On Not Being Good Enough
From the front door of the Great Hall on top of an Oakland hill we had a stunning view of San Francisco Bay. Inside the Hall, however, things were not so pleasant. About 80 of us were gathered at one end while our director slowly called out a list of negative attitudes that were seen as blockages to the flow of life and love within us. As the name of each shadow was announced, those who identified with it moved across the floor to the far side.
It was a kind of healing, penitential ritual, part of a long retreat to do with identifying the personal shadows that, in the words of St Paul, prevented our ‘hidden self’ from growing strong. The usual ‘seven deadly sins’ each brought one or two retreatants to their feet – to begin their short, exposed journey. When, however, ‘feeling not good enough’ was called out, a whole crowd of us lumbered across the Great Hall in embarrassment, but feeling some kind of comfort in numbers, too.
In my pastoral experience a common cry from those seeking a fuller life concerns the in-built sense of inferiority, and the fear of being judged. That is why we pretend and tell lies; it is why we try to impress in a thousand ways; it lies at the heart of untold misery and even tragedy. Whether in the least competitive of small communities, or at the heady heights of political or religious power, you will find the silent fear of failure, the watchful tensions at the precarious edge of peer-comparison.
This subtle feeling of inadequacy steals in everywhere. Last year I was helping the parish priest at the celebration of First Reconciliation on an evening where all the concerned adults – parents, teachers and catechists – were gathered informally in the one space before the altar. The well-prepared young sinners, at first waiting patiently for their turn, gradually sensed that no one was ‘in charge’. They had a field day! Each group of adults was reluctant to take control of the situation, I heard later. They felt that the children might publicly disobey and embarrass them. Rather than risk being seen as ‘not good enough’, they pretended not to notice the growing chaos.
The world-renowned leader in psychoanalysis and child psychiatry, D.W. Winnicott, introduced the phrase ‘good enough mothers’ as a way of reassuring them that they do not have to be perfect mothers. He urged them to trust their own love for their children, their own natural instincts. This guidance must come as a great relief to so many parents who push themselves beyond their limits, who try too hard, who think that only 100% will do. There is a liberating wisdom in being allowed to get down off the daily competitive edge of a relentless drive to prove competency.
It is the fear-driven ego that makes us strive too hard – to give more than we are capable of because we do not believe that even our best is ever ‘good enough’. We can too easily get in the way of the flow and dance of life when we try too hard. But we do not have to do it all. We keep forgetting that there is an undercurrent of divinity in our lives that shapes, guides and empowers everything. We are called to, fashioned for, drawn towards, knowingly or not, an infinite destiny.
‘In each baby is a vital spark, and this urge towards life and growth and development is a part of the baby, something the baby is born with, and which is carried forward in a way we do not have to understand’. Maybe Winnicott is urging the mother to leave room for God in the baby’s life, to allow a space for the baby to just ‘be’ – a space where the baby ultimately develops a sense of a separate ‘self’. To be grounded in the ‘hidden self’ is, in a way, to be grounded in God. Maybe God is at one and the same time both the space and the spark and the self! But never the worry.
Whether our complexes tend towards inferiority or superiority, the roots of them can be traced to early childhood experiences. We drink in our mother’s anxiety with her milk, we absorb our father’s desperate striving through our pores. At the recent National Conference of Priests, David Wells told us about the retirement party of an extremely talented and hugely successful Head Teacher. When the crowds had gone home, a few people waited on to clean up the hall and stack the tables. With a deep, weary sigh the highly acclaimed leader loosened his tie, undid the top button of his shirt, slumped into a chair and whispered, ‘Well, they can’t get me now.’
In A New Earth Eckhart Tolle writes, ‘Be alert. Are some of the thoughts that go through your mind the internalised thoughts of your father or mother saying perhaps something like, “You are not good enough. You will never amount to anything” or some other judgment or mental position? If there is awareness in you, you will be able to recognize that voice in your head for what it is; an old thought conditioned by the past; an old thought – no more. This awareness dissolves the unconscious past in you.’
Otherwise our pain continues. We suffer by way of inner doubt and often depression; we lose our personal charisma, courage and inner peace. The joy of Being leaves our lives. Our gifts remain unused – and something unique remains forever unborn. Our lack of self-belief leaves its mark on our minds, souls and bodies. Internalised self-doubt eventually affects our health. When it impacts on our appearance we are tempted by the excesses of dieting, makeovers and cosmetic surgery. We no longer sense that Presence within – from which all true beauty shines.
Without a healthy sense of self we project our unhappiness outwards. As our harsh treatment of ourselves sets in, so does our dismissiveness and cynicism about others. We begin to see the world through the filter of our own complexes. I remember an evening of impromptu entertainment in a former parish. Someone was needed to play the piano. When an unlikely-looking, rather portly volunteer ambled towards the gap-toothed keyboard on a makeshift stage there were some doubtful, if not judgmental, expressions and comments from those around me. Let Anna Wigley’s The Jazz Pianist describe what happened next:
Before he sits at the keys he seems
short-breathed with bulk:
his belly a whale, his arms fat fish
that struggle to hang straight.
He takes the slender stool between his legs
and perches; a buffalo on a shooting-stick.
The hands come up and rest
over the keys in dainty readiness.
Then he pulls from the piano’s throat
with such a deft, exquisite touch
brilliant scarves; and we stare
as if the room were full of strange weather.