On Being Enough & Living An Authentic Life

In this episode, Dr. Gina explains how behind overachievement and overproducing can be hidden this feeling of not being enough. We can feel confident yet still suffer from this sense that we can do better and be better. She discusses the possible origin and how we can transcend this feeling by living an authentic life. Being ourselves is the simplest way to live, trusting and accepting that we all have a unique contribution to make in this world.

Transcript

Welcome to Living Simply,

A guide to mindful living and mindful parenting with your host,

Dr.

Gina.

Hello,

Everyone.

Welcome to Living Simply with Dr.

Gina Maggiagrano.

I am Crystal and unfortunately,

Just so our viewers in the Western zone,

Ben is not with us today.

I guess our viewers would already know that.

But everything's okay.

He's fine.

Just had a little scheduling conflict.

But how are you doing today,

Dr.

Gina?

I'm good and how are you,

Crystal?

I am doing fantastic.

Nice fall weather today out in Colorado.

So I hope it's nice up there in Canada.

Same here.

Beautiful fall day.

Nice.

Well,

Today we are kind of diving,

I would say,

Maybe a little deeper into the self-care and just on,

I mean,

Today we're going to be talking about being enough and kind of self-acceptance.

So can you tell us where this kind of stems from,

This idea of being enough or maybe not being enough?

Yeah.

First,

I'd like to thank one of my group members who proposed this topic about basically being authentic and being enough.

So where does it stem from?

Usually it stems from childhood where based on our upbringing,

How our parents were treating us doesn't mean they did it on purpose.

We never were good enough for them or they were critical.

So we've,

As children,

Need to survive.

So we strive to be perfect for our parents.

We try to notice what they need,

What they want,

And we shape shift.

We try to accommodate our parents,

Try to be the good girl and the good boy to hopefully get their love and approval and especially unconditional love.

So as a child,

We do that to survive in the family,

Which is necessary.

But if that keeps up into adulthood,

Then it's not as necessary and it becomes dysfunctional because it leads to behaviors that are not in the service of our mental and physical health.

So that's where it comes from.

Yeah.

I mean,

That makes total sense.

And I think I speak for every woman in existence when I say that I have never felt that I was not enough.

Me neither.

I know.

Every woman throughout history has always felt like they are enough.

I mean,

I think that's really cool too that you had one of your group members suggest this topic.

Hopefully she is watching live too.

And if anyone has any questions,

Please feel free to put those in the comments and we can answer them as we go.

On this idea of being enough,

It kind of occurred to me that maybe,

Does it always stem from childhood?

Or can we,

As adults,

Maybe in our jobs or something,

Does that also come from that where nothing you do ever feels like it's good enough?

Or is it always kind of from childhood?

Well,

A lot of it can come from childhood,

But I guess there would be situations where it can come from poor self-esteem or also if someone's been in a long-term relationship that could be slightly abusive emotionally where you're made to feel not good enough and it eats away at your self-esteem,

That suddenly you could develop that as an adult.

In the end,

It doesn't really matter where it comes from,

Is to notice that you have these feelings and perceptions that you're not good enough and to try and change that.

So the source is interesting,

But it doesn't always matter if you don't know where it comes from because then if you then shift and just want to blame,

You're not further ahead if you just get stuck in blaming who put you there.

Right.

No,

Absolutely not at all the direction I was trying to steer.

No,

I know.

I know.

But I'm saying that because usually a lot of people even that come and see me are very curious to understand where does this come from.

So it's human nature to want to understand and sometimes we figure it out and sometimes we don't.

So I try to say yes,

Often it comes from childhood,

But there could be other sources.

But I mean,

Ultimately,

As you mentioned,

It doesn't really matter where it came from,

The matters that you're working on it.

Yeah.

Right.

So what on how do I want to phrase this?

Sorry,

I just caught myself up in all my words.

How would you start kind of maybe noticing that you have these feelings of not being good enough?

Or maybe I mean,

You mentioned low self-esteem too.

Does it always kind of coexist with low self-esteem?

Maybe we should start there.

I'll leave that up to you.

Well,

I think it can coexist and it doesn't mean you have low self-esteem in everything,

But it could be you could have healthy self-esteem to some degree,

But still feel you're not good enough.

But there would be a bit of a discrepancy there.

Not knowing you're good enough is noticing how does it show up in your life.

So you'll often see high achievers.

So that's why I'm hesitant on the self-esteem.

You might see highly successful women.

They're great moms,

Great partners,

Great bosses or employees.

They're always striving to do the best and people look up to them like,

Wow,

They have the perfect life.

You know,

Their to do list is always full and they're always doing things.

They're overproducing.

On the outside,

It looks like they have a perfect life,

But they're tired.

They're exhausted because everything has to be perfect.

You know,

It's like I'm thinking of someone who's homeschooling.

It has to be perfect.

The perfect curriculum,

The perfect books,

The perfect schedule.

Well,

Life is messy.

It can't always be perfect.

The house can't always be impeccable.

So it's never good enough.

And what we find often is they'll strive for goals.

They reach the goals.

It's still not good enough.

They get a master's,

They get a PhD,

They get the promotion and they always have this feeling that something's missing.

And they're trying to get that feeling that they're good enough through achievements or how their lives look like.

So is that self-esteem?

It could be linked,

A little bit of feeling that you're not worthy enough and you try to get your worth by being a human doing instead of a human being and just be yourself.

Yeah,

No,

That makes sense.

It kind of reminds me,

Have you ever heard the term keeping up with the Joneses?

Yeah.

It reminds me of kind of that where unless you have something better than your neighbor,

You know,

Your life isn't good enough or,

You know,

Your standing or how you're representing yourself isn't really,

Really good enough.

Does that also kind of play into it?

Yeah.

And even,

You know,

Having an imbalanced life where your professional life is pretty amazing,

Like you overwork,

You achieve all these promotions,

But then your private life suffers or your connection with your kids because you're trying to strive and feel like you're enough by all these achievements and accolades.

So you're always chasing and chasing and it creates an imbalance in your life.

And in the end,

By trying to be enough in other people's eyes,

The bad side of that as well is you can often end up not being yourself,

Not being authentic,

Because what if you want to chill and relax or what if you really deep down you don't want to keep up with the Joneses because it doesn't make you happier to have a bigger house,

A nicer car or what your neighbor wants?

What if you like the simple life and that's enough?

But sometimes the feeling of not being enough also comes from external pressures.

So we want to come back to what do you want inside?

What makes you happy?

What are your strengths?

What are,

I don't want to say your faults,

But we have strengths and weaknesses.

Our weaknesses don't have to be labeled as bad.

But when you understand,

If you're super creative and you're a lawyer,

Maybe you'd rather be an artist and it's not good enough to be an artist compared to a lawyer.

So often we have that feeling of not being enough based on external criteria.

Yeah.

I mean,

That makes complete sense to me.

It also kind of sounds like this idea of not being enough,

It's kind of a denial of our authentic selves.

Is that a good way to put it?

Yeah.

How do you find your authentic self?

Well,

You go inside,

You try to discover what do you like.

And I was working on that with a client today who's experiencing a lot of anxiety.

It's so severe.

She's frozen and she doesn't know who she is anymore because she's disconnected from who she is truly.

What does she like?

It was as simple as just experience life,

Experience things,

See how you feel,

Not how you think you should feel or what you should like or should not like.

Just see what things are like and you'll discover who you are and accept that who you are as a person,

As a human being is perfect.

You are enough.

You're not too much.

Who you are is perfect.

What we need to change,

Of course,

Is behaviors.

If we have bad habits,

If we put down our children,

It's bad behavior,

But we're not bad at our core.

The human part of us,

Our soul,

Our essence,

Whatever you want to call it,

Is enough,

Is perfect.

We'll never know who that is if we keep comparing ourselves to others or striving to reach standards established by other people.

Our standards are good enough.

I'll give you an example.

I technically could work,

I don't know,

Let's say 30 hours a week seeing clients.

But I don't.

I choose not to.

Why?

Because I value not being stressed,

Time with my daughter,

Time alone,

Taking care of myself.

So based on external standards,

It's like I could look lazy,

I could look like I'm not ambitious.

But really I am.

It just doesn't look the same way some people might figure it should look like.

So I have to respect my rhythm that I'm not as efficient if I have 30 hour coaching or client time.

It's too much.

So I'd rather see less clients and do an amazing job than just go through.

So sorry.

My phone is far away.

I forgot to mute it.

My phone was ringing even though it was on mute earlier today.

So if you have an iPhone restarted,

It solved all my problems.

So I'll answer quickly and I'll go shut off my phone.

I'm so sorry about that.

So yeah,

It's based on my standards and what my body,

My mind can handle.

And that's good enough.

Even if others judge me or think it's not enough,

Well,

It's none of my business what they think.

That's a good way to put it.

I feel like as Western society puts a lot of emphasis on what other people think of you and maybe not enough emphasis as on what you think of yourself.

Yeah.

And what other people think you should be,

What you should do.

And one place that's very difficult is mothers judging other mothers,

How they parent.

And I know you don't have children,

But you have a niece and you see mothers around you.

Mothers are judged constantly for how they raise their children.

You know whether you're too permissive,

Not permissive enough,

Too strict.

The choices you make.

People constantly judge mothers and finger point.

And it starts from the moment you're pregnant,

What you should eat,

What you shouldn't eat.

I'm not a big coffee drinker.

Never have been.

And once I had a coffee and I was pregnant,

I was told you shouldn't drink coffee,

You're pregnant.

And I didn't even drink coffee every day.

And yeah,

My decisions often are judged as a mom or even professionally.

I have a PhD,

So some people have expectations,

How much I should work or how I should work or what I should do.

So people are constantly judging,

Not just me,

Everybody.

I'm just using me as an example.

And we need to develop a thick skin and not really care what people think,

Not in the sense that we're callous and we tell them to go you know where,

But more be respectful,

But know you need to be true to your path and your values and what matters to you and how you feel.

Right.

Yeah.

No,

And I'm well aware of the mommy shaming.

It's kind of a big debate on the internet.

Oh yeah.

I think breastfeeding is a big one.

I mean,

Among other things,

But that's the one I've seen kind of come up the most.

Oh yeah.

Breastfeeding is a big one.

How long you breastfeed.

Oh yeah.

If you breastfeed or not,

Where you breastfeed,

If you cover yourself or not.

So many nuances to breastfeeding.

Yes.

And people will judge people.

Yeah,

I was judged for that as well.

My daughter had leukemia and I chose to nurse her through chemo,

So she was an older baby and I would get dirty looks,

But I didn't care.

It really helped her.

And if I had to do it again,

I would do it again.

So we really have to build resiliency and not care for other people's judgment of us and especially our own judgments.

I constantly work with clients on stop being so hard on yourself and putting yourself down.

You wouldn't even treat your friends that way.

So yeah,

We need to stop shaming ourselves as well.

If we think we're not enough,

We will shame ourselves or make ourselves wrong for what we do,

What we think,

What we say.

And be pretty nasty in the privacy of our own minds.

Oh yeah.

I've heard it say,

If you had a friend that treat you the way you treated you,

You'd never stand for it.

Yes.

So yeah,

No,

I get that.

Of course,

I've never experienced that at all.

I've always been enough.

Yeah,

Always.

All of one kind.

So I guess the question now is how do we start to cultivate this in our daily lives?

Where do we start?

What is that first baby step we need to take?

Well,

As always,

Mindfulness.

So paying attention,

If let's say we're overly stressed,

Paying attention,

How big is my to-do list?

And is it realistic to have a to-do list that has 10 items every day?

So if we're not mindful and present to how we feel,

How we think,

It's really hard to change it.

So self-awareness comes with being present.

So noticing our tasks,

Our to-do lists.

Are we overproducing,

Noticing how we talk to ourselves?

So when we look in the mirror,

Are we critical of what we look like?

So I think I said that in another show.

If you're critical about how you look,

You don't need to start thinking you're the most beautiful woman in the world,

But start going to a neutral thought that is at least positive about one part of yourself you appreciate.

If you think you're not good enough,

Start thinking how you impact other people.

Sometimes without realizing it,

If you turn it around,

You're like,

Wow,

You make a difference in other people's lives,

Whether it's your children,

Your friends,

A parent,

A sibling,

You make a difference in someone's life.

So if you make a difference,

Obviously you matter.

So putting your thinking in check,

Your mindset,

Seeing how do you talk to yourself and questioning and do I think I am enough or not in different areas and then changing the behavior in a way that is accepting of who you are.

Not comparing.

When you feel you're not good enough,

You tend to compare yourself to others.

So making an effort not to compare yourself.

If you want to compare yourself to someone,

Compare yourself to you.

So if you want to improve yourself,

But don't compare you to someone else because everyone's different and you can't compare your insides to someone's outside because everyone on the outside looks like they got their stuff together.

But we don't know what happens behind closed doors.

So when you think other people's lives are so perfect and you compare yours to them,

Their lives,

Again,

It fosters that you're not good enough.

Your life is not enough.

So the self-awareness,

The reframing it,

But making an effort to stop that thinking or at least reframing it when your mind goes there and not comparing and fostering self-esteem by either having a coach,

A therapist,

Reading books on self-esteem and really try to every day develop self-acceptance.

Start noticing your good moves.

Start noticing what's awesome about you.

And if you're not sure,

Ask your friends.

What do you like about me?

What do you appreciate about me?

How do you perceive me?

And you'll see you have a greater impact than you think on other people's lives.

That's really great,

Actually.

I think there's a lot of great information in that.

I guess my other question on this topic would be,

How do we start to cultivate the resilience to not let other people's judgment affect our behavior and how we want to show up in the world?

Well,

You need to make the decision,

Right,

That people will judge you and you want to choose that it's the fact of life.

People judge us and I need to not let what they say put me on a path that's further from my values and what matters to me.

So I think the resiliency gets built over time as you see that there's a sting when someone judges you,

But then you have self-compassion for yourself and you see in the end,

Oh,

I'm okay.

So that's reinforcing in and of itself.

And it's so freeing because you don't need to defend your choices,

Your values,

And it takes the weight off your shoulders.

So I think the resiliency comes over time when you experience the benefits of not caring too much about how people judge you and accepting that people judge,

Even we judge.

So if you catch yourself judging,

Then stop it,

Reframe it,

Right?

You're like,

Well,

Who am I to judge?

I'm not better than they are.

So if you start with yourself,

Stop judging other people,

It will have a positive impact on you and stop judging yourself.

And then it's easier to not let other people's judgments affect us.

Yeah.

I mean,

That makes sense.

It made me think of something from my past.

I was pretty severely bullied as a child,

You know,

K through 12.

Like,

I know that affected me in a lot of different ways.

But how,

I mean,

Maybe just a quick touch on something,

You know,

Where you were in a situation like that,

You know,

At one point in my life,

I was so focused on how other people perceived me.

You know,

How can we start to step away from something like that?

Well,

You know,

As a kid,

You're being bullied.

You were traumatized.

And by nature,

So let's put aside trauma.

By nature,

We don't want to stand out because as cave people,

If we stood out,

We'd be excluded from the tribe and we would die.

So it's our nature to not want to stand out and to fit in.

But now it's no longer dangerous if we don't fit in unless you're bullied.

Because if you're bullied,

You're like in caveman days,

You're being punished for being different or whatever.

So you will become hyper vigilant and worry about what people think because you are being victimized by these people.

So as a child,

Ideally is to protect children and to remove them from those environments.

But as an adult,

You can be bullied in the workplace.

You can be bullied by your family,

Your partner.

And as an adult,

You want to walk away.

Because what these people think has a direct impact on you because they're abusing you.

So the safest thing to do is to minimize being around toxic people and people that hurt and bully you because that's not imaginary.

It's real.

Right?

And their judgments,

They're acting on their judgments.

Whereas if someone on the streets looks at you and in their head,

They think,

Did you see how she's dressed?

She looks like an idiot.

They're not hurting you and you'll never know they're thinking that.

So when you're being attacked and bullied,

These people are acting out on their judgments.

Well,

They're impacting your safety.

So that's you want to make yourself safe.

So when I say you don't care about people's judgments,

It's obviously when it's in a safe environment.

Right.

Right.

And it's what people think in the privacy of their own heads,

You'll never know unless they do tell you.

And if it's not dangerous,

You walk away or you thank them for their opinion and you let it go.

And if it becomes too much,

Too painful,

It's okay to break ties with that person.

If you can't handle it and you can't let it go,

It all depends who it is,

What kind of relationship you have with that person,

If you can set boundaries.

And yeah.

Yep.

That makes sense.

And that's also a lot of really great advice.

So thanks,

Dr.

Jana.

So we are getting to the end of the show and we end every show with a moment of gratitude.

Since Ben usually has me go first,

I guess.

Should I have you go first?

Should I go first?

I don't even know.

I can go if you want.

Okay.

Okay.

You go first today.

I'm grateful.

I met with a woman.

I met maybe two years ago.

She's pretty amazing.

She's a nurse.

She became a yoga teacher and does other nice things.

And I've been to a few of her workshops and we always want to connect and our schedules don't match up.

So I'm grateful that we finally met and we hung out by the canal here,

Which is a long,

Long body of water.

In the winter,

It becomes the longest skating rink in the world,

I think.

Oh,

Nice.

And in the summer,

Fall,

It's just beautiful.

And I think we were there an hour walking and it's full of trees.

The scenery is amazing.

And she kept showing us these little cute little places,

A nice tree that you go underneath.

It was like a fairy house.

So I'm really grateful for connecting with her,

Eileen,

And spending a wonderful hour outdoors with her.

That sounds really nice,

Actually.

Yeah,

It was fun.

How about you?

Yeah.

I mean,

This week,

I think I'm going to say I'm grateful for family.

I had one of my brothers is a mechanic and so he pointed out that my brakes were squeaking.

And so he was looking at that and stuff last week and he's like,

Well,

You also really need new tires.

And it helps me to be more safe and to be able to do this stuff if I don't have a lot of money or I don't have a lot of time and he's able to do that for me.

We always need a good mechanic.

Don't we though?

Especially if it's free.

Right.

Yeah.

Just parts.

Just got to pay for the parts.

That's great.

Well,

As always,

Thank you so much for being with us today.

If you want to work with Dr.

Gina,

So you can go to drmadrigrano.

Com.

Can people access your free course from that website as well?

Yes.

And I'd also like to invite people to our Facebook group,

The Women of Clarity.

It's pretty cool.

I love that group.

The women in there are amazing,

So head on to Facebook and you'll find the links to my free programs and an upcoming self-care program.

Yeah.

And with the free program,

That's through the end of the month,

Right?

Yeah.

Okay.

So definitely sign up for that if you are interested.

Free through the end of the month.

And then you are taking feedback for that,

I think,

Right?

Yep.

And if you are looking to find me,

You can definitely check me out at braveandboldrider.

Com.

Awesome.

Well,

That's all for this week and we will see everyone next week.

Or no,

We won't see everyone next week.

Oh yeah,

Yeah,

Because it's Thanksgiving,

So I might not have a show next week.

Yeah.

But we will definitely see you in two weeks then.

Yes.

We'll plan on that.

Yeah.

All right.

Have a good night,

Everybody.

Take care,

Kristin.

You too.

Bye.

Reviews

Going back into therapy at age 68 has been a good choice for me. It has really helped me to work on childhood issues and the feeling that I was never good enough. I could really resonate with this podcast. Thank you.