What if I told you that you are enough?

Moreover, what if you woke up this morning and, for the first time ever, you actually felt like enough. What if you loved yourself? And I mean really loved yourself.

Do you love yourself? Let’s find out.

Are you a perfectionist? No? Yes? Have you ever asked WHY you’re a perfectionist? Have you ever wondered why you strive to be flawless so that nobody will find a reason to judge you?

Or are you a people pleaser? Ever wonder why? How did you become a doormat? Why do you fall all over yourself to ensure everyone will like you? Would showing them the real you be that bad?

Or maybe you’re critical. Maybe you nitpick those you love. Heck, maybe you nitpick yourself. Maybe you look in the mirror and think, “I’m so fat and ugly.”

Perhaps you see photos of yourself and react with true disgust, thinking, “I’m so old and wrinkled. Look at all this flab underneath my neck, jiggling like Jello salad.”

Maybe you don’t like your nose. Or your teeth. Or the shape of your bootymus maximus.

Then again, maybe you dislike yourself in much simpler ways. Maybe you’re embarrassed about your bank account. “Omigod. Is this ALL you have in savings? What a loser.”

Maybe you don’t like where you are in your career. What a freaking disappointment you are. You should’ve been MUCH further along in your field by now. Instead, you’re just a supporting actor in someone else’s made-for-TV drama.

Maybe you don’t feel smart enough. Maybe you are socially anxious. Maybe you think you’re too much of an introvert. You’re a classic procrastinator. You feel invisible. You hate your hair. You wish you were prettier. Skinnier. Funnier. Happier.

Either way, your inner critic is always screaming,“You’re not enough!” You’ve tried to shut up this blowhard for years. But it doesn’t work. The inner critic just keeps talking smack.

“You’re simply not enough,” the critic keeps saying.

This is shame you feel. You might not be aware that it’s shame, but it is. You don’t feel shame because of something you’ve done. You feel shame over who you are.

You dislike the real you. And thus, you’ve formed a persona to hide the real you. And hopefully, everyone will like this persona because, God knows, you work really hard building it. You built this persona because the real you is not worthy. The real you just isn’t enough.

But…

What if I told you that you don’t have to feel this way anymore? What if I told you that you ARE enough? What if I said that you are so insanely beautiful as a human being, just the way you are in this moment. Moreover, what if I am not prodigiously and majestically full of bovine ordure?

There is a way to never feel ashamed again. You will not find the answer through rituals and creeds, nor through the oppression of pious dogmas. You will not find answers in internet videos or poorly written articles on the internet—such as the one you are currently reading.

I have been ashamed of myself for my entire life. Because of childhood trauma, I became the essence of shame itself. But if I have learned one truth in my short life—if you get nothing out of what I’ve written you today—I hope you understand one thing, because the entirety of reality rests upon it:

The only way to love yourself is to first love your neighbor. And the only way to love your neighbor is to love the One who made them.