It’s such a strange feeling — to be deep into the process of your healing, completely familiar with the integration process, surrounded by evidence of how far you’ve come… and still, out of nowhere, a little voice will pop back in and remind you: “I’m still not enough.”
Sometimes it drifts in like a passing cloud; a faint echo of an old habit. Other times it lingers, settling into the background of your mind until you catch it staring back at you. It’s not always a sign of regression; often, it’s just the old bundle of neural pathways firing, a survival program trying to stay alive. And sometimes, it’s a signal — that another layer is ready to surface, asking to be seen, felt, and released.
But at the end of the day, the truth is solid: that voice doesn’t vanish overnight. For a time, it still rides alongside you, showing up in moments you least expect. The work isn’t to banish it entirely, but to notice it, meet it without judgment, and remember: its presence doesn’t mean you’re not doing something right. It means you’re a human being that’s choosing to unlearn all the things that don’t support or serve your life and your highest potential.
When Will I Be Enough?
For a long time, I thought healing was a means to an end — a way to finally arrive at a self that was polished enough, whole enough, wise enough, or successful enough to silence the old shame tapes running in the background. I believed that if I just did enough inner work, gathered enough insights, and proved myself through enough milestones, the ache of not-enoughness would finally go away.
But here’s the truth that healing eventually revealed to me: there is no finish line, no final version of myself waiting at the end of the road. There is no arrival. There is only a deepening into the version of what has always been whole — even when I felt broken, even when I felt like I was in pieces, even when I doubted my own inner knowing.
The question itself — When will I finally be enough? — is like a trap set by an old version of our consciousness, one built on comparison and conditional worth. It assumes there is a scoreboard somewhere, tallying your value based on how healed, productive, evolved, or enlightened you appear to be. It’s the voice of a culture that trains us to see ourselves as a project to fix rather than a being to honor.
And yet, the version of me that still doubted, that still feared, that still stumbled — I was already enough. Not because I had mastered life, or eradicated every flaw I thought I had. Not because I had achieved some mythical state of enlightenment. I am enough simply because I exist. The “enoughness” I had been chasing was never something to be earned — it was something I had to remember.
Healing is Not a Competition
In a culture obsessed with endless optimization — be better, do more, fix yourself faster — even healing can unconsciously turn into another performance. The very space that’s meant to hold our tender humanity can become another arena where we measure, compare, and silently rank ourselves.
Without realizing it, we start chasing healing like it’s a race, ticking off milestones and holding ourselves to invisible standards:
- If I integrate this trauma, then I’ll finally be ready.
- If I attract this income, then I’ll prove I’m worthy.
- If I show up in perfect energetic alignment every day, then I’ll finally be safe, loved, and respected.
The problem with this mindset is that it keeps “enoughness” dangling just out of reach. The goalpost moves every time you get close. You heal one thing, and suddenly there’s another “block” you need to clear before you can rest in your own worth. It’s a subtle but exhausting trap — and it’s fueled by the belief that worth is conditional.
What I had to confront is this: healing is not about achieving a flawless state. It’s about remembering that you have always been worthy, even in your most unpolished, unfiltered, unfinished moments.
The parts of me that doubted, feared, sabotaged, and played small — they weren’t evidence of failure or not enoughness. They weren’t even ideas that needed to be eradicated. They were pure evidence of a life constructed on survival. They were artifacts of a nervous system doing everything it could to keep me alive in a world where I didn’t always feel safe.
When you see them through that lens, they stop looking like proof you’re broken and they start looking like proof that you’ve endured some hard times, that you’re resilient, that you’re scrappy, and that you’re a fighter.
And here’s what I know for sure: the version of me that’s writing this article today — is a version of me that is still growing, still grieving, and still risking— and in all that, I am still completely whole, just as I am.
Not because every wound has been healed.
Not because every dream has been achieved.
But because I’m rooted in my own belonging — a belonging that doesn’t depend on how much I’ve accomplished or how perfectly I perform, but on the fact that I am here, breathing.
Enoughness is a Choice, Not a Destination
If you wait until you’re flawless to claim your worth, you will wait forever.
If you wait until no fear remains, you’ll likely miss the most amazing parts of your life entirely.
There will always be another layer to peel back, another edge to soften, another skill to learn, another wound to tend—if you choose.
Life will keep evolving, and so will you. Which means if you tie your worth to a version of yourself that exists only in the future, you will always be chasing it — and never really living it.
The version of you that is messy and magnificent at the same time — this one, right here — is already the miracle. She carries wisdom born from mistakes, courage forged in uncertainty, and beauty that can only come from being fully alive. She is not a “before” picture waiting for the “after.” She is the picture.
Enoughness isn’t something you earn at the end of your healing journey, like a medal for completing the course. It’s not a reward for good behavior or proof of your spiritual progress. It’s a posture you take, a decision you renew, and a personal truth you anchor into over and over again.
You don’t become enough after you finish healing. You become enough the moment you decide to meet yourself where you are — and stay, with a sense of compassion and empathy for yourself.
You finally feel enough when you stop running from the parts of you that feel inconvenient or unpolished, and when you stop delaying your own belonging until you hit some imaginary milestone.
Enoughness is a choice you make right in the middle of the mess — to love yourself not because you’ve “earned it,” but because you are here, breathing and alive.
The Real Questions
So the real question is no longer:
“When will this version of me finally be enough?”
The real question is:
Will I let her be enough now?
Will I choose to honor the woman who kept going when every part of her wanted to collapse?
Will I celebrate the version of me who dares to keep opening her heart even after it’s been shattered?
Will I respect the one who fell down — and still chose to get up, not as a better version, but as a truer, most realest one?
The Myth of the “Better” Self
For years, I chased the “better” version of me. The one who was calmer. More successful. More radiant. The one who never hesitated, never second-guessed, never needed a moment to catch her breath. I thought she was always just around the corner — one more book, one more course, one more breakthrough away.
She was my dangling carrot, my finish line, my proof that I had “finally arrived.”
And for a while, that belief kept pushing me forward.
But here’s the problem: every time I reached one milestone, the goalpost moved. That “better” self stayed just out of my reach because the idea of “a better her” wasn’t real. She was an illusion created by a mind conditioned to believe my worth lived somewhere in the future — in a place where I’d finally done enough, healed enough, or proved enough.
For generations, women have been told — often without words — that who we are is not enough. Society, and especially marketing, has thrived on keeping us in a perpetual state of self-improvement. From the covers of glossy magazines to the curated feeds of social media, we’ve been served images of women whose lives appear perfect. Flawless skin, impeccable hair, designer clothes, and homes that look like they belong in a showroom. It creates an unspoken standard that’s not only impossible to sustain but that it keeps ua so deeply disconnected from ourselves.
What those images don’t show are the battles underneath the “perfectness” — the grief, the anxiety, the financial stress, the internal wrestling that often fuels the need to project perfection. Many influencers are chasing likes the same way others chase approval in boardrooms or relationships: as proof that they are enough.
The good news is, I believe the tide is turning. Newer generations of women are challenging the script. We’re starting to see more raw, real, and unfiltered content — women showing up as they are, telling the truth about their journeys, and refusing to let airbrushed ideals dictate their worth.
That said, I use filters on my posts. Not to create an illusion of someone I’m not, but because I’m not a lighting expert, and a soft filter can smooth out shadows and give a more polished look. But I use it with integrity. I want people who meet me in person to feel like they’re meeting me just as they’re always seen me — not a character I’ve crafted for the internet’s approval. I’m middle-aged as I write this, and I have zero desire to pretend otherwise.
I wasn’t always this way. There was a time when I put more attention on how I presented myself, constantly thinking about how I might be perceived. I wanted to be perfectly polished — and I still do, but now it comes from a place of self-respect rather than fear. These days, I polish myself for me. Not for strangers on the internet or in the crowd at events. I do it for me cause I like how I feel when I do.
Listen, there is no “better” self waiting in some future version of my life. There is only this self — the one I wake up with every morning. I know I don’t have it all figured out. I still have fears, patterns, and places I’m growing. But I also have wisdom, resilience, and the kind of hard-earned beauty that only comes from showing up to my own life, again and again and again.
I no longer feel the need to be better. I only feel the need to continue meeting myself, and welcoming new parts that surface with compassion and understanding.
The “better self” myth keeps us in a constant state of postponing the awareness of our own belonging. But when you drop the illusion, you’ll start to understand — the version of you here right now isn’t a pit stop on the way to something greater.
You are something greater! You just have to learn to listen to yourself in new ways until you feel the knowing of it in every fiber of your being.
If you find yourself caught in the question, wondering when you will finally be enough — know this:
It’s not a matter of reaching the right version of yourself. It’s a matter of realizing that the version you are right now is already holding the gold.
Your Turn
You are already something greater. Not a future version, not a more polished self. This self — the one living and breathing in this exact moment — is the point.
You don’t have to earn her worth or wait until she’s perfected to belong to her. The invitation is simple: find even the smallest, simplest thread of “enough” within you, and feed it as if your life depends on it.
If you’re ready to explore what living from that place could change in your life, I’d love to support you. Let’s have a conversation — schedule your free coaching discovery call with me and take the first step toward meeting the truest version of you.