Feeling stuck? You might have the ‘I’m not enough’ block

It’s funny how so many of my clients seem to turn up with the same issue, in any given week! Lately it’s been ‘I’m not enough’.

There are many variations on this theme, but they lead to the same result: you find yourself sabotaging your success; procrastinating about your goals; and generally undermining your own progress. Whatever you want to do, there’s something inside that keeps holding you back. You’re STUCK!

A many-faceted problem

The ‘I’m not enough’ block has many faces. For some people it’s ‘I’m not good enough’: even if they have achieved success in education, work, business or relationships, they never feel as if they’ve achieved enough. Some feel that they’re somehow frauds – that they haven’t earned their successes, they just fluked them somehow.

For other people, it’s ‘I’m not enough in myself’ – not interesting enough, not talented enough, not attractive enough, not smart enough, not a good enough mother/father/wife/husband/daughter/son/boss/teacher/whatever.

When you have this block, you’ll find a million and one ways to get in your own way. Take Emma. She’s an attractive, intelligent young woman in her mid-20s. She’s been single for a while, and just met a guy to whom she’s very attracted. But as their third date loomed, she found herself so nervous she wanted to cancel the date. She was desperately afraid of him getting to know her better, because then he would ‘find out’ that she wasn’t very interesting (her perception, not reality!) and break it off.

In the past, ‘I’m not enough’ has held Emma back from going for a better job and looking for a more fulfilling relationship – after all, if you’re not enough, you don’t deserve any of that, right?

Emma’s deep belief that she is not enough, stems from messages – both verbal and non-verbal – that her parents sent her when she was younger. Sadly, Emma’s parents were always so caught up with their own serious issues, they met very few of her emotional needs.

In fact, her parents usually behaved so immaturely, Emma ended up trying to be the ‘adult’ to her younger siblings, and even to her parents themselves. She made herself responsible for keeping everyone else happy, and then came to believe she wasn’t enough, because she couldn’t achieve this impossible task!

Veronica’s ‘I’m not good enough’ block has run through her life like a black thread, leading her into two emotionally and financially disastrous marriages, and causing her to hold herself back from reaching higher levels of career success.

Veronica’s mother suffered mental illness and attempted suicide on several occasions. Veronica tried hard to be a good girl and take care of her father while her mother was ill, but he always criticised her attempts to cook and keep house. Nothing she did was ever good enough to please him.

Elka, now in her late 50s, has built a successful business, yet was still feeling ‘not good enough’ to assert herself among her complex and volatile family. She was exhausted from attempting to keep the peace between them all. Elka grew up in an alcoholic family, and took on the carer role with various family members’ mental and physical illnesses.

Back then, she had assigned herself the impossible task of keeping everyone happy, and then felt ‘not good enough’ when she couldn’t achieve it.

During my sessions with these three clients, my focus was on getting to the messages each woman had received about herself when she was a child. The most seemingly insignificant, off-hand remark by a parent or other important person in a child’s life – let alone an explicit ‘you’re not good enough to please me’; or even the absence of acknowledgement for a job well done, can leave deep marks in a child’s psyche.

As children, we internalise these messages and then, as adults, we play them back to ourselves when we’re faced with any kind of challenge. This Inner Critic voice continually causes us to doubt our ability to do what we want to do, or even our right to want to do it in the first place!

With each client, I searched for specific incidents in her past in which she had that ‘not enough’ feeling. Using EFT, we worked on those incidents until there was no emotional ‘charge’ left on them – in other words, she could still clearly recall the incident, but it no longer upset her in the least.

In fact, each client either began to find those formerly upsetting incidents rather funny, or had new insights about what had driven her parents’ behaviour, allowing her to see them, and the incident itself, in a completely new light.

These ‘cognitive shifts’ – a spontaneous change in the way you think, and feel, about a situation, are the ‘Holy Grail’ of psychotherapy, and extremely difficult to achieve with conventional counselling techniques. But they occur routinely – and spontaneously – when ‘stuck’ emotions are released using EFT. In fact, they’re probably my favourite aspect of using EFT as a tool to promote emotional healing.

So, what came out of these sessions?

Emma broke out of her mindset of expecting rejection and decided to just enjoy the heady early days of her new relationship, without worrying about where it might end up.

Veronica overcame her belief that she wasn’t allowed to earn a decent income doing what she loves – contributing to others.

And Elka, when I saw her next, reported that she had found herself disengaging from the family politics, stepping out of the peacemaker role that she has always played, and standing up for what she wants – without feeling any of her previous guilt about not being able to keep everyone happy.

Each still has more work to do on her ‘not enough’ block, but has made tremendous progress in a far shorter time-period than conventional ‘talk therapy’ could achieve.

Need help to break out of your ‘stuckness’? I use EFT and Matrix Reimprinting extensively with my clients, to help get them unstuck, unblocked and ready to fully embrace health and happiness!

If you would like to learn more about how EFT and Matrix Reimprinting can help you overcome your blocks, apply for a Roadmap to Optimal Health Consultation.