For the last couple of weeks, I’ve had the word “Fantastic” in my head. It keeps popping up and I find myself using it in conversation. Maybe a little too much? I don’t know maybe not enough! Today I was doing some work with my therapist. I had a crappy childhood. Full of fear, loneliness, and feeling like I wasn’t enough. I didn’t fit in as a child, I had a speech impediment. I was picked on. I didn’t have the right clothes. I didn’t have a lot of friends. We were talking about my ‘little Michele’ feeling lonely and sad. Just doing some work on loving her and telling her that. I had this vision of a white dove flying away, it was my loneliness. As I reflected on those feelings today, I came to the realization that my life is not that way anymore. I am not lonely. I have a wonderful loving family and a husband that I adore. I have some really great friends. Then something really powerful happened, I saw little Michele as a little girl, crouched down, like she was hiding. I went to her and I felt my momma bear instincts kick in. I just hugged her and told her it was going to be ok. It was ok. She is ok, I am ok. When in reality, I am fantastic! I am good enough, I am loved. It was such a sweet moment.
Jen Sincero says, “While there are countless ways, we rip ourselves off, there’s one way in particular that, without a doubt, the most rampant and the moist devasting of all: we invest everything we’ve got in believing that we’re not good enough.” Heart wrenching isn’t it? We do this to ourselves; we beat ourselves up. Instead of looking at where we’ve come from and realizing what bad asses we are in spite of our upbringing. When in fact we are FANTASTIC.
Don’t get me wrong, I still have moments of doubt. We all do, it’s what makes us human. If I can impart one piece of wisdom to your soul today, it’s this: YOU ARE FANTASTIC JUST. THE. WAY. YOU. ARE. Believe me when I say we all struggle, the key is talking about it out loud, just letting all the power of those negative thoughts have over us wash away with speaking the words. Light and dark can coexist, actually one does not exist without the other. Let’s normalize being honest with ourselves and each other. We really are fantastic, warts and all.
