We get so wrapped up in being enough for other people that we tend to overlook being enough for ourselves. We cover up our internal feelings of not being good enough by bandaging it up with other people’s positive opinions about ourselves because it’s easier to pretend we don’t feel inadequate than it is to face the uncomfortable feelings inside.
We care so deeply about what others think about us and what someone might have said behind our back that we forget their opinions don’t really matter as long as we’re enough for ourselves. We care about making our lives look good on the outside so people really think we’re happy and living large. We care about if other people think our outfit is cute or if the shirt we’re wearing makes us look fat. We worry about how we act in front of others so they like us, we worry about if our jokes are funny or our teeth are white enough to be visually appealing. We get so wrapped up in being enough for other people that we forget to be enough for ourselves.
We cover up bits and pieces of who we are to try to fit in with everyone else. We’d rather look good than feel good. We’d rather have other people like us than like ourselves. We’d rather be someone we aren’t just to feel a little more accepted.
I know people like me – I have friends that care about me, family that supports me and random strangers who give me compliments every now and then that make me smile but on the inside I still have days where I feel empty. Days where I still don’t feel good enough because sometimes all that outside validation just doesn’t matter. I could have a line of people complimenting me but I still would feel like a waste of space. I have days where I compare myself to everyone and everything, days where I feel like nothing I’m doing is good enough, days where I feel like I’ll never be good enough.
Comparing yourself to others is easy, it’s almost too easy, but we tend to forget that we’re all different.
Yesterday I had a 6-hour car ride and I spent most of that on Instagram stalking other people’s lives, wishing I could be like them and convincing myself I couldn’t be because they’re better than me and I’ll never look like them. And the truth is, I won’t ever look like them because we’re different.
It doesn’t matter that someone tells you that you look pretty when you don’t feel pretty. It doesn’t matter that someone tells you they think you’re smart when you don’t feel smart. It doesn’t matter if someone tells you that you’re enough when you don’t feel enough. Sometimes outside validation does nothing for you when you feel worthless on the inside.
I want to get to the point where outside validation doesn’t matter. I want to get to the point where I don’t care if I’m enough for you because I am good enough for me.
I want to wake up and feel good about myself, I want to feel happy and secure in my own body, I want to love myself so I don’t feel like it’s impossible for someone else to love me because that’s how I feel right now. I feel like I’m not enough the way I am and that’s because I don’t love myself completely yet so I’m convinced no one else can love me yet. I push people away because I don’t want someone to come in and “complete me” or “save me”, I want to do that myself because deep down I know I’m capable of it, I just have to keep working at it.
Self-love is tricky because it’s not something that you can just wake up and achieve one morning, it’s something that you continuously have to work at. You have to keep learning who you are, you have to keep focusing on bettering yourself, you have to find ways to love yourself even when it seems impossible.
There will always be good days that go along with the bad but that’s all part of life. It’s a never ending up hill battle but on day you will reach the top despite all the set backs along the way. You will finally feel like you are enough because you have been all this time; you just needed to convince yourself to believe it. 
