I say, “I’m not good enough.” I could even say, “I suck!” I believe that without question. I say, “I’m great.” I could even say, “I’m awesome.” That all lands as a lie. Perhaps, that’s our human design, much like mortality. Unlike mortality, believing in the bad, believing in the worst of ourselves doesn’t have to be what’s so. Just saying.
As a little boy, I got that I’m not good enough from Dad. He was utterly disappointed in me. I wasn’t the son he wanted. I lived in a no-win scenario. Whatever I did or didn’t do only made Dad so angry at me. In my heart, I truly believed that I was not good enough. That became my truth. I continually gathered evidence to support my truth.
Paradoxically, Dad and I were so much alike. We were both scared as hell. I was scared not knowing how to make Dad proud. Dad was scared not knowing how to be a father, not knowing how to raise me. He did to me what his Dad had done to him because he didn’t know any better. I survived rather than thrived in childhood. My childhood made me so very sad.
I stopped growing when I was 14 years old. I was 5’ 3”, fat, and ugly. There was no way that a pretty girl would ever be interested in me, much less look at me. I looked in the mirror. After all, I was a fucking loser. I was hurt deep inside. I gathered further evidence that I’m not good enough. I would never be great, much less be good enough. That was my truth for much of my adult life.
In 2016, I sat in the movie theater on Thanksgiving morning watching The Edge of Seventeen starring Hailee Steinfeld as 17-year-old drama queen Nadine. I spent yet another Thanksgiving alone. I dealt with clinical depression. I felt sorry for myself, too.
In The Edge of Seventeen, following their night of excess drinking, Nadine lays curled on the bathroom floor with her best friend Krista. Nadine tearfully confesses, “I just had the worst thought. I’m going to have to spend the rest of my life with myself.” Nadine hated on herself nearly as much as I hated on me. I really needed to lighten the fuck up.
I work with my therapist Lance Miller to heal my childhood trauma and depression. I put in the work. I just train. I could love myself from the space I was in, from my zero. I could stop hating on myself so much. I could be kinder to me. I took baby steps. I practiced kindness for myself over, and over, and over, and over again. In Aikido, the late Mizukami Sensei said, “Practice makes the unnatural natural.” I work on myself, not on others. I practiced kindness for myself. I hated on me a lot less. I got to the space where I’m okay. That was my new truth.
In Aikido, Ishibashi Sensei says, “The safest place to be is under the attack.” I enter the attack and die with honor. I enter the danger, enter what I fear. I choose who I am and what I do. I enter what I fear and let go of my fear inside that I’m not good enough. Although that fear inside may never completely disappear, every time I enter what I fear, I let go of more of my fear inside. I free me.
It’s always easier to believe the bad about me when I hold on to I’m not good enough. I let it go. I let go of the past, let go of being right that I’m not good enough. Letting go is the hardest thing that I do in life. O-Sensei Morihei Ueshiba, said, “True victory is victory over oneself.” I’m always my GOAT (Greatest of All-Time) opponent. It’s only me against me.
Heaven is where I stand and here is where I just train. I have nothing to prove. I don’t have to be someone else. I love myself for who I am and forgive myself for who I’m not. I may never be great, never be the GOAT. I work on the best version of me. I work on myself, not on others. Maybe someday, I’ll be a good man. Just saying. Just train.
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