part of a small group with other members of my church.  For the last two years, I've helped lead the group.  Last month, as we discussed a sermon in which our guest preacher shared his experience with depression,³ I said that I tend to become depressed when I feel stuck in life.  I confessed that, as a thirty-five-year-old unmarried working stiff who lives with his mother, I feel like a total loser when I look at the lives of other people my age.  My friends in my small group told me that they don't consider me a loser and that they even think of me as a leader in our church.  Though I understand that what people think about me doesn't give me worth, hearing people important to me affirm my worth meant a lot to me.

Probably the most important lesson in self-worth I can share is the one I remembered at the beginning of the year.  As I contemplated the baptism of Christ and remembered my own, I remembered that I am a beloved child of God.  The truth that the Creator of this vast, ancient, ever-expanding universe claims me, loves me, and even delights in me is reason enough for me to have some self-worth.

I won't always feel confident that I am enough, so I will have to simply trust that I am enough, regardless of how I feel at the moment.  I suspect that, if I grow in courage over next year, I will grow in self-worth as well.  I hope that there are amazing things in store for you in 2020, dear reader.  I hope that, amid your moments of discouragement and self-doubt, you choose to trust that you are enough, since you too are a beloved child of God.


Notes:

1. My homework consisted of a course on dignity which was originally offered free of charge by life coach Steve Austin (catchingyourbreath.com).
2. Steve Austin.  "DIGNITY: How to Change Your Self-Talk."
3. Cam Treece.  "The Great Ordeal."  Travelers Rest United Methodist Church, 11/10/2019.

The photograph featured in this introspection was taken by me at Landmark Hall in Taylors, South Carolina.