The inner dialogue of condescending myself as being “ not enough” and other times “ too much” was once a daily theme tune.
Whether what was happening was due to some kind of default I had been born with.
“Not enough” meant I could claim to be the problem and justify their actions.
It made endlessly forgiving and loving them available to ensure my needs of survival were met.
Always striving to make perfect. That maybe if I had been better, more lovable, more what they needed, had made them happy, none of it would have happened.
Yet in the opposing corner of “not enough” was “ too much.”
All the parts of myself that maybe if I squashed, that maybe if I dimmed myself down, kept quiet, did not shine or sparkle, I would not attract attention.
Attention that inevitably reinforced that yes, when I was too happy, too bright, too outspoken, wearing too little and revealing too much … I got hurt, shamed and pushed back down to not enough.
Which was the end of the scale, I then chose to stay, for it was safer to be small and invisible.
This questioning of self, is for many of those who have experienced childhood sexual abuse, the only way we can make some sort of crooked sense of it all.
If we are to blame, if we take responsibility for the way we are being treated, then there is a possible way out.
We can try harder, or try less.
Blend in and blend down.
Be silent. Be good. Appease and not question.
Make normal.
It took time to come to an inner felt understanding and acceptance that neither of those were true and had only been reinforced as truth in my relationships as an adult because I wholly believed them.
Like flies to shit, what I had innocently assumed as true created a magnet for situations and people that I either did not feel good enough for or abusive actions that reinforced this was not just where I deserved to be, but who I was.
Self blame and taking responsibility of the sexual abuse we were objectified to as children, is a weight that can crush us into the ground and keep us there.
Only when we excavate our deeply rooted beliefs and how we have grown our identity and view of world and others around the experiences of sexual abuse to adapt to what happened can when we heal to the place, that being “too much” or “not enough” is not relevant to the abusive actions of others or excusable for their behaviour.
Opening our adult self so we may relate with compassion for the child we were, we not only see but feel that a child being too much or not enough holds no power.
What happened was never about who you are but who your abuser was.
When we reclaim who we are beneath “the identity of the abused”, we are liberated from the internal dialogue that kept “too much” and “not enough” affirmed and realign with the truth that being “too much” or “not enough” was not the cause of what happened BUT is the cause of the present day unconscious choices we make to dim down and stay small and allow ourselves less than what we need, want or deserve.
Ways To Change The Felt Belief Of Not Enough:
“You need power only to do something harmful. Otherwise love is enough, compassion is enough.” Osho.
When I feel into the energy of not enough in the body, it constricts how we breathe into the belly and how we allow the muscles and pelvis to expand into fully being safe to be here and feeling worthy of being open to more.
We keep this area of our physical self starved of self nurture, care, appreciation and love.
We can be without boundaries, fearful of voicing No and unworthy of feeling our Yes.
We can find ourselves in one sided friendships and relationships and making excuses for the lack of support, care and love we receive.
We can find ourselves overly doing too much for others, to relieve ourselves from the felt belly feeling of not being enough.
I always say for something to be true we have to feel it as so, it is not just a thought, for we can think we are enough but feel the opposite.
We have to feel ourselves to be enough.
Devoting time within our daily life to establish a new felt truth by:
Belly breath, how much breathe can you allow your belly to abundantly expand into. What are the sounds or words that want to voice from here. Allow the feeling aloud or into a journal.
Re-parenting self: Not enough is unmet love, stability, safety, validation. Can you give yourself love, nourishment, care, kindness. Do you genuinely, wholeheartedly care for yourself and your existence. Can you meet who you are today and the child you were with compassion and love?
Where are you enabling unhealthy behaviour in others? Excusing their behaviour at the detriment of yourself.
Can you say no? When you say no, do you fear abandonment and rejection, and consequences?
Ways To Change The Felt Belief Of Too Much:
“You are not the same as you were before. You were much more … muchier.
You have lost your much-ness”
Lewis Carroll.
Our much-ness within the experience of childhood sexual abuse is slowly diminished. We are no longer the child we were before it happened. But with all my heart, I say to you, the much-ness can be set free, for it is the truth of who you are in all your colours.
As I have unbound and reclaimed all the creative, playful, vibrant parts of who I always was under the smallness of not enough, the identity of an abused child and the instincts to maintain a level of safety. I have felt myself expanding and abundantly opening into who I am not what the past wrongly informed me to be.
This was when men began to say I was too much, even when that was the free spirit and brightness that attracted them initially …and women began to withdraw as if feeling threatened and so I would dim myself right back down. Allowing others to shit on my sunshine back to small, to quiet, to withdrawn and insular … Waiting for permission to be.
Each time these words were voiced, I would gain in strength, just that inch more, and it became harder to shrink back, no matter what the consequences.
I began to see that being told I was too much was an opportunity to stand true to who I am, to own my truth not the opinions and reactions of others as my responsibility.
To grow and fully live and breathe as my full vibrant self. To not give myself away again because of somebody else.
That being told my being too happy, to heartful, too loving, too bright, too free, too wild… was too much, was more about the person’s insecurities, fears or need of control, than to my aliveness.
Our “too much” is all those parts of self that that we squashed and squeezed, and buried, and silenced, and abandoned and rejected to fit, to be good.
Owning our “more” is a whole body feeling from my experience, that began with the listening and opening of my heart, the acceptance and love and cherishing of the bright light of the child I was, expanding and moving down in to my belly, my root. The allowing of my voice, the movement of my body, the celebration of life, the building of feeling safe in skin, in bones and on the ground beneath me.
We grow from not enough into our muchness, attending to and encouraging our self as we would our loved ones.
With self permission and kindly listening to all the parts of us that are scared of being seen, known and of most of all of being truly loved.
