by Tara Joyce | Dec 1, 2016 | Cultural Creativity
I don’t want to feel this way any more. I don’t want to feel that I am ‘not enough.’ I want to see how wonderful and amazing I am—and how wonderful and amazing you are. It has been far too long that I have bought into the message that you and I are ‘not enough’ as we are.
In response to these feelings, I’ve decided I’m no longer accepting any message, internal or otherwise, that encourages me or anyone else to believe that who or what or why we are is ‘not enough.’ I’m done buying into it. It’s horseshit and it is created out of our polarized culture that thrives on encouraging us to feel separate, alone, and mindlessly focused on consuming in order to fill the void we’ve created together.
Not enough, not enough, not enough. Buy more, get more, perhaps then it’ll be enough.
I’ve decided to become like a superhero, vigilant to the messages that encourage us to feel like we are not good enough as we are. Fuck these messages, and fuck the cutting voice inside me who actually buys into its bullshit. Only I can give any thing the power to make me feel not good enough. Only I can choose to dis-empower myself. It takes my ‘buy in.’ I’ve decided it’s time I own this.
You and I are so much more than we realize—and that is the real truth. The breadth and heights of what we’re capable of is actually what we need to be reminded of—and yet our dominate culture has a different message. It sells us on ways to be more, better, faster. It fearfully sells us on ‘not enough’ in hopes we will buy into its offerings. It needs us to feel less than, in hopes we’ll feel we need it to feel whole. It’s a never-ending co-dependent see-saw we ride, if we allow it.
I’m buying out of ‘not enough.’ For it’s the only way I can see clearly through the noise and to the heart of my self. Doing my work to release this dominant message, I allow myself the ability to rise to any occasion, confident in knowing I am enough as I am.
photo credit: Ron Mader
by Tara Joyce | Aug 20, 2014 | Cultural Creativity, My Journey | What's On My Mind, Self/Business Growth
When I feel I need to perform, my mind jumps to conclusions over and over about how YOU are interpreting and enjoying what I am doing or have done. Over and over I come up with negative judgements about what I have produced, and what YOU have decided.
I can’t be perfect. IT can’t be perfect. And yet I WANT (it) to be, and, in part, I feel I NEED (it) to be.
Maybe then SHE would be satisfied. I AM my own worst judge.
Perhaps, my conclusions will always happen. Perhaps, my mind, my inner critic, will always have something to say. But I DO have a choice in what I do with these conclusions SHE so easily jumps to.
In part, my judge and her conclusions support me in being focused on doing my best work. BUT when I actively court her conclusions, by giving ample space to them, they always stop me dead in my tracks.
SHE is a part of me, and perhaps I didn’t have a lot if choice in that, but I DO have choice in how much space is given for her to do the damage SHE requires. There is no reason my judge can’t simply be acknowledged, and then allowed to pass.
I see you. I hear you. Nothing more.
I don’t need to hide from her OR let her in. We can live in harmony. I can let her be who SHE is, without needing to attach to her words or thoughts. I can hear her and leave it at that.
You’re my paralyzing thinking, my harshest judge, and I am learning conclusion by conclusion how to live more peacefully with you.
photo credit: Hartwig HKD
by Tara Joyce | Sep 10, 2013 | Cultural Creativity
A reflection of our disdain for authority in our own life.
The things our critic says are likely things we heard from an authority figure.
Things we did not agree with — but heard anyway.
Things that once were someone else’s ideas about us, that have now become our own.
It’s not the truth.
It hurts us anyway.
We hurt when we allow those ideas to have power over us again. Whether they come to us from an external source or from inside.
Our pain is our disdain for the un-truths we believe.
Our pain can be a tool.
If we observe it, it can support us in letting go of what we are holding onto inside.
It can show us where we can create more freedom. From authority. And from our own critical self.
When we drop the disdain, the judgement of authority, we can too drop the pain.
If we let go.
Of thinking we aren’t good enough. Of the stories we tell our self.
Can we accept that all the people in our life, even the most controlling, have added value?
Are we willing to let go of our pain around the authority that hurts us, and release the power our inner critic has over us?
Can we accept that our greatest pain can be our greatest power?
photo credit: mason bryant
