Are We Ever Good Enough?

You hear it often these days, especially in healing spaces:
“You are good enough.”
“You just have to undo the damage from childhood.”
“It’s the trauma — probably your parents.”

And sure, there’s some truth in that. Many of us do carry wounds from our early years, handed down consciously or not, inherited like heirlooms we never asked for. As a mother myself, I see just how easily darkness of the soul can pass from one generation to the next. Even when we try our best, some weight still makes its way into our children’s lives.

But is it really just our childhoods that make us feel flawed, or somehow never quite enough?

That nagging feeling of not being complete, of being behind, not chosen, not impressive enough, not successful enough seems to go far beyond our family stories. I think we need to widen the frame. What about school? Doesn’t school teach us we have to perform hard to be good enough? What about our careers? Don’t job adverts, interviews and regular reviews teach us how inadequate we are? What about the quiet pressure to do and be more, always? Fashion, success, even the pressure to be perfectly healed.

The truth is, I don’t know many people, if any, who walk through the world genuinely feeling “enough” in all the ways that word implies. Maybe there’s nothing wrong with us. Maybe it's the world around us that constantly demands more than a human being can give, and has been for generations.

And yet, the message we often receive is that the fault lies within. We’re told to fix our mindset. Heal our inner child. Stop being insecure.

But that insecurity — that shame — isn’t just personal. It’s collective. It’s everywhere. It's in the way people ghost each other, the way we perform perfection online, the way many relationships buckle under the weight of unspoken fear. Shame sits beneath the surface of life, quietly steering much of our behaviour.

So what can we do with this realisation?

Maybe, instead of constantly trying to fix ourselves, putting on a mask of “we’re good enough”, we could start to look around instead and noticing it in others. Speaking about it more. Not to dwell, but to recognise that this isn’t just our problem — it’s almost everyone’s. And the more openly we acknowledge it, the less power it holds.

Maybe we can stop chasing the day this nagging feeling we’re insufficient will finally disappear. Instead, we learn to walk with it. To live alongside the doubt. To hear the voice of shame and still speak up. Still try. Still show up for ourselves and others.

Maybe the healing isn’t about getting rid of the wound. Maybe it’s learning how to carry it, gently, without letting it define who we are.

Because even if we never fully feel good enough, we can still be good enough.
In the quiet way we say yes to ourselves.
In the way we keep going.
In the way we refuse to let shame define us.
In the way we love.
In the way we try — in spite of it all.