The Quiet “Not Good Enough” Script

SPEAKER_01 0:04

There is a sentence many adults carry without knowing they carry it. It says, I'm good enough. It does not announce itself, but just shapes the way they show up the work. In love in the mirror. They think it is their personality. They do not know it was learned very young by a small person doing their best to survive a particular room. So tonight we are talking about that. Welcome to Healthy Mind, Healthy Life. I'm Rasmeet and today my guest is Mary Beth, who is here to talk about how the not good enough story takes roots in childhood and quietly shapes adult identities, relationships, anxiety, perfectionism on the way we talk to ourselves. Mary, welcome. Thank you. Yes. So uh before we go in, just tell me what is something in your own life today that quickly reminds you that you are in fact the inner.

SPEAKER_00 1:08

Yeah. So I have been working for many years um to be the best parent that I could because I chose not to have children until I felt like I would not repeat the same things that I experienced in childhood and the trauma that I had to heal from. And so I have an almost seven-year-old. And I think that is a daily reminder that I am good enough because I'm a phenomenal mother. And I've worked so hard to heal my childhood trauma, to not repeat the same things for my child that I experienced.

When Survival Looks Like Personality

SPEAKER_01 2:00

Right. And I want to start with what I think is one of the biggest myths in adult life. Like many adults look at their patterns, you know, the people pleasing, the perfectionism, and the inability to rest. So the overexplaining, and they call those things their personality. And they think this is just how they are, you know, made. But they do not know that they are still answering old questions. So from your work, Mary Beth, what is the misconception that people carry about not the good enough story and what happens when they see it for and what it really is?

SPEAKER_00 2:41

Yes, absolutely. So most people are not walking around saying, you know, I have unmet needs from childhood. I have childhood trauma. The way it actually shows up is with their inner critic telling them that they are not good enough. It shows up in how they should people please or that they think that they're a burden in so many other negative things. They they have those voices, that inner critic, that tells them essentially they are not good enough. And that inner critic can be so incredibly loud. And that comes from our childhood, from society, family, culture, all of these different institutions and groups of people have voices that tell us who we should be, who we are, who we are not. And as we grow up from little children, those messages get louder and louder, and they become voices that then become our inner critic. And we decide that our entire identity is those voices. And that affects our relationships often, what careers we choose, um, how we feel about ourselves, and we think that that is our personality, and it's never our personality, and it's what I call not good enough stuff.

Identifying The Voices In Your Head

SPEAKER_00 4:09

So, not good enough stuff, like I was saying about the inner critic, the um the voices that we hear is rooted in the childhood voices. And when we begin looking at whose voices those truly are. So, for example, I always heard as a child that I needed to put more makeup on to be pretty. And so throughout my adulthood, I never thought that I was pretty, carried from adult front from being a child. And when I can take that and think, whose voice is that? Well, part of it was my mom. Uh, part of it was society of what I should look like. And all of those voices, kind of the culmination of them, told me I was not good enough. I was not pretty enough. And so the key to healing what I call not good enough stuff that I mentioned is to be able to identify whose voices those are. Because when we can identify whose voices we are hearing in our minds, our inner critic, we can then look to see it is not truly our voice. It is not your voice thinking those. And when you can do that, then you can begin removing your not good enough stuff to allow yourself to return to your true soul identity. And your true soul identity has been buried by not good enough, by life, by trauma, by the roles that we took on in life: a mom, a therapist, a friend, a sister, all these different roles that we think are our identity. And they're not. We weren't born into those roles. So returning to our true soul identity is the beautiful soul that existed when we were created, but we forgotten because life covered it up with not good enough stuff.

SPEAKER_01 6:15

Right. And uh, what does uh that first moment of recognition actually look like for them?

Finding Your True Voice Afterward

SPEAKER_00 6:22

Yes. So that it when these voices have been in your head for so long, you're very used to it. And so to just instantly think you can start identifying the voice, um, and then, oh, that's not my voice. Okay, well, whose is it? Okay, well, it's so-and-so's, or it came from society. Okay, well, it's not mine. Well, that would be really easy. Um, that would be really great if it were that easy. I mean, but it's not. So I think one of the first steps is to recognize when you hear those voices, where all it came from. And you're not going to recognize it in the moment when you're beginning this work because you're so used to it, but it's more so say that, okay, I'll use me being on this podcast as an example. Say that I was just so incredibly nervous and I was thinking, oh, I might say the wrong thing, or I might not know what to say, and I screw everything up and I never get it right and uh all of that. And then in the moment when we're not when we've not done this work, we're not going to recognize, oh my gosh, that is culture's voice saying that I should present as this way, that's society, that's family, telling me that, you know, I'm too much or I'm not enough. But later, I might sit back and think, oh wow, I actually did really well. Why was I thinking that? So the beginning is to recognize it later, because it's too hard to do it in the moment when you're so used to it. So what that could look like is say a few hours from now, tomorrow, whenever I'm processing, having done this podcast, for me to think, okay, I was thinking, what if I don't have anything to say? What if what I say doesn't go well or they don't think that it's important? Okay, where did that come from? Where did that come from? Oh, I remember. I can remember my parents telling me, I talk too much. I can remember at school people telling me, oh, when you get up on that stage to give your speech, um, you're you're probably gonna forget everything you were gonna say. It could be from culture. Um, you know, I'm from the deep south in the US, it could be that I'm not supposed to have a big voice. I'm not supposed to speak my mind. I'm supposed to play small. And so if you can start after the fact being able to walk yourself through where the voices of your inner critic came from, that's the first step. And then once you do that, I'll stay with this example, then it's being able to identify your true voice that leads you to your true soul identity. So, say that, you know, a few hours from now, I've identified, like I said, where those voices might have come from. So then if those are not my voices, then what is my voice? What is my true belief? My belief is that I have value, that I know the amount of healing I have done and continue doing is beneficial to others, that my own healing can help others, that I have important things to say, and that I believe in myself. And so allowing myself to see what my true voice is can allow me to turn down the volume of my inner critic from the voices that were never mine and is not my identity. And then you can see the things that I was naming, like that I believe in myself, I all of these things that leads me to be able to discover my true soul identity, that I am powerful, I I care for people, I'm empathetic, I love to share with others.

SPEAKER_01 10:30

Right.

Childhood Seeds Of People Pleasing

SPEAKER_01 10:31

And uh there is something in what you just said that I, you know, really want to hold for a second. The idea that what we call personality is often just survival becoming a habit. And that is very stringent sentence. So I want to go beneath the purpose, Marie, because the not good enough story is rarely formed by one big event. It is built quietly through emotional neglect, conditional love, criticism, comparison, and you know, small daily messages a child internalizes before they have language for any of it. So, from your work, what are the specific early patterns that most reliable, you know, plant the seed and how does it grow into adult anxiety, perfectionism, and people pleasing?

SPEAKER_00 11:22

Yes, absolutely. It's interesting that you said um about it planting a seed because I've I've actually written a book I'm trying to uh get published right now that compares, uses the metaphor of a tree, because these what we are talking about, not good enough stuff, is planted just like a seed for a tree. It can come and begin in the womb. When you look at the mother and the father's trauma and experiences that they never healed, they the baby, and there's research on this, can absorb that energy in the womb and can be born with that energy. And then you think about a little baby who will go, we'll we'll look at a people pleaser, uh, a baby who maybe is born with parents who argue a lot. And that baby may learn, if I cry, it stops my parents. So that begins planting that seed, like you were saying, of okay, I do this to make them happy. Oh, my mommy is sad. Say it's a toddler, my mommy's sad, my mommy's over there crying. I'm gonna go do something silly, or I'm gonna go hug her. And oh, and then mommy's happy all of a sudden. Or, you know, uh dad told me he was gonna go play outside with me. And dad said, you know, after first grade one day, I just really don't want to go play outside. I just, I don't feel like it. And so then maybe you say, Oh, I don't even like playing outside. I'd I'd rather just sit and and read a book by myself. That's rescuing dad and learning the role is to please them and to keep your needs quiet. And all of these different experiences can begin kind of growing like little branches. And then the needs are not met. The needs to see uh for dad to commit to his promise of playing outside, dad to see that I have a need here after first grade to be connected to you, for you to be emotionally present. Mommy, I have a need for you when you're crying to see that I'm actually upset right now, too. And these unmet emotional needs aren't recognized. And then you add more and more and more of these, and so you start thinking, well, this is who I am, this is my role, this is what I'm supposed to do in life. When that was never your true soul identity, it was how you survived to get what you needed by taking care of other people. And then I go into a role, being a nurse, being in healthcare, being in something to take care of everybody else. That's what I'm talking about when I say it can affect your entire life because you perceive it as your personality and your identity when it never was. It was a reaction to unmet emotional needs in childhood that you decided was your personality.

SPEAKER_01 14:41

Yes, I agree. And Mary bit, when was the first time uh you see you saw this in yourself?

A Crash That Forced The Truth

SPEAKER_00 14:49

Yes. So I had depression from an early age. Um, I I can remember it it's five years old being very sad. Um, and I wasn't supposed to be. Um, and and that's what I was told. You have nothing to be sad about, just choose to be happy. And so I also knew that there were all these societal, familial, cultural expectations that I was supposed to do really well and I was supposed to make money and you know have a high profile job and all of this. And I did. Um, I had all of that. Um, and from the outside looking in, it it looked like I had an amazing life. But yet I was still severely depressed, still thought I was not good enough for anything at any moment. People were gonna realize um that I was nothing. And at 28 years old, I was hit head on by a drunk driver.

SPEAKER_01 15:42

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 15:43

And I was told that I was permanently paralyzed from the neck down.

SPEAKER_01 15:48

Oh.

SPEAKER_00 15:49

And um, I'm still um to this day recovering physically. I'm still in physical therapy. I've had numerous surgeries. I'm having another surgery next week. Um still recovering physically. But the most important thing, well, and first, I'm not paralyzed. Um, I proved the doctors wrong. But I then had an excuse to go to therapy. Oh, I was in this wreck. It it flipped my world upside down. And I went to therapy, but I realized the majority, I'd probably say 85, 90% of what I needed to be in therapy for was childhood trauma.

SPEAKER_01 16:26

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 16:27

To look at why I had not good enough stuff, why I felt so depressed. And going to therapy and doing that work, looking at the childhood trauma, doing a lot of healing for that, led me to become a therapist because I got to the point where physically I could no longer work because of all the surgeries. Um, and I just was not doing well physically. But my mind was, so I went to graduate school to become a therapist, to do what I do now. Um, and seeing clients and and every client I've ever seen, and I and I think every client I will ever see, and anybody I speak to, anybody who reads my work, my book, my blog, they all have not good enough stuff. Everybody in the entire world, whether they admit it or not. And so I took my wreck to lead me to what I had needed to do for many years, but was too scared to do, and had had all of these voices in my head that I shouldn't need to go to therapy. There was nothing wrong with me. I didn't have a traumatic childhood.

SPEAKER_01 17:42

Right.

SPEAKER_00 17:43

It wasn't traumatic. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 17:46

Right. And I think a lot of people listening right now are going to feel that, yes, their own childhood in that one. My uh coming to the next question, uh, Mary

Root-Level Healing Beyond Coping

SPEAKER_01 17:58

Beth. For someone hearing this and realizing that yes, this is me, what does real healing look like? Like not copying skills, not affirmation stuck on a mirror, the root-level work that actually shifts the story underneath. So, from your approach as an inner child therapist, what is the grounded within that respects how vulnerable the work is?

SPEAKER_00 18:22

Yes, I think the first thing is allowing yourself to truly look at your childhood separate from what everybody has told you. Because I think something that listeners will relate to is hearing and saying and probably telling themselves other people had it worse. Okay, let's not compare. Because just because you think somebody else had it worse does not mean that they did not have their needs met. Somebody could have gone through more traumatic things than you, but they may have had their emotional needs met. So what you went through may have impacted you even more because as an adult, you're still trying to get those needs met from childhood. And so allowing yourself permission to see that you did have difficult things in childhood, that your depression, that your anxiety, that you're people pleasing, that you're doing as an adult, feeling not good enough, didn't just come from nowhere. It came from repeatedly not having your needs met in childhood. And it doesn't mean that we need to shame our parents or any of that. Most didn't know what to do to heal, to meet the needs of their children. But it doesn't mean that harm didn't still exist and happen. So allowing yourself to be realistic about the difficult things in your childhood that are responsible for getting you to where you are today, that remember is still not your identity, but the survival techniques that got you here that maybe you don't need to hold on to anymore, that they're not serving you and they don't have the need to the degree anymore that you believe they do. And releasing some of those survival techniques allows you to start turning down the volume of that inner critic. Because if we do nothing but throw more coping skills at something, or read more self-help, or this or that, or take a deep breath, that may work in the moment, but eventually it's not going to work anymore. Because you've got to get to the roots of where this came from, the roots of the not good enough stuff, because nothing can be healed until you get to those roots and figure out what you needed and go back and meet your needs now as an adult.

SPEAKER_01 21:04

Right. And I think that is the piece. Most conversations get past, and I'm glad that we did not. So moving on to the next question, here's the conversation we have to have

When You “Slip” And Shame Hits

SPEAKER_01 21:17

honestly. Like someone does the work, feels like the starts the start to trust themselves, and then there's a stressful week that hits, and the old voice comes back to the full violence. So, what do you tell people about handling that without falling back into shame or without believing the work was a lie?

SPEAKER_00 21:39

Yes, I am so glad you asked that question because this is something that I talk about with my clients. I write about it a ton, I speak about it, because we have this fear that if we quote unquote slip backwards or, you know, we go back to Where we were, or those voices get loud again. Oh my gosh, I can't do this. I've screwed up, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. All of that. And it gets louder and louder and louder. This is one of the most important things for people to know. Healing can never be lost. No matter how loud the voices may get, or how you may repeat what you feel is the same cycle, your healing is not lost. And when those things happen, when you have a stressful leak and those voices pop back up and they get loud, you are still healing. It is allowing you to go deeper into your healing, deeper into discovering whose voices is, whose voices are these? Where are they coming from? To kind of recenter yourself as to who you are, who your true voice is. Because we all, myself included, go through things where I sit there and think, oh my God, it here it is back. I'm going to go right back to our what where I was. Oh my God, what I do. No, healing's never lost. It allows you to go deeper into the healing.

SPEAKER_01 23:15

Right. And uh that reframes something for me, honestly. Uh, because the old voice returning is not proof of failure. It is the inner child checking to see if you are still listening. So whose voice is still narrating your life, Mary Beth, that you never agreed to hand the microphone to.

Reclaiming Identity From Society’s Rules

SPEAKER_00 23:36

I would say probably would be a tie between my mom and society. Um and and I have done a lot of work on both of those. And, you know, I think there are still times in my life um when the the societal voice can get really loud. And and and it can be very similar to the voice of my mom, that I'm not supposed to do this. I'm supposed to behave, you know, like a lady, and I'm supposed to do this and and not do that and be prim and proper. Um, and and it can allow me to play small. And when that happens, I walk myself through the process I was describing earlier. Where's it coming from? Who is that? Okay, you know what? That's not my voice. Because I get to be exactly who I am. I can be loud, I can be very passionate, I can say exactly what I think, and I'm not gonna get in trouble. I can be who I am in the exact way that I have worked so hard to be and allow myself to show up that society doesn't know me. And when society or any of these voices don't truly know me and my true soul identity, how can I sit there and listen and do what they think or have told me I should do or be I shouldn't, because they do not know me.

SPEAKER_01 25:16

Right.

Free Guide And Final Reminder

SPEAKER_01 25:18

Uh so many bit uh Virgin our listeners find you on your walk.

SPEAKER_00 25:23

Yes, absolutely. So my uh website for my blog is the innerchildtherapist.com. Um, and I have a free guide on there. You can search for guide, and it is exploring and further understanding not good enough stuff. I am also on Instagram, um, Facebook, and um TikTok. And I post usually about twice a day um different tips and ways to look at this and heal. And I think a lot of your listeners will be able to recognize themselves in the work that I do and and be able to let themselves go deeper into this and their healing.

SPEAKER_01 26:11

And to everyone listening, you were always enough. The story that said otherwise was never yours. We will see you on the next episode of Healthy Mind, Healthy Life.