You Are Enough

Enough.

What a concept.

Fitting. Sufficient. Adequate. Acceptable. Complete. Not lacking. ENOUGH.

Whatever that sense of “okayness” is that some people are born with—well, I’ve never had it. I’ve never felt like I quite measured up to everyone else. From the time I was a little girl, I struggled with not feeling worthy: worthy of friendships, of opportunities, of love. (The great irony being that my full name means “worthy-of-love princess.”)

This sense of lack has followed me my entire life and has impacted me in both negative and positive ways. Negatively, because it’s led to me choosing wrong people to love and staying in friendships and situations that were not honoring to me, long after I should have walked away. Positively, because when you carry around an innate sense of unworthiness, you tend to hustle for your worth. Work a little harder than everyone else just to prove that you are valuable, you are important, you are ENOUGH. In that respect, my constant need to prove myself has made me a go-getter, and some incredible career opportunities have come to me as a result of my tenacity.

But through it all—even when working alongside Oprah and speaking at the biggest church in the country and hitting the New York Times best-seller list—I carried around this shadow of lack and insecurity and unworthiness. This taunting, cruel shadow that was always one step behind me, making sure to remind me that no matter how far I rose in life, I would never rise high enough to outrun it. I would never really “earn my stripes.” I would never be ENOUGH.

Then…I wound up in a mental hospital, and everything changed.

A mental hospital. Let’s keep it real, folks. By society’s standards (not mine), this is possibly the very lowest of the low places. And although I have experienced it firsthand and know that the people within those walls are some of the best I’ve ever encountered, those who have no experience with mental illness or depression or treatment or recovery view it with fear and judgment and even distaste. We as a people have a habit of coping with things we don’t understand with defense mechanisms like mockery and criticism and cruelty. (Which is incredibly unfortunate and a tendency that we, collectively, as humans, need to fight with everything we have.)

The prior year of my life leading up to the mental hospital was without a doubt the most disappointing and challenging and heartbreaking year. Up to that point, I had prided myself, as many people do, on an ability to bounce back. To “roll with the punches.” To get back up and try, try again. But somewhere in the midst of family tragedy and career disappointment and relationship failures, I lost my ability to persevere. I lost the essence of who I was. It was all mired in the “life-i-ness” of life. I simply woke up one morning and couldn’t take another step.

So that’s how I found myself—a writer whose message was all about inspiration and hope and positivity—completely bereft of all of those things and struggling to get out of bed and live my life. Struggling to the point where I had to enroll in an intensive outpatient program at a mental hospital for crippling anxiety and depression.

Rock bottom, it would seem.

But, as it turns out, it was that very rock bottom that became the firmest foundation I had ever planted my feet on. A foundation so solid it finally provided the springboard I needed to outrun that teasing, taunting shadow of unworthiness that had followed me my entire life.

Sometimes it takes getting pushed to the very edge before you can find your voice and courage to speak out again. Sometimes it takes hitting that rock bottom to realize you’re done descending and it’s time to rise. Sometimes it takes being told you’re nothing—being made to feel like you’re nothing—to help you see that you are complete.

YOU. ARE. ENOUGH.

You see, sometimes you have to realize that you’ve HAD enough to realize that you ARE enough.

Over these past two years, I’ve seen just how closely those two principles are intertwined: the rock bottom and the soaring heights…the valley and the mountaintop…the agony of defeat and the thrill of victory. How sometimes it takes great heartbreak to find great healing and even greater wholeness. How being told how unworthy you are of great love and happiness and beauty and light can actually help you see once and for all just how worthy you really are. Just how deserving you are of the things and the life that you dream of and hope for, and how nothing you could ever do or not do takes away from your worthiness or your “enoughness.”

Over the course of a year and a half, I descended into total darkness. I was told I never meant anything to someone I’d loved for a decade. I lost people I loved—one, tragically, to suicide. I had my heart broken more than once. I sat in total silence in front of a blank screen for hours on end, waiting for words to pour out of me that seemed would never come. I questioned everything about myself: my faith, my judgment, my friendships, my career path, my worth, my value, my purpose. My LIFE.

But through it all, I’m still standing.

I’m still here.

I’m bruised, banged-up, significantly more guarded than I was two years ago, more realistic than idealistic these days…but I’m still here. The doubt, the fear, the heartbreak, the depression, the anxiety, the insecurity: It didn’t win. The people who hurt me and let me down: They didn’t win. The disappointment and the failure, and the hopes and deferred dreams: Nope. They didn’t win either.

I’ve always struggled with feeling like I was ENOUGH. Enough for love interests. Enough for my former publisher. Enough for my family and friends and readers and myself, and, yes…even God.

But over this past year and a half, I’ve been in the midst of painful, beautiful transformation. A journey of heartbreak. A journey of healing. And a journey of becoming WHOLE. A journey I now want to invite you on with me.

I’m finally learning to accept myself as I am. Learning to like myself as I am. Learning to like and accept my life as it is. Learning to stop begging people to want me or love me or make me feel like I’m ENOUGH. And learning that it’s okay to stand up and say: I’ve had ENOUGH. I’ve had enough of hustling for my worth. I’ve had enough of groveling to people unworthy of me for scraps of love or time or attention. I’ve had enough of keeping people in my life who diminish me. And I’ve had enough of trying to be anything other than me…because I, in all my imperfect, messy glory, am perfectly ENOUGH.

Have you had enough? And are you ready to declare that YOU ARE ENOUGH?

A few months ago, I made my declaration of enoughness official, with my best friend from group therapy by my side. Someone I didn’t know a year ago but who is now my sister for life, all thanks to the brokenness that brought us together. I tattooed the word “enough” on my wrist…a way of branding myself, I suppose, for those days when my worthiness tank feels a little low. So now when I start to forget how ENOUGH I am, I can just look down at my wrist and look from side to side at the people next to me, doing this wild and beautiful and difficult life thing with me, and remember. Remember this season of my life. Remember these precious moments of struggle and surrender and fighting to become the person I’m meant to be. Remember that I might not be exactly who and where I want to be but that I’m taking steps every day to get there.

I am ENOUGH. And you are enough.

Sometimes we just need a little reminder.

I hope this book will be that reminder for you.

It’s not always going to be pretty. It’s not as lighthearted and happy and shiny as some of my previous work. We’re going to get real and raw and gritty within these pages. Because life isn’t always lighthearted and happy and shiny, and it’s okay to admit that. Some chapters of our lives are going to be darker than others, and it’s okay to admit that.

Sometimes you’ve gotta get a little lost in order to get found. And it’s okay to admit that.

If you’ve had enough of being lost, of being sad, of being depressed, of being hurt and scared and downtrodden and anxious and alone…this book is for you.

If you’ve always felt like you never quite measured up…this book is for you.

If you’re ready to make your own declaration of enoughness…this book is for you.

If you are heartbroken, if you’re in search of healing, if you’re struggling with everything you have to gather your missing pieces back together into something that even slightly resembles wholeness…this book is for you.

If you’ve come to the end of yourself, I hope this book will be your new beginning. Just as it’s my new beginning. We’re taking this journey together. Declaring that we’ve had enough and we are enough. Overcoming our heartbreak. Claiming our healing. Stepping into our wholeness.

Let’s get started.