I am NOT enough! My eyes have FINALLY been open to this reality. Most of us have this ‘wound’ but we just don’t know it. I have written a brief summary of my learnings to help us all to learn from our past so that we may grow spiritually and emotionally in the future:
“Drew, can you be 1st base coach?” How hard could that be? The player’s are only 5 years old so all I had to do was point them in the direction of 2nd base, say, “great job!”, and my job was done. Or was it? My dad came up to me afterwards and said, “You know that you could have coached them more.” How many times has your mom or dad told you that you could have done a better job at something? Well at 35 years of age, my dad’s comment went on deaf ears until I mentioned it in passing to my wife. She thought his comment was significant, and comments such as those can have a lasting impact especially when you are young. When she said this, I shared with her those times when I was young that my dad would critique one of my school projects, and he would insist that I throw it out and start all over.
More recently, I followed my father-in-law’s advice and bought a new barbeque from the exact same store and arranged the details of the delivery just as he instructed me. I proudly mentioned to him that I had left just the right amount of money on top of the old bbq so the delivery man would willingly take it away when he delivered the new bbq. When I showed off my new bbq to my father-in-law, I couldn’t get the propane tank hooked up to the bbq because my new bbq had a different attachment than my old one. My father-in-law said, “Oh, I always have the delivery man make sure and hook up the propane tank to the bbq before they leave to make sure that it works.” Finally, I recently had the pleasure of trying to pass a kidney stone. Not wanting to miss any work, I arranged to have it extracted during my vacation time. In passing, I mentioned to my retired father-in-law that I had only missed 1 day of work in 11 years. He said, “I missed 1 day of work in 30 years.” Have there been times in your life when your mom and dad have ‘zinged’ you (probably not even knowing that they had)?
Our dad’s (sometimes our mom’s) tell us over and over again as we are growing up—You are NOT enough! In so many subtle and not so subtle ways. This is the wound that so many men (and women) carry with them. It creates a fiercely critical spirit, a chip on our shoulders, and abrasive arguments when anyone tries to give us “constructive criticism”. We become our dad. It was only recently that a friend pointed this “I am not enough” wound out to me. It was life changing to begin to process what it meant, how often I responded to my wife and others because of it, and how to learn and grow from it.
There are many practical ways that knowing about this wound has transformed my life. In the past when I would write an article, I would immediately ask my wife to proof read the article for me. When she would quickly use the red marker to slash and destroy what I thought was an almost perfect article, I would respond in a fury. Now I see that I was only responding to my childhood experiences of not being enough. My wife now knowing my wound has taken it upon herself to help heal my wound. When I ask for her to proof read anything that I have written, she will affirm me, put it aside for at least 24 hours, and then she will slash away with her red marker. It is amazing how quickly I become unattached to my work, and then can handle her critiques and edits much better.
My wife and I have an amazing marriage, but we have our share of arguments. To my surprise, most of our arguments revolve around my “not enough” wound. We argue because I feel that she has told me that “I am not enough”. It can be simply because she told me that I loaded the dishwasher the wrong or that I should drive around the block again so my oldest son will be late to a birthday party because he does better when he is not the only kid there. Yes, believe it or not this can set me off because I feel she is critiquing my driving and my favorite mantra that being early is one of life’s valuable secrets.
Two things have occurred since my “wound” was discovered. Our arguments still occur, but they are much shorter and often end in laughter. A less obvious by-product of my discovery stems from my wife’s repeated comment, “Ok already, I got it. You are not enough. When will it stop being about that!” The wound is now so obvious and so prevelant that we both can laugh about it. I have been healed enough through the process to laugh and with my wife’s encouragement to even tell myself, ‘Get over it!’