Day Sixty-Four: Our Own Worst Enemy

Some people identify with Beaver Cleaver. They had the same two parents raise them from the time they were born until they gradulated from high school. Their dad went to work each day, and they may have had a stay-at-home mom who did laundry, cooked dinner every night, made potluck for church on Sunday nights, and made sure that the carpet was always vaccumed and clean clothes were laid out for school.

This post is not for those people.

Some of us came from dramatically different backgrounds. Some of us had people float in and out of our lives, making it difficult to know when people were trustworthy. Some of us had parents who were alcoholics...who weren't reliable means of transportation after school. Some of us never had sleepovers because we'd rather go to our friend's house where they had a "mom". Some of us tiptoed around, trying our hardest not to make any waves so that the night would go smoothly and we could go to bed without any yelling or tears.

Some of us knew how to make a scotch and soda in the 5th grade, and knew by the look on our parents face if it had been a 4-drink night or an 8-drink night. Some of us taught ourselves how to study, wore the same shirt three days in a row, got asthma from second-hand smoke, had a parent who walked out, raised our brothers and sisters, and came to believe that the best in life was meant for other people...that we ourselves had somehow been dealt a bad hand.

This post is for those people...I am one of those people.

Our parents issue was our parents issue. Their fault as parents has nothing to do with us. That doesn't mean that they don't love us. That means that they didn't love themselves. They were given a beautiful child, a beautiful life, and they came to believe that their gift was somehow a burden. We have to move past the ever-present subliminal question in our mind about whether or not it was about us.

That's much, much easier said than done.

Perhaps the worst violation of the above is that we come to feel at a very young age that success is meant for other people. We come to believe that we deserve less in life. We cannot trust. We find it hard to forgive. Many of us try desperately to please others, many more of us put up walls to keep people out. We come to the conclusion that other people win the lottery, other people have beautiful relationships, other people get married and have the perfect life...we are destined to live a life of less.

We start to be untrusting when things go well...we wonder about what's around the corner because things can't go right for very long - sooner or later, there is a drop somewhere. As adults, we wait for the "but" of every situation... to the point that we sometimes seek it out because it is familiar. When we feel the pain, we know we're at home.

Sometimes, when we were raised in a bad situation, we learn to self-sabotage. We become our own worst enemy.

I believe that this translates into what we put into our bodies, what we believe when it comes to our body image, and what we feel we ultimately deserve. We deserve more than what we give ourselves. We deserve more than what our parents gave us. If our childhood was somehow taken from us, that doesn't mean that we need to allow it to take our adulthood from us, as well. We can break that cycle...we don't have to be afraid of success. Often, this takes a few years worth of therapy, anger, grief, confrontation, love, and ultimately forgiveness.

Every one of us is worthy.

I challenge you to work through any childhood issues you may have....this could take journaling, it could take therapy...it could take years. You are beautiful and strong. Success is something you, as well as everyone else, is capable of and worthy of achieving.