Do you feel you are quickly triggered emotionally? It is human nature to experience pain, loneliness, or fear. It is part of being human. The feeling that you are not enough may come up, but there is a way to deal with it. The distinction you want to make is this: it could be you have done something wrong, or something has gone wrong, but that is not the same thing as there is something wrong with you.
Here is how the experience may go:
Notice when you feel a negative emotion. You will be sitting outside your thoughts, looking in on your life. Human beings carry around negative bias, where we ignore the good stuff and focus on the bad. If you are not aware of your negative biases then your “not-good-enough’ alarm sets off.
So next time you feel an emotional reaction to something someone’s said or done, notice it first but do not feel obligated to react to it. At this moment, pay attention to how long it takes from the moment when that feeling is triggered to when it starts to dissipate? An hour, a day, a week? Notice when you try to distract yourself from your dark feeling in your usual way. Perhaps you do a little shopping (retail therapy), eating, or being bad-tempered with someone you love.
Instead, sit with the feeling. It will suck, it will feel awful, but watch it as if you were watching a “lifetime” movie. Then notice as it changes and realize it won’t last forever.
This may take a load of practice and effort. You may not be able to do it the first time. Like most people, you may have to practice this over and over again. You have to learn how to focus on the good stuff and take the negatives as constructive criticism or just a matter of someone else opinion. As an extra cushion, you could always ask someone who shares the love to give you some much-needed perspective.
