Sarah Curnoles discusses the common struggle of feeling "not enough" and provides strategies to overcome this mindset. She shares her own experiences with this issue and emphasizes the importance of self-compassion, inner work, and shifting one's beliefs to reclaim a sense of worthiness and belonging. Key Points: The speaker acknowledges that feeling "not enough" is a common struggle, even for successful individuals like the actor Matthew Perry. The speaker shares her personal experiences with feeling "not enough" in her past relationships, where she would try to earn love and acceptance through perfectionism and people-pleasing. The speaker emphasizes that the belief of "not being enough" is a lie, and that we are all inherently worthy and enough, regardless of our circumstances or achievements. Sarah suggests several strategies to overcome the "not enough" mindset, including practicing self-compassion, connecting with one's inner child, and actively challenging negative beliefs.
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
Have you gone through a breakup and you're tired of feeling low lonely or lost? I've got a pep talk for you. I'm Sarah Curnoles, your breakup bestie. I'm a certified life coach with years of coaching experience, helping people just like you turn your breakup into the best thing that ever happened to them. Each week, tune in to get a pep talk, to heal your heart. Let go of the past, reclaim your power and get back into your main character energy. Your breakup may have shattered your world as you know it, but together let's build a new better world. Let's go.
Speaker 2 (00:44):
Hello, my friends Sarah Curnoles here, and this is Breakup pep Talks. And today we are talking about a doozy. And that topic is you are always enough. And I know this is a doozy because it comes up with every single person I have ever coached. It comes up with me probably in every single therapy session I've ever been in. But seriously, I don't know about you, but I am going to go really deep on this one because I know how much this impacts people and I'm going to share my own story with this and how if you can relate to this at all, feeling like you're not enough, how you could really try to bring yourself back to what is absolutely true. And I'm going to share some ways that you can do that. So I've been going through this audiobook kick and I'm listening to a lot of celebrities and their memoirs.
(02:09)
And in Matthew Perry's memoir, he talks about dating Julia Roberts. And I don't know if you remember, but she was on an episode of Friends and when she was asked to be on friends, and this is back in the nineties, so it was still the beginning of her career, and they asked her to come do an episode and she said the only way she would do it is if she had a storyline with Chandler. And so Julia and Matthew Perry had dated after that for a couple of months, and it was long distance and it was awkward and he broke up with her. And here's what he wrote about it. He said, dating Julia Roberts had been too much for me. I had been constantly certain that she was going to break up with me. Why would she not? I was not enough. I could never be enough.
(03:02)
I was broken, bent, unlovable. So instead of facing the inevitable agony of losing her, I broke up with the beautiful and brilliant Julia Roberts. And that still gets me a little choked up because someone as talented and beloved as Matthew Perry at that point, it was really pretty much the height of friends. People loved Matthew Perry. He was still struggling with feelings that he wasn't enough. So if that's not enough for you to know that somebody who could be at the height of his career making a lot of money, beloved by millions while he's in their living room every Thursday night, I also want to share a little bit of my story because it goes the full range from just an ordinary person like me to celebrities. We all have our stories of feeling like I'm not enough. So for me, I have really been raising my awareness on how this has been showing up for me for the past several years.
(04:15)
And of course my story has, this has been a running theme of my story for years and years and years, but I'm really just opening my eyes to it recently. And what I have found is that I am a bit of a workaholic. I stay busy. I work so hard, and it is my way of earning my enoughness, my love from other people of like I'll be worthy of love if I do a good enough job, if I'm the perfect girlfriend, if I look the way I'm supposed to look, if I do the things I'm supposed to do and I do a really great job, then I'm finally going to be enough and then I'm finally going to be accepted and I'll have somewhere where I belong. I also tend to go on the opposite end of the spectrum and I will do a lot of what Matthew Perry talked about of I reject people way before they can reject me. I am so worried that I'm not enough for friends and relationships that I don't put myself out there. I have a hard time starting relationships with people, whether it's a friendship or a romantic relationship. I'm very selective about who I open up to because I am terrified that they're going to see that I am not good enough and that they're just going to leave.
(05:53)
And the possible pain of that is just so great that I usually won't risk putting myself out there at all. So what does that look like specifically? So in my last relationship, and I think I might've shared part of this story before, but my last major relationship, I had a story that I was not enough and I was too much all at the same time. And I felt myself making myself smaller and smaller and smaller in that relationship so that I wouldn't be taking up any space so that I wouldn't seem like a bother. And I had to really ramp up and really earn the love of my partner by being the perfect girlfriend who made dinner every night and who was into all of the newest stuff and relationship theory for better connection and also great sex. And it felt like I was always pushing and striving to be better and more perfect because who I was deep down definitely wasn't enough.
(07:20)
And I had to do all the self-help reading because I had to fix myself before he actually figured out before he could see through my little charade. And he actually saw, oh no, this person is scum. And it's funny, I don't think I actually had a word for what I was other than Ick, you're so broken, you're so not enough that I had to do all this tap dancing. And I also felt like who I really wanted to be was way too much for that relationship. And so I tamped it down and made myself super small. It wasn't until a long time later that I was out of that relationship and I realized how small I was making myself and how much effort I was putting into being what I thought was perfect. And I realized it was just exhausting. And none of it's true.
(08:19)
It's not true that I had to earn my love. It's not true that I wasn't enough or that I was even scum. I am who I am and I am curious if I had let myself fully be who I am without the masks. Is that a relationship that maybe it wouldn't have gotten as far as it did, or would we have actually lasted if I could have fully dropped my masks in the tap dancing? I don't know. I don't know which way it would've gone, or maybe it would've gone exactly the way that it did. Who really knows? But it took me a lot of time working with a coach doing some embodiment work. So I really got out of my head and into my body and also working with my therapist that I really started to see the truth of what I've been hearing for a long time was that you're always worthy and you hear it right.
(09:24)
We hear it all the time. If you're in the self-help world at all, you hear people talk about you're always enough, you don't have anything to prove. You are always worthy. It's inherent. There's nothing you need to do. You are lovable as you are. It's one thing to hear it and to sort of agree with your brain, and it's another thing to drop it down into your heart and into your belief system where you actually believe it. And I will tell you one of the programs that I did that really helped bring this home for me was Kate Northrop. And I'm going to talk about her a little bit at the end because the way that she teaches and she actually teaches ease in your relationship with money, but the way that she teaches it is through your body and through your nervous system. So it's all about really, it's another way of accessing love for yourself.
(10:29)
And I'd never thought about that before until she started teaching it that way. And she has such a calm, soothing voice that it was more accessible that I could finally understand it and finally hear it from a teacher. And it really started to sink in. And something that I started to look at was where are the places in my life where I was making my self-worth conditional, I'll be worthy if I meet these conditions? And I really got honest with myself, where is that happening? Where am I putting conditions on my own worth? And when I got honest and I put 'em down in my journal and I really looked at 'em, I took the time to question them, which is what I always do with my clients. Let's get it out on paper. Let's talk it out together. What is it that's going on in your head?
(11:27)
What are these stories you're telling yourself? And let's question if that's really true and if it's serving you. And the funny thing is once I started to do that with kindness and compassion, I could see that they were all coming from the lie. The conditions were coming from a lie that I'm not enough. And I do believe we live in a loving universe. And in this loving universe, you are always worthy and you're always enough. And here I am another voice telling that to you, but I hope you're hearing it in a different way, that you also feel empowered to question any doubt that you have around your own worthiness and enoughness. So I will say we live in a culture and a society that does tend to create these traps that set you up to continue to reinforce these feelings of you're not enough.
(12:30)
Because if you're in America, we have such a capitalist driven society of we always have to do more and be more and achieve more and make more money. There's always the striving and it's always like you're chasing the next stream and the next stream and the next stream. And we never get to take the breath to just enjoy where we are. We never get to have appreciation and gratitude and enjoy the pleasures of life because we're always chasing the next thing and we're always trying to grow and expand and be more. So this feeling of always chasing is one way that our culture sets up this trap of not enough. There's also, I feel like decades and decades that have been putting a perfectionism trap on women especially, but I think on all people, there's this expectation of being perfect and tell me if you can relate to this one, because I have yet to meet somebody who doesn't struggle with some level of perfectionism where they feel this pressure, they compare themselves to this perfect stereotype and they beat themselves up if they fall short.
(13:47)
Another way that not enough shows up is that it is reinforced by people pleasing behavior. If you find yourself abandoning yourself in favor of making someone else happy, you put yourself last in order to put other people's comfort or wellbeing or to think of them first. If you're constantly doing that, it gets pretty toxic and exhausting. And if you are always trying to place the importance on pleasing someone else, it's like you are trying to get in their head so that you can control them of like, if I can manipulate this situation enough that they are happy, then they're going to like me. They're going to love me, and I'm finally going to know that I'm enough. That's actually what people pleasing is. It's actually manipulation of not allowing them to have their own experience. No, no, no. In order for me to be okay, I have to make sure they're okay. That's actually what's happening there.
(14:53)
And another way that not enough shows up is in the way that so many of us are always chasing outside validation, always needing the praise from some outside source to know that we're okay when we are outsourcing our validation, when we are seeking that from other people. Well, you're always going to be on rocky ground because it's never going to be enough validation from somebody else to fill up the gap inside of you where you need to be believing in understanding that you're always enough. You're always fine. You don't need validation from anyone else. Just yourself.
(15:36)
Chasing validation can be really draining. So how do we begin to go from our head where we're like, yeah, yeah, yeah. This idea that I'm always enough is great. How do we take it from our head and get it into our heart, into our body, into our beliefs? How do we get there? How do we close the gap between head and heart? The very first way is practicing self-compassion. So practicing kindness towards yourself. It's like I'm doing the best I can, and that's okay. My best is enough, right? Being kind to yourself, saying nice things to yourself instead of the running refrain, I don't know about you. I've got this running refrain of like, I'm not doing good enough. I need to do better. That's not enough. You got to step it up, right? I'm becoming more aware of where are the areas in my brain that I'm being really hard on myself?
(16:41)
How am I beating myself up? How am I creating this pressure inside myself? And how can I turn that pressure slowly, gently? How can I take the pressure down and turn up the compassion, right? There are several steps I just gave you there, right? The first step is being you have to become aware, and then you have to really listen to what am I saying to myself? And then you start to shift it. I add compassion and I start to gently tell myself, let's turn the dial down on the pressure. That's okay. We don't need to do the pressure. We can get rid of that right now. So that's one step of reclaiming your enoughness is to turn up your self-compassion. You can also do inner work. So getting in touch with your inner child and really understanding where did this start? Where did I first feel like I wasn't enough?
(17:50)
And reconnecting with your inner child can be really powerful. And especially if you are doing this work guided with a coach or a therapist, it could be super powerful because you can heal back at the beginning where this started and the work becomes very deep because you as an adult, start taking care of yourself, your inner child, in the way that you've always wanted to. Because even if you had perfect parents, parents aren't mind readers. Even if they're doing everything they're supposed to do, they don't know how. You as an individual person with your own wants, needs and desires. They don't know how you need to be loved because that's inside of you. And as a kid, you didn't have the vocabulary or the awareness to ask for it. So often there's a gap between the love that we received and the love that we really needed.
(18:55)
But as an adult, you can fill in that gap for yourself and love yourself, your inner child, exactly the way that you need to. That's another way to reclaim your enoughness. And then you can stop waiting to feel like you're enough because you're never going to feel that way if you're always waiting for it to happen of like, if this happens, if this happens, then I'm going to feel enough. It is never dependent on the circumstance. There is nothing that could happen externally in your life that will cause you to feel enough if you don't already believe it inside. And what is a belief? A belief is just a thought that you've thought a lot. You've thought that thing over and over and over again. It doesn't mean that it's true. Your beliefs are not inherently true. You can believe anything you want if you think it enough. So practice thinking thoughts that align with you, believing I am enough.
(20:01)
So in that spirit, I want to offer some thoughts. I want to offer some ideas that you can take from this that you can practice on your own and you can listen to me saying them over and over and over again if you want. So I want to invite you. If you're not driving a car or doing something that requires your eyes to be open and your hands to be on the wheel or doing something, I'm going to encourage you to just take a minute with me right here and close your eyes and place a hand on your heart and just turn internal.
(20:46)
Notice your breath. Notice the inhale and the exhale with your hand on your heart. Maybe notice the beat. And I want you to repeat me. Repeat after me either out loud or in your mind. I am worthy of love and belonging exactly as I am. I am worthy of love and belonging exactly as I am. I am enough even in the mess. I am enough, even in the mess. My value is not up for debate. My value is not up for debate. I am enough in this moment and every moment after I am enough in this moment and every moment after. What are the feelings you feel when you are enough? Do you feel full and satisfied? Are you feeling content? Do you feel free unburdened? Do you feel love? Notice what feelings you have when you're feeling enough. Bring those feelings up right now. Let yourself bask in those feelings or marinate in them. Let them wash all over your body. Feeling like you are enough and feeling the feelings associated with enoughness are always available to you.
(23:27)
All you have to do is tap into the feeling. Beautiful. Thank you so much for taking that time with me. When you're ready, you can gently come back to room that you're in, come back to this moment. I just want to send you so much love. If this resonates for you, I would love to connect more. Find me on Instagram. I'm at Sarah Kals, S-A-R-A-H. See you and let me know what you think about this episode. I'd love to hear how this felt for you. And if you're looking for a program like what I went through with Kate Northrop, like I said, I was able to access. I was able to access my enoughness in a whole new way. I want to invite you to join me. Come through my link that I'm going to put in the notes, come to Kate Northrop's free workshop where she is going to help you feel more ease in your relationship with money.
(24:47)
And if you are confused, why is Sarah talking about money? I thought this was about love and relationships and breakups. Go back a couple episodes. I talked about how love and money are actually really connected and the things that we learned in love also apply to money. And the things that we learn from money also apply to love. I love how that happens. So I would love for you to come join me to Kate's free workshop that is happening this week. It kicks off. So use the link in my bio so that you can join me through that. And I can't wait to see you there. We're going to learn so much. We are going to feel relaxed. You're going to feel ease, and we are going to feel like we are finally enough because guess what? Enough isn't tied to the dollars in your bank account either. It doesn't come from that. That's something on the outside. Enough comes from within. So I just want to leave you the final thought today. You are not broken. You are in the process of becoming. Alright, my friends. Take care and have a beautiful day.