The Therapy Edit - On how to feel good enough

Episode Date: May 22, 2020

So often we simply don't feel good enough. We feel like we miss the bar, we feel guilty and undeserving of good things in our lives. Here's why you may feel this way, and tips on what to do about it!

Hello and welcome to the Therapy Edit podcast with me, psychotherapist Anna Martha. I'll be bringing you weekly 10 minute episodes to encourage and support your emotional well-being. Hello and welcome to episode 13 of the Therapy Edit. Today I'm talking or not feeling good enough. I think if we think back to all of those times we felt fear or anxiety or worry about what people think moments of perfectionism, maybe we identify us having really high standards. If we really strip those away, often they come down to that fear and that feeling of not being good enough. And I just want to throw it out there. Now this sounds really controversial. So you'll

have to bear with me. Okay. Maybe sometimes you don't feel good enough because you are not. maybe sometimes you don't feel good enough is because you are not good enough. We were never meant to be fulfilling the roles that we try and fulfill to the standards that we try and to fulfill them to. You know, I think even in motherhood when they say motherhood takes a village, well, maybe a large part of the reason along the years that I have felt like not a good enough mother is because if motherhood takes a village well i have tried to be my own i have tried to fill so many roles to such high standards so relentlessly that i'm not good enough for those i'm not good

enough because i was never meant to be humanly i do not have the resources emotionally physically mentally psychologically to fulfill the roles the plates to hold those plates up with the two human arms that I have. So when they drop, when I forget things, that feeling in the bottom of my stomach, I'm not good enough, I am not good enough. Well, do you know what? I was never meant to be.

I was never meant to be good enough. I was never meant to be fulfilling that many roles with those high expectations placed upon by myself or by other people. We spin too many plates. Last week I somehow booked a coaching client in at the same time as my own therapy. My stomach dropped. I rarely do things like that because I'm so vigilant, so vigilant, it's exhausting. It takes a lot of headspace, but I don't make a huge

amount of mistakes kind of administratively. And it was that feeling again of I just, oh, I'm not good enough. I failed, I failed. And I just had to remind myself, and I think we need to go through this process sometimes in our own minds. You know, how many things are you trying to do? To what standards are you trying to maintain? Is this the work of one person? Is this acknowledging how tired you are, how stress you are, the fact that life is really challenged right now that you're juggling so much?

You know, the standards too high. Is this failure really a very human outcome? No wonder you are tired and stretched. You know, we have so little contingency between our load and our limits. So think about your load. Think about all the roles. Think about the things that you do, the people that you care for, the things that you hold in mind, the things in your diary, the things on your to-do list. You know, think about all of those things.

And then think about your actual human personal limit. You know, that if you were to live at maximum capacity, what would that look at? like and how much contingency is there between your load and your limit. There needs to be space there. There needs to be a contingency like a savings account. You know, just that little pocket of reserve just in case, just in case one of life curveballs comes along and the car breaks down or the wash machine gives up or you need a break or a holiday. You know, what is there for you to draw from to give you that bit extra when you need it or is it that you are living to the very extent of your limit so when a curve full comes along when a challenge comes along when a phone call

something out of the blue it flaws you it flattens you it challenges you it impacts your mental health and your well-being and your ability to enjoy life because you were already living to your maximum capacity. It's not kind. It's not kind. And then we beat ourselves up for not being enough. But we were never meant to. You know, so what do we do, though,

when there isn't helped hand, there aren't people to call on, to lean on? What do we do when there isn't as much time? You know, what do we do? We either, we need to lessen our load. or lower our standards. And if we can't lessen our load, if there isn't anything we can take away, or if there isn't a corner we can cut. Corner cutting, in my, in my view, is a very valid form of self-care. It's a very kind thing to do sometimes. But what if there isn't a corner that you can

cut? What if there isn't someone that can help take some of that load? What can you do then? Lower the standard. Lower the standard. How much you're expecting of yourself? What standard are you trying to achieve. You know, I also really want to encourage you. I don't know about you, but there have been so many times when life has just felt so overwhelming and people ask, you there, you know, are you all right? You must be stressed. I'm like, yeah, I'm fine, because what's the point?

What's the point? You can't help me. So what is even the point in me talking about it? You know, when we talk about it, when we talk about it with people that we trust and we just express how we're feeling, how our current circumstances are impacting us, it validates them. It does. It lightens that emotional loads.

So it's so important just to keep allowing yourself to be emotionally supported even if you can't be practically supported. You know, I try and keep on top of the waterfall of things, tidying toys, emails, jobs. And I find it really exhausting. I can not, I think there are two types of people. You know, there are the people that can just let those notifications on their phone. build up and build up and there are people that can have an inbox full of hundreds of emails and it doesn't bother them and then there is there are the people like myself that one notification and I have this compulsion I have to I have to address it I have to act it I have to clear it so

it's not nagging in the back of my mind you know personally I need more compartmentalisation that is what would be helpful for me is to not try and do everything all the time but just to leave things for chunks of time so that I can be maybe more effective and then everything doesn't just eke into everything else stopping me from enjoying my time with my kids because there are notifications pinging in the background maybe just getting used to compartmentalizing things a little bit more and doing things in chunks.

Another tip I like is when you find yourself saying I just need to do this, I just need to quickly do that, or do you, do you just need to do that now? Or is there some engaging in life? Is there some rest? Is there an opportunity, quick opportunity for rest or space that actually might benefit you so much more? Because rest, I think we've framed it as something to be earned at the end of the day. But rest isn't something to be earned. It is something that fuels you through. It's something that enables you to be productive. If you think about the old working day and they would have breaks, wouldn't they? You know, a morning break and a lunch break and an afternoon break. And it was an acknowledgement that actually rest enabled people to be productive. And the other thing is just to really monitor that internal dialogue and the way that you are talking to yourself. Often it is that internal dialogue that is holding the whip.

And that internal dialogue is often made up of all of those, just along the way, the people that have affirmed that we are the sum of our output. The world applauds efficiency, doesn't it? it applauds speed and thoroughness and yeah just how much we do how well we do it and sometimes it's just that need to strip that back to take that out of our own heads because underneath it all we believe that that equates to how good a person we are and how worthy we are of the good things in our lives so I really hope that that helps you that it gives you an opportunity to think that actually maybe might it be that some of those feelings of not being good

enough actually just because you're trying to do too much to too high a standard too consistently thank you for listening to today's episode of the therapy edit if you enjoyed it please do share subscribe and review you can find more from me on instagram at anam arthur you might like to check out my two books called mind over mother and no you're worth. I'm also the founder of the Mother Mind Way, a platform full of guides, resources and a community with the sole focus on supporting mothers' mental and emotional well-being. It's been lovely chatting with you. Speak soon.