Who gave “I’m not good enough” the microphone?
I want to talk about the “I’m not good enough”, or the “I’m a failure” theme. Basically, that voice in your head that makes you feel bad about yourself and comes with strong emotions such as disgust, embarrassment and shame.
This voice is usually triggered by a scenario/event/person/expectation, and “fighting” that voice used to be an old way to tackle it. For example, getting angry and actually trying to argue the point. All this does is give the “I’m not good enough” emotions and dialogue in your mind and body your space, time and energy.
Plus, the reality is we all have weaknesses, so sometimes that voice is right, in that you’re not good at something (my singing for example). Or sometimes from someone else’s view it is correct according to their values, or maybe you just stuffed up, or you fear you’re going to stuff up!
So, one of the best methods for dealing with this voice is to negotiate with it and externalise it. For example, I know you’re really loud, horrible and going to hang around, but just this evening I have a fun event planned, and it’s really meaningful for me to have fun with my friends. Or I know if you hang around, you’re going to exhaust me. I really want to go for a run today, so maybe you can stay for a little while but I’m going to focus most of today on conserving my energy.
You can even use it in the past tense. For example, I know I really stuffed that presentation up at work but it was really meaningful for me to try. It’s a small part of my job and I know this feeling isn’t going away soon but the other 90% of my work is important to me too. So you can stay with me but I want to still action my work today.
The more you highlight what’s meaningful to you, the more you’re emphasising what you want to do. This is especially important because it puts these thoughts at the forefront of your mind, rather than the voice that wants to tear us down and prevent us from doing what we love.
It is important to practise this skill because no matter how much counselling you get, we never stop being triggered. We’ll hear this voice and feel these emotions. We can’t escape that, but what we can do is once triggered, we don’t panic, spiral and argue, we instead shift into reminding ourselves and our brain that I’d rather focus on what is meaningful. It’s a much more fun way to enjoy life.
Kelly Perry
BAppSc, PostGradCertBusAdmin, PostGradCertPolSt, DipCounselling
Author of The Counselling Edition (2024)
