It is a scary thing to open yourself up and expose your heart only to feel as though the essence of who you are isn’t/ wasn’t enough– or was too much. If you are anything like me, an optimisitc-pessimist (an oxymoron I know), it can be impossible to manage inward hope with the crushing blow of your own thoughts and feelings of inadequacy. It is painfully difficult for me to open up and even harder for me to trust the good things that enter into my life. This of course is because I feel as though good things do not last and I am skeptical of the fact that I am deserving of it. In many ways, I am the composition of rituals and routines that are so incredibly damaging to my own mental health. When happiness comes I sabotage, and it feels like a never-ending cycle of hope meant by disappointment, self-fulfilling prophecy. Now I in no ways write this to garner sympathy but to express how confining and limiting our thoughts can be. In looking at the mirror I remind myself of all the reasons why I am not enough and have even labeled myself the one everyone always leaves behind. I feel like the last elementary schooler picked for the kickball team only chosen out of force or extreme sympathy. Furthermore, when people realize how flawed I am they put back on the shelf and I once again return to the island of lost toys. I should also mention this is no way is a self-punishing post or a way for me to beat myself up in front of the masses (although I have felt on more than one occasion that I am most definitely worthy of such a spectacle). I just hope in sharing the ways that I myself at times feel so broken, inadequate, and not enough that others will know they are not alone. I think one of the best pieces of advice I have received in therapy is to talk to yourself as you would a friend. I know if someone spoke to me the way in which I did to myself they certainly would no longer be a friend. Why do we give others more credit than we give ourselves? What is it about ourselves that we find so unequivocally broken or wrong or unlovable? Dear reader if I were looking at you my first instinct would be to nurse your wounds as opposed to pick at them or stare at them with fright. While I wish more often than not I could be my own greatest cheerleader if I am able to do that for someone today that is more than enough. Even through a computer screen I see you, I know you, I feel you, and you my friend deserve all the happiness in the world. Don’t let your mind trick you into thinking you don’t. Taste the sunshine and dance in the rain without wondering if you or deserving of it or when the world will come crashing down. Here I am like superman attempting to hold all your troubles up way into the stratosphere, so that you may love yourself and allow yourself to be happy for a moment.