I am Enough from Stephanie Gagos

10 May I am Enough from Stephanie Gagos

I was born into the energy of “I am not enough”. My mother had it, my father had it, my culture reeked of it.  My mother was mentally ill, my father was a recovering addict turned preacher…both trying to prove they were enough living as the only Puerto Ricans in an all white residential neighborhood. I was born into their distorted views of themselves.  When my father left when I was three, I became an abused and neglected child, forming very distorted views of my own Self and the cycle continued.

Being not enough became a truth for me as I tried to make sense of the world I was living in.  I believed that I was not enough to pull my mother out of her depression, rage and ultimate insanity. I believed that I was not enough to bring my father back home. I believed that I was not enough to prevent the 9 men from molesting me from the ages of 8-15.  Not being enough, was a truth I was birthed into, molded by and raised in.  It became a part of the fabric that is me.

And so I walked through the world, with a very definite sense of myself as inadequate, unworthy and wrong. For a while there I was numb to myself as well as the world around me. I felt lost. I didn’t fit in with the mothers at the mall asking their children whether they wanted chocolate, or vanilla ice cream. I felt like a foreigner in foreign world that did not look like me, sound like me, or resemble any of the people I grew up with.

At some point perhaps a few years after my daughter was born, I started to work hard at being “enough”.  I did all right things, acquired all the right degrees, became a teacher, slapped on a happy face and became an ambassador of goodness. I read as many self help books as I could get my hands on, trying to reverse the brainwashing of my childhood. I listened to audios, went to seminars, went to therapy…all in an effort to become “good enough” and to fix what was broken.  Even though, I still felt like I wasn’t good enough, something was changing. I was beginning to see myself in a different light, I was beginning to like myself, to own what I was good at, to see my own light.

It would take many years of reprogramming, learning to relax into all of who I am, learning how to like myself, how to forgive myself for the many mistakes I made along the way. Believing I am enough, required that I accept all of me, not just the so called “good parts”. It also required that allow others to be mirrors of my own inherent goodness and allow myself to see the beauty they saw in me. These kind of uplifting and loving relationships helped to heal me from the distorted mirrors I grew up with.

Ultimately I realized it is not about what I did, but about rediscovering the essence of who I was, underneath the pain and untruths of my life. I realized that I needed to get quiet and just BE, so that I could experience my wholeness, so that I could feel into being enough. I learned that Spirit saw me as whole, loveable and good enough for the journey ahead. I could learn to trust that. I could learn to trust me and the Divine order of my life.  I could speak the words…”I am enough, I am enough, I am enough” and I could rewrite the story of my life.

………..

About Stephanie Gagos

Stephanie Gagos is a life coach, writer, speaker, group and retreat facilitator, and survivor advocate. She is the founder of My Voice of Truth Coaching and coaches via email, phone and in person. She runs support groups for women as well. She enjoys sharing her life and healing process on her blog. She also has two survivor sites for men and women who were sexually abused as children My Voice of Truth (www.myvoiceoftruth.com) and Letters to My Abusers.