Not Good Enough?
I Don’t Feel Good Enough
As a therapist, this is something I hear regularly, and sadly it’s mostly from
women. I don’t know if this is because more women feel this way, or whether
it’s just that women are more likely to seek my help, but I do know that it’s
often women who, on the surface, appear to have everything together. People
would never guess that they feel this way because they do a good job of hiding
it, but in my therapy room, this is where most of my tissues get used.
Many women don’t realise at first that believing they are not good enough is at
the root of why they come to see me because their symptoms can seem
unrelated. Here are just few of the ways this belief can manifest:
Anxiety
Social anxiety
Depression
Overthinking
Catastrophising
Self-sabotage
People pleasing
Binge eating/drinking
Self-criticism
Low confidence
Relationship problems
Panic attacks
Stress
Jealousy and resentment
So, where does this belief come from? It’s a bit of a cliché, but it is often
implanted into our subconscious mind when we are young children. We then
spend our lives trying to prove to ourselves that it’s true (this is known as
confirmation bias). We easily accept anything that confirms that we’re not
good enough, and filter out anything that seems to contradict it. We could
receive ninety-nine compliments and one criticism, and it is the criticism we let
in and take to heart. Every time we do this, we are strengthening the negative
belief and giving it more power.
Even worse, we don’t even wait to hear criticism from other people; we have
our own critical voice in our head twenty-four-seven. This voice seems to love
putting us down and reminding us of what we’re not good at! So we get in
there first, putting ourselves down before anyone else can. No wonder we
have low self-esteem and self-worth.
But, there is help; we can reprogram our subconscious mind and reframe those
negative beliefs using hypnosis. If this sounds you, why not download one of
my hypnosis recordings or contact me to arrange