I'm enough! Period. End of story. Wouldn't it be great if that's the way it really worked. This idea has been coming up a lot in my life recently both on a personal level and with my work with clients. I've been giving a lot of thought to the idea of really believing that one is good enough just the way they are. At what point do we learn that we are not good enough and where do we stumble on or get programmed to believe that we are not? We surely don't come out of the womb with a belief system that we are not good enough. We enter the world whole and then we are bombarded with shoulds, shame, judgement, doubt, criticism, and the list goes on. This is typically when we learn to these reject aspects of ourselves as though they were limbs we could amputate; we take these parts of ourselves and shove them away so no one will find them. And, we forget about them. So we think. They have ways of sneaking around and tormenting us when we least expect it. Times of feeling rejected, abandoned, fearful, lonely...oh yes, they're still around.
So, what parts of yourself do you reject? Or maybe I should say, disown. Or maybe your are ashamed of. Can you name a few? What about the part of you that tends to be forgetful? Or the part that gets jealous? Or, the part that can be careless...that's a big one. And, what about the part that you feel is NOT PERFECT? Yes, even that one. What I'm asking is how do you take care of yourself when these aspects of yourself come up? Do you berate yourself? Shame yourself? Or, are you loving and kind to yourself?
Here's the art directive:
Create a collage using cut-out magazine images, of all the many aspects of you. Good, bad, ugly, unacceptable, unforgiving, not allowed; the parts you embrace and the parts you reject...they are all welcome...invite them all in. Use images that reflect these parts of you. Glue them to the paper and really take time to look at them and get to know them. Realize, that like it or not, these are what make you who you are. They are all part of the amazing whole that make you YOU. No one collage will look the same. Practice seeing what it feels like to really take these pieces of yourself in. Bring them forward and acknowledge them. Take them out of the closet and allow them to be seen. You do not have to hide them anymore. They create the whole of who you are and if you took one away, the whole would not be complete. After completing your self-collage, I would encourage you to journal about the process. Write about what came up and you might want to even name these beautiful parts of what make you YOU. Give them names. They all have a right to be here. They are not wrong.
Go in peace...
