I just don't think I'm enough. There's no reason for me to think that, but I can't quite shake the feeling that if I do X or accomplish Y, then
maybe I'll be enough. Never mind that I've tried that before, and it doesn't work.
What
has been helping is doing an exercise in which I imagine the hypothetical situation that would make me enough. Then, I forget the situation and focus on the feeling of being enough. It's helped me begin to realize that I don't really need to do X or accomplish Y to be enough. In fact, just typing that previous sentence helped me see a question that I haven't asked myself yet: Enough of
what? And to
whom would I be enough? Who are these people I want to please, and why aren't
they satisfied?
The answer just hit me: It is to my ego that I am not enough. And if I am enough, I would have no need for my ego, and it would disappear. The fight for being enough is really a fight for my ego's survival. In fact, if I recognize that I am inherently enough, my ego may be destroyed.
What would it look like if my ego were gone? It reminds me of something the Dalai Lama said once, and I paraphrase here: He was told by an admirer, "I want peace." He responded that if the admirer would drop the "I" and thus end the "want", nothing would be left but peace. I love that story. My ego isn't as fond of it, though.
This is more than I intended to write, but I'll post it anyway.