What if your pain is your access point to your purpose? What if your suffering is the conduit to your soul’ s calling?

For me, this journey has led me down a road of helping others who believe they are not enough. Depression, anxiety, eating disorders, self-hate, and self-neglect may be ruling your life like it did mine. Questions run through most of our minds, like: Are you thin enough yet? Smart enough? Tall? Pretty? Enough money in your bank account? Are you enough to pursue your dream?

Sooner or later it seems we all entertain the idea that we aren’ t enough. The problem isn’ t that it only happens once or even twice. It can be so ingrained in our psyche that our self-esteem is annihilated. Like cancer, it can spread quickly and dangerously.

Afflicting most everyone in the world at one time or another, a negative self-image affects our energy and our spirit. Quickly, it can conquer every area of our lives. It can take down a person’ s whole world. Even entire families and generations. We crave something and look everywhere for it. We become desperate, seeking fulfillment in other people, food, drugs, work, anything and everything, attempting to dull the pain of not enough and never succeeding.

Maybe you’ re going through a divorce, or maybe you detest yourself. Been there, done that. Sometimes not believing you’ re enough comes out as anger, depression, lack of self-care, fear, feeling worthless, or people-pleasing. I know exactly how you feel, and lived through it to tell tales. Those days when you loathe yourself so much that you can’ t get out of bed. Those days when you cry yourself to sleep or can’ t look at yourself in the mirror.

Self-esteem is confidence and satisfaction in yourself. It’ s also tied to your self-respect. It’ s how you think and feel about yourself. Your health, relationships, even your job may be affected by the way you value( or don’ t value) yourself. Self-esteem( or lack of it) can affect every area of your life. It can help you hold your head high and feel proud of yourself and what you do, even when things don’ t seem to be going well. Selfesteem gives you the courage to try new things and the power to believe in yourself. It’ s a measure of how you see yourself and how you feel about your life.

I want to make it clear that having selfesteem isn’ t about bragging! A healthy selfesteem is an inner knowledge that you are worthy exactly as you are. You accept and love yourself at this moment— flaws and all! If self-esteem is a measure of how you see yourself and how you feel about your life, it will make sense to have good self-esteem; we would need to do things for ourselves and our lives that honor the amazing creations that we each are. Essentially, to have a healthy self-esteem, loving ourselves is a must.

Not loving yourself is like watching dominos fall, one right after the other. Choosing not to eat healthily or exercise will send you down the

WISDOM & SELF-GROWTH