You are enough

It sounds cruel: we spend years searching for someone to say the words we needed to hear in childhood – “you are enough”. But no amount of praise in the present can fill the void left by the past.

I was recently sitting in a group where the echo of the past manifested itself. The intensity of my feelings was such that I quickly realized that they had little to do with the people in the group. I wasn’t hearing them; I was hearing the past.

The words of Boris Cyrulnik - a French neuropsychiatrist – help us make sense of this painful experience: what we are looking for in these moments is not a correction of the past, but a confirmation that our suffering mattered. And that is something the present cannot give us; however hard we try. If we have been missing the loving eye of a parent, we will unconsciously seek validation as adults. But we plea for others to fill a void they cannot reach.

So, there is no other choice than to sit with it and say to ourselves: I see myself. I mattered then. I matter now. Others can’t validate me. That’s mine to do.

*I work as a Board Adviser, Team & Executive Coach and Leadership Consultant. I like to explore the applications of art, music, philosophy and psychology in my practice*

Gouache by Charlotte Salomon