Doubts of “Am I Enough?”

Continued from yesterday…

All of us have different experiences that shape our sense of self. We are by-products of our upbringings and what we have experienced and learned in life. Those events live on as the stories we tell ourselves about who we are. Whether our understanding of what happened is factually correct or not doesn’t matter, because what remains as an unconscious memory is our interpretation of what happened. Combined with other memories, these stories about who we are form an egoic pattern in our subconscious that then determines our conscious thought-patterns, beliefs, passions, and pursuits.

Unless we experience transformation, the underlying emotion is fear (whether we are aware of it or not). This fear shows up in a combination of ways, fluctuating from one moment to another as self-doubt or conceit, anxiety or arrogance, self-loathing or self-righteousness. But lurking below the surface is always an egoic struggle to be unique and superior to others.

The inner unconscious anxiety that I’m not enough has become part of our identity. Unaware of our true essence, we are afraid of rejection and loneliness, scared that our lives won’t matter, and worried (or indifferent) about what people think of us. Fear is the unrelenting and unconscious guide of our life, because the concept of I has entrenched itself so deeply in our mind that we have forgotten who we are.

To end the constant inner chatter of the ego that is the cause of the suffering in our mind, we need to regain awareness of the effervescent spirit of love—our true self—within us.

Adapted from section 2 of Awakening To I Am Love by David Youngren