Susan Jeffers's Blog, page 2

What is my purpose?

This month, we’re looking at finding our purpose. Whether you are unsure of what yours is, or if your circumstances have changed and you need to expand your current purpose, Susan offered a wonderful exercise in Embracing Uncertainty.

THE “WHAT AM I ASKED TO DO?” EXERCISE

Since we are all part of the Grand Design, cosmically speaking, I believe each of us is asked as a human being to do something to help this world. How do we find what it is that we are asked to do? I once heard it said,

Stand where you are, make a circle, see what needs to be done and do it.

Using myself as an example, I made a circle, metaphorically speaking, and I saw that I was called upon to learn and teach…specifically, I was called upon to learn how to see the world through the eyes of the Higher Self and share what I learned with others. So I now spend my time learning about living in the Higher Self so that I have something valuable to teach. In this way, all of my life experiences are “grist for the mill”. Whether my experiences are good or bad, they all have inherent value that I can pass on to others. As I mentioned earlier, my breast cancer was a valuable experience, as it gave me the opportunity to help others with their fears about breast cancer. You get the point.

As you make your own circle and look for what needs to be done, it helps to look at what you love to do. Our personal interests are so often tuned into the Grand Design. Therefore, these personal interests often send us in the right direction as to how to fulfill our sense of meaning and purpose. The questions then become,

What do I love to do? How do I use what I love to do to help the world around me?

If you love to cook, you can put nourishment into this world. You can feed your family and friends. You can create a restaurant that brings people pleasure. You can help in a soup kitchen feeding the poor. Or all of the above.  If you love being around children, you can put nurturing into the world as a teacher, mentor, and/or parent. If you love gardening, you can put beauty into the world everywhere you go and with all the people you meet. If your answer is developing new technology, you could put wonderful energy into the world by finding ways of enriching it instead of destroying it. No matter what you love to do, there is no end to what you can do to help people near and far.  

It is important to keep in mind that what we are asked to do changes with our circumstances in life. It would be unwise to hang on to any particular means of spreading our meaning and purpose into this world. There is always something wonderful to do in whatever form that takes.

Our own sense of purpose

Throughout her books and writing, Susan often talked about meaning and purpose, and what that can mean to each of us individually. When we know and pursue our purpose, we know that we matter. When we don’t know what our purpose is, we can feel lost and alone.

Yet, as Susan described in Life is Huge, not knowing our purpose gives us a chance to discover it on our own. And, it gives us a chance to change our purpose as we grow and learn. “Since we don’t know the purpose of our life on earth, we have an incredible opportunity to create our own purpose. And if we are wise, we pick one that brings us joy and satisfaction.”

Knowing our purpose and pursuing it can help us work towards being our best possible selves. It can help us connect to the world and to something greater than ourselves. With that feeling of connection we are less likely to be worried about the future. As Susan said, “It transcends the drama in our world and makes life worth living.”

For Susan, she ultimately found that her purpose was: “1. LEARNING how to put more love and trust into all my thoughts and experiences and then… 2. TEACHING what I’ve learned to others.

“I consider learning and then teaching about love and trust in whatever form that takes to be my purpose.  That makes everything in my life ‘grist for the mill.’ As I learn from my experiences—good or bad—I can’t wait to tell you what I’ve learned, which has the added advantage of making all my bad experiences good!” she wrote.

She discovered after “trying on many purposes” that being a learner and a teacher was what

gave her the most happiness and joy.

So, how do we find our purpose? Purpose can be many different things and is different for every person, but we can recognize what it is for ourselves by how it makes us feel. When we are living with meaning and purpose, we feel right—our heart tells us so. Susan felt that a sense of purpose can be found by asking, “What brings me great joy and satisfaction?” “What connects me to my Higher Self?”

“I believe that in order to find true joy and satisfaction, we have to become Higher Self thinkers…people who are in touch with the best of who we are,” Susan said. “And then we have to put that ‘best’ out into the world in any way we can.”

She continued, “There is no question that when we make our purpose one that comes from the Higher Self, we are on the right track for creating inner fulfillment. Of course, we all seem to sink into Lower Self thinking every once in a while, that seems to be a human trait we can’t escape. However, when we know our Higher Self purpose, we always have something wondrous to return to. It’s a beautiful process.”

If you are struggling to find your purpose, perhaps experimenting, as Susan did, can help. When you see what kinds of action bring satisfaction, you know you are on the right path. Susan suggested these possibilities to get started:

• Being kind to others in all that you do.
• Helping the world to be more beautiful in any way you can.
• Easing other people’s pain.
• Teaching children to be more loving.

Maybe your job as an assistant or in retail or whatever your job is doesn’t help you pursue your purpose, maybe it does. If it doesn’t, perhaps it’s time to change fields to something that fits your purpose. Or, if changing jobs isn’t a good option, you could volunteer to be a mentor for teenagers or advocating for the elderly or spending more time with friends and family. As the old adage says, “Opportunity is where you find it.”

In pursuing your meaning and purpose, remember that neither has to be serious or profound. Making people laugh, or any kind of entertainment, can be a meaningful purpose. Training as an athlete, creating a beautiful garden, rescuing stray cats…there is no end to the purposes on earth. If packing groceries for others speaks to your heart, then so be it. As long as you know that you are needed, you are important, and that you can make a difference.

Whatever your purpose may be, whether it is the same today as it was five years ago or will be five years from now, it will help you connect with the best part of yourself and give your life the meaning that we all seek. As an added bonus, it will help you know that you are an important part of the world. You just need to find it.

We all need to find our own sense of purpose by asking,
“What brings me great joy and satisfaction?”

Then, the important step:
Find the many ways you can act
relative to the answers you hear.

Creating authentic connection

When we feel disconnected from others, when we don’t feel like part of a community, it is hard to not feel lonely. But there is a whole world of people who we can invite in to be a part of the group we build around ourselves. Here is an excerpt from Dare to Connect where Susan describes the ‘how’ of creating authentic connections.

There are many people out there who would joyfully share our lives. We just have to invite them in. Don’t expect them to invite you into their world. They may or they may not. If they do, that’s icing on the cake. But it’s really up to you.

Invite someone to have lunch or dinner or go to a movie with you. Don’t expect him or her to invite you.Knock on your neighbor’s door and invite them in for a cup of coffee. If they’re not at home, leave them a note to call on you. Don’t expect them to invite you.Think about what you love to do and take some classes that revolve around these activities. Invite someone in the class to an activity that is related to this particular shared interest. Don’t expect him or her to invite you.After a weekend workshop, you make the suggestion that everyone gets together at your house for a reunion. Don’t expect them to invite you.

Extend the hand of friendship to many people, so that if a few disappoint you there are always others. There is a wonderful old adage, ‘Have at least eight friends. If you need something, seven of them will be busy!’ Remember, there is no shortage of potential friends. There are probably only a few million people in your immediate area that would greatly welcome your companionship! If you live in a small town the numbers may be fewer, but the principle is the same.

The world can be a friendly place, or it can be hostile. The critical factor is our attitude. If we think the world will treat us badly we close our doors, thus plunging ourselves into darkness. If we think the world will embrace us lovingly, we open our doors and step into a world filled with enlightening experiences.

Be responsible for your own good time

No matter how spiritually aware any of us are, sometimes we are going to feel lonely. Loneliness feels like it should be a Lower Self emotion, but it isn’t necessarily. Loneliness is a complicated feeling, but it is a feeling, just like disappointment or joy, and can be a path to learning or not.

In Dare to Connect, Susan described it like this, “Whether loneliness is enriching or destructive in our lives depends on our willingness to pick up the mirror and look it squarely in the eye. Sometimes this is difficult, because loneliness is too often an emotion we mask from ourselves. There are an amazing number of escape routes which we take to avoid or deny feeling lonely… This is understandable; loneliness can be very painful. But when it is hidden, it becomes our master and we are but robots trading our aliveness for imagined safety. When it is out in the open, on the other hand, we become its master and use it as a stepping stone towards greater fulfilment.”

Susan believed that sometimes loneliness comes from feeling as if we have no roots or community. When we don’t feel like part of a “tribe” we find ourselves feeling untethered and disconnected. Many people feel this way because they feel that no one reaches out to them. But if we are really taking responsibility for our feelings, we don’t need to wait for someone else to make the first move.

If you feel like this speaks to you, then it is time to take responsibility for your loneliness and reach out to people you know, and people you don’t know, to create a community of your own. If we wait for the world to invite us in, we are creating a situation where we are always on the outside looking in.

Susan said, “See yourself at the center of your own universe into which you want to invite others. Always take the responsibility for taking the first move—and the second and third and fourth, if necessary… This doesn’t mean that you won’t ever be invited to share activities with others; of course you will. Nor does it mean that you can’t sometimes just sit there and be the recipient of someone else’s warmth; of course you can. The point is always to be responsible for your own good time.”

There were two adages that Susan liked to refer to when loneliness crept up on her:

Be the host in life, not the guest.

Don’t warm yourself by the fire; be the one to light it!

Be the host in life, not the guest means taking responsibility in any situation whether at home, at a restaurant, or even someone else’s party. Being a good host means being welcoming, friendly, and accommodating. If you cultivate this side of yourself, you will have no trouble inviting people or being invited. This is not to say that you change your personality, to not be your authentic self. It means that you look within to find the parts of you that allows you to make authentic connections, then take action create those relationships.

Don’t warm yourself by the fire; be the one to light it! Don’t expect others to make plans or wait to be invited to do a thing. If you want to try that new restaurant or see that movie, you don’t have to wait for someone else. Do it yourself. Whether you are lighting the fire for just yourself or for others too, be the warm welcoming person that creates their own good time. Just as people are attracted to a warm fire on a cold evening, people who are comfortable in their own skin radiate their own kind of warmth.

Being responsible for your own good time, can also mean that your “good time” might not be what everyone else wants to do. For example, a group of friends are meeting at a restaurant for a birthday celebration, but you had a long workday and need some quiet time. Being alone is what a “good time” means for you right now, and you need to honor that need. It’s hard to make authentic connections when you can’t honor that same connection with your own needs.

“Given all that we can do to fill the empty space created by our loneliness, I believe that even those who have learned to be comfortable within themselves and comfortable reaching out to others still experience a degree of loneliness in the depth of their being,” Susan wrote. “Loneliness can be beautiful when it keeps us moving upwards to greater heights of awareness: when it pulls us forward to learn, to seek, to grow. As long as we use it as a tool for self-discovery, loneliness has magical results.”

We need to understand that feeling loneliness is a call to ask ourselves how we can move forward into wholeness and love. It is a call to be responsible for how we connect with our friends and family, to not wait for others to reach out to make us feel whole. Susan said, “There is nothing wrong with us when we feel our loneliness. We are not misfits or losers. We are incurably and wonderfully human.”

Being a Perpetual Beginner is a Great Thing

This month we are talking about being impatient while we explore the path to our Higher Self. Our spiritual journey is a life-long one and there are no “magic pills” or “quick fixes.” Sometimes we get frustrated because we think we aren’t moving along the path as fast as we should be—or as fast as we would like to be. Susan said that this kind of impatience is just a way to punish ourselves and does nothing to help us move along the path. We have to learn that patience is a part of our spiritual journey and an important way to know our Higher Self.

In End the Struggle and Dance With Life, Susan says, “A way to bring patience into your life is to see yourself as a Perpetual Beginner. This is one time when being a beginner is better than being an expert! If we truly saw ourselves as perpetual beginners, we would automatically understand that we always have much more to learn; we would automatically understand that we won’t always get it right; we would automatically understand that the way isn’t always smooth; we would automatically know that we can’t be expected to be perfect. As a result..

            If we saw ourselves as perpetual beginners, we would be much kinder to ourselves.”

When kids learn to ride a bike, no one gets impatient with them for not being able to get it right away. When adults start a new job, no one expects them to fit right in and get everything correct immediately. When someone begins to practice yoga, the instructor gives them time and space to be learn how to move and breathe correctly. The examples are endless. Beginners are given leeway to learn as they need. Why should you treat yourself any differently?

“But I’ve been doing this for a long time,” you say. Maybe, but time is not a factor. We have all the time we need and more. So remember, we are all forever beginners…and that’s a good thing.

Committing to Your Spiritual Path

Susan found so much joy in learning and growing as a person, a teacher, and a spiritual seeker. In writing Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway, she shares so many of the lessons she learned along the way. But most of all, she wanted to inspire all of us to find our own spiritual path and learn how exciting that journey can be. Here is an excerpt that shows just how enthusiastic she was:

There is so much excitement and wonder in front of you. Sometimes you will experience the ecstasy of being in the flow. Sometimes you will experience the agony of being way off course. Remember you are not alone. This is a world filled with an abundance of support systems that are there for the taking whenever you are feeling troubled by life’s experiences. One of my students said to me, “I read and read, and I assume one day one of those books is going to take!” I shot back, “No. Nothing is going to take unless you take it!!” And so it is with this book and every source available to you. DON’T WAIT FOR IT TO TAKE! TAKE IT! USE IT. LIVE IT. ABSORB IT. Unless you use the muscle that lifts you to your Higher Self, it will weaken—just as your body weakens when it is not used. If you think you need additional help, then by all means, enlist the aid of a professional. Take action. Nothing is going to work for you unless you do the work.

Say yes to life. Participate. Move. Act. Write. Read. Sign up. Take a stand. Or do whatever it takes for you. As Colette, the prolific French author, famously said, “No one asked you to be happy. Get to work!” Get involved in the process. To become involved is to reduce our fear. We become bigger, we move away from that “feverish, selfish little clod of ailments and grievances complaining that the world will not devote itself to making [us] happy.” We move into true adult status, where we have much to give to this world.

As Rollo May wrote in Man’s Search for Himself: “Every organism has one and only one central need in life, to fulfill its own potentialities.” He goes on to say that joy is the result of using our powers to their fullest, and for that reason, joy, not happiness, is the goal of life.

And what is joy? It is something that expresses the ebullience of the spiritual part of ourselves. Joy is characterized by lightness, humor, laughter, and gaiety. Lighten up. If you have ever been around a person who is centered and enlightened, you are struck with their humor and ability to laugh at themselves. All the brittleness is gone and only fluidity remains.

So commit! Commit yourself to pushing through the fear and becoming more than you are at the present moment. The you that could be is absolutely colossal. You don’t need to change what you are doing— simply commit to learning how to bring to whatever you do in life the loving and powerful energy of your Higher Self.

Patience on your spiritual journey

“This one simple trick will change your life” … you’ve seen ads like this on the internet. Those ads are often referred to as “clickbait,” and we scoff at their needy grab for our attention. Yet, if the gimmick didn’t work those ads wouldn’t run. Who doesn’t want to know about “the one thing” that will fix all of our problems? Unfortunately, as we know deep down, there never is just one simple thing that will improve our lives. Those ads appeal to our impatience, our desire for instant gratification.

When we seek instant wish fulfillment we are being impatient—hoping to bypass the work needed to be done to achieve our best selves. When we are working on being in touch with our Higher Self, being impatient is a roadblock to achieving that connection. Susan wrote in the last chapter of Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway, “The biggest pitfall, as you make your way through life, is impatience. Remember that being impatient is simply a way of punishing yourself. It creates stress, dissatisfaction, and fear.”

When we are on our spiritual path to growth, there are no shortcuts. All of us, at some time, get tired of putting the work in and not seeing quick results. It can be tiring to constantly strive and it’s perfectly reasonable to need a break. But if you find yourself looking for a quick solution—“one simple step”—then that might be your Chatterbox taking over your thinking. Our Lower Self doesn’t have the patience to help us along our spiritual journey and wants to be at the end of the journey right now.

“Whenever your Chatterbox is making you feel impatient,” Susan wrote, “Ask it, ‘What’s the rush? It’s all happening perfectly. Don’t worry. When I am ready to move forward, I will. In the meantime, I am taking it all in and I am learning.’”

Another sign that it is your Lower Self butting in and making you impatient is when you start to feel discouraged, as if all the work you are doing is for nothing. But any type of learning we do helps to expand our comfort zone, expand our mind and our thinking, which makes our world bigger and brighter.

“So often when we are discouraged and think that we are learning nothing from all our efforts, changes are really taking place within us. We become aware of them long after they have been going on.…Although it didn’t look like anything was happening, it was,” Susan said.

Whenever you learn something, the lesson won’t necessarily be needed at the moment you take it in. Sometimes spiritual lessons need time to grow and ripen in your mind and soul before they apply to your life. Nothing you learn is ever wasted. It’s all buried in your subconscious mind, which is busy fitting all the lessons together so it will make sense when applied to your life.

Susan said, “Sometimes you’ll experience an aha! and transformation will seem instant. Again, not so. Sudden insights are the result of all that has happened before. Your Subconscious Mind, like a computer, searches and sorts without your awareness and, when you least expect it, comes up with the answer.”

That is why patience is the key to be able to connect with your spiritual journey, to connect with your Higher Self. Instant gratification will only make you feel better for an instant and then you will be dissatisfied and discouraged again. Then you have to start anew on your spiritual path.

When we are impatient, looking for that “one simple thing,” on our spiritual journey it’s like we have left the path in front of us to find a shortcut through the forest. But in looking for a shortcut we find ourselves lost in the woods. As we follow the spiritual path, it might branch off several times, but we will still be taking the right steps towards becoming our best selves. It’s at these “forks in the road” that we learn to trust our Higher Self to lead us on.

The thing about a spiritual journey is that there is no end, only more journey. And that’s a good thing. Susan likened our spiritual journey to hiking up a mountain. It’s hard work, but every time we stop to look around the view becomes more and more spectacular. We begin to feel lighter and freer and can’t wait to keep going.

When we allow ourselves the patience to truly experience all the joys and set backs of our spiritual journey, we are experiencing the best that life has to offer, knowing that while our journey has no end point, there is so much beauty to encounter as we go.

“My experience has shown me that so much of the joy in life is the challenge of figuring it out. Nothing is as satisfying as those moments of breakthrough when you discover something about yourself and the universe that adds another piece to the jigsaw puzzle. The joy of discovery is delicious. I know of no explorer who once having reached his or her goal has not wanted to go out and explore some more.”

So aways remember:

Patience means knowing it will happen…
and giving it time to happen.

“Anything worth doing is worth doing badly”

This month’s article was about how needing to be perfect—an impossibility—stops us from knowing that we are enough. That doing our best is all that we need to do. For Stacy, her need to be perfect came at the cost of enjoying the learning process.

Stacy had always been a great student. From elementary school through university, she excelled at her studies. She had always had an interest in languages and decided to study German while at college. She, of course, excelled at it. She got all top scores on reading and writing the language, but she struggled with being able to speak it—especially in informal settings.

When she finally visited Germany, ready to use her language skills, she found herself unable to grasp the vocabulary to have even the most basic conversation. She froze up, unable to communicate. What she had planned on being an exciting post-college trip, became an embarrassment.

When she had a chance for some self-reflection, she realized that she was terrified of making a mistake. She was so used to being a perfect student that she couldn’t face not being a “perfect” speaker of another language. As Susan wrote in End the Struggle and Dance With Life, “By always wanting to do everything just so, we may not accept new challenges because we are worried that we won’t be able to do them perfectly the first time through.”

Like Stacy, many of us think that in order to be good enough, we have to be perfect, and since no one is perfect, no one is good enough. Doesn’t that seem like a ridiculous line of thinking? According to Susan, “The truth is…We are all good enough! And no one is perfect! Even the Buddhas have their days!”

In this context, Susan referred to Linda Weltner’s motto: “Anything worth doing is worth doing badly.”

Susan said, “Understand the great wisdom in her humor. We have been taught that we should go for excellence in anything we attempt. We are afraid of making a fool of ourselves (whatever that means!). Therefore, if we don’t do it really well, we don’t have a good time. Or we refrain from doing it at all. We must keep reminding ourselves, that…Our goal is to enjoy, not to achieve perfection!”

For Stacy, it wasn’t until a few years later that she learned to enjoy speaking German. She joined a club for German speakers and leaned into her mistakes. By doing so, she was eventually able to speak nearly fluently. But the important thing about it was that she enjoyed being able to communicate in another language.

As Susan wrote, “If it’s worth doing and you’re having a great time doing it, who cares if you are doing it well or not?”

It’s All Happening Perfectly

This month we’re talking about how trying to achieve perfection can become an addiction—rather than living life knowing that we are enough, we struggle to achieve something that is impossible—perfection.

Susan had a wonderful response for when things aren’t going as “perfectly” as we want them to. The answer is to let go of the need to be perfect and instead realize that “It’s all happening perfectly.”

When we let go of our need to be perfect, our need to control the outcome, we can allow ourselves the peaceful thought that “It’s all happening perfectly” no matter how things turns out. Because however anything turns out, it is perfect—it can sometimes be happy or sad, but it is perfect! Every day is a gift and living it with gratitude for all the blessings in your life can help you to see that the results mean very little in relation to everyday goodness.

To learn how to see life as perfect try repeating “It’s All Happening Perfectly!” to yourself all day. Even better, write in on a post-it and put it where it will catch your eye all day long. Saying the affirmation to yourself repeatedly, and really coming to believe it, is a positive way to change the way you think and helps you relieve the pressure you put on yourself to be perfect.

If you do your best and enjoy the journey, things can’t help but “happen perfectly.”

Understand that the realization that you are good enough and that the results of your efforts are good enough is not an excuse to be sloppy and uncaring. It serves our sense of self to put a loving effort into whatever we do in life…but this loving effort needs to be totally detached from an addiction to perfection.

Each one of us is Enough

Which of us doesn’t want to have a good life? Who doesn’t want to be enough? With a lovely house and garden, sweet children, a loving spouse, who come together for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. A life filled with good friends who celebrate over an elaborate meal and extended family that come together often with smiles and hugs. A life with a rewarding job that appreciates your work and brings out your best.

While these scenarios might be things that people dream about, they are scenes from stock photos, advertising campaigns, lifestyle shows, and social media influencers. Yet they inspire us to want to be perfect, to have perfect lives. They prey on our feelings that we are not enough. Then, for many of us, the drive to have a perfect life overwhelms.

In her book, End the Struggle and Dance With Life, Susan called the drive to always be perfect an addiction. Always having to be the best, always going above and beyond, always having to prove yourself are just ways of trying to show the world, and yourself, that you are good enough. Being a perfectionist, while it might look as if everything is fantastic, takes its toll on our health and our relationships. It can also hold us back from new opportunities.

All those images and videos we see of perfect-looking people living perfect lives only has the echo of truth in them. What we never see in those images is the mess behind the camera. The other people working behind those scenes to make the illusion seem real. So while those images make us feel as if we are less than perfect, they only represent something superficially “perfect.”

The reason our addiction to perfection can be so devastating is that we believe our self-worth is measured by our performance. But since no one is perfect, it is impossible to attain self-worth through perfection.

Trying to be perfect in everything we do is only a means to feel as if we are good enough. It’s a way to shout out to the world that we are deserving people. We put so much pressure on ourselves to be the perfect employee, the perfect friend/child/parent/lover, the perfect person that we shut out much of the satisfaction that comes with doing our best no matter what the results.

When we struggle for perfection, we miss the opportunities that come from learning from our mistakes. If we put so much pressure on ourselves to get everything done exactly right, we miss out on the process. As Susan so succinctly put it, “Are you perfect yet? Neither am I! Nor will we ever be. We are all human beings doing the very best we can. And human beings weren’t born to be perfect. We were born to learn, to grow, to expand, to love, to create, to enjoy, to see the beauty in all things…including ourselves. But we weren’t born to be perfect!”

Aiming for perfection can be damaging on a personal level. When we peg our self-worth to being perfect, none of us are able to enjoy the journey. When we focus on the perfection that others are showing off, it makes us feel stymied and “less than.” That is no way to approach the wonderful journey life has to offer.

Feelings of accomplishment and satisfaction do not come from striving to be perfect; but they do come from the process of using our inner power, beauty and love in a creative, expansive, positive and loving way.

Much of what is good in life is the process of moving forward, not the end results. And perfection is very much an end. By only concentrating on the end results, we miss out on so much of life itself, so much of what makes life worth living—working and sharing with others, appreciating our gifts, enjoying each day. When we understand that when we put in the effort, when we are grateful for the good as well as the bad, we know that we are enough and to strive for anything more will only wind up hurting us.

Susan wrote, “It helps to look at the power of ENOUGH in the context of our addiction to perfection. Here this wonderful word reminds us that when we have done our very best—win or lose—we have done enough…and we are enough. This Higher Self reminder leads us to the place of peace and fulfillment.”

Every day is a gift and living it with gratitude for all the blessings in your life can help you to see that perfection means very little in relation to everyday goodness.

Understand that the realization that you are good enough and that the results of your efforts are good enough is not an excuse to be sloppy and uncaring. It serves our sense of self to put a loving effort into whatever we do in life…but this loving effort needs to be totally detached from an addiction to perfection.

So when you feel the need to be perfect, when you feel like you are “not good enough,” stop, take a deep breath, and say to yourself, “I am good enough.” Say it out loud or under your breath. Say it until you know it is true. Because it is.