Dear Anonymous:

I am feeling much better this morning, thank you. I am so relieved to be feeling better!

The purpose of my study of your posts this morning is to identify the origin of your I-am-not-good-enough core belief. But I may come across other topics as I proceed with the study to follow:

1. Your father and you: he encouraged you and praised you for acting masculine: “She’s so strong! She never cries! She’s so independent! She’s stronger than boys!” He even “seemed to favor me over my brother’, you wrote.

A child very much enjoys being favored, being a parent’s favorite, and is very invested in keeping that advantage going. So you kept the masculine behavior going: “was a tomboy as a child, hanging out always with all boys”, “always needed to prove myself and keep up and not show vulnerability or cry.. my tomboy attitude.. I felt like I had to impress him.. being vulnerable was a sign of weakness- usually a very masculine trait… all the boys I hung out with constantly at a young age… I didn’t like makeup or fashion like all the other girls.. I didn’t realize or feel like I was pretty and feminine”, “In  middle school/ high school I didn’t feel like I was one of the ‘pretty girls’ because I had that tomboy idea still in me”.

Your father didn’t encourage you to be “pretty and feminine”. He encouraged you to be boyish, masculine, so that was your focus, be boyish/ a tomboy, masculine.

Your father was a surfer and your mother disapproved of him surfing: “my dad was very selfish in that he always wanted to go surfing rather than prioritize his family.. my mom always said it was like having another child”. And yet, you were “a competitive surfer since I was 7”. You were motivated to be what he favored in you, what he valued about you, and you were motivated to please him, so to maintain his favoring you.

Even though your father was “an alcoholic with a loud/ intimidating voice/ anger issues.. cussing a lot very loud”, when he called your brother names,  you were not afraid to “get furious with my dad and ‘call him out’ on that behavior and he’d listen to me”-

– you were somewhat protected from his anger because he favored you. And you felt power over him: he listened to you! It is a very powerful emotional experience for a child, to be listened to, and to take advantage of it so to make a positive difference in your family, in this case, to make your father stop calling your brother names.

2. Your mother and you: she “never really showed sadness or anger.. she always wanted everyone to just ‘be happy’ and ‘positive’ all the time… say ‘Don’t be sad'”. When she said those things to you, “it made me feel like being sad was a bad thing and I should avoid those feelings or try to change them asap.. my emotions.. were kind of glossed over and then moved on t the next subject quick”.

Like your father, she too encouraged you with these statements: “She’s so  strong! She never cries! She’s so independent! She’s stronger than boys!” So you were indeed investing in being these things: strong, independent, stronger than others.

My understanding at this point: that you were a tomboy, that is a direct result of you being encouraged by your father (and maybe by your mother as well) to be masculine. But why the I-am-not-good-enough core belief? Why did it come about following you being favored by your father and even though you did make some positive difference in your family (for example, your father stopped calling your brother names at this or that instance, and even though both your parents were pleased with you)?

– because you didn’t make that much of a difference. Your father still yelled at time, still cussed, still called your brother names or put him down somehow; your mother still not content.  You never got to have that calm, peaceful, content family gathered by the fire in winter evenings telling stories or playing games, smiling at each other with affection and contentment.

“If by an act of miracle, you did make a big enough difference in your family life, as a child, then you would have had an I-am-good-enough core belief.

Fast forward, you wrote the other day, regarding this man: “if I see him out with another woman, or he gets a girlfriend.. I would be wondering well why not me? What does she have that I don’t? I should’ve done a. b. c and THEN maybe he would’ve picked me”

You didn’t make a big enough positive difference in your childhood family life. Fast forward, you didn’t make a big enough difference in this man’s life: he didn’t change from being non committal  to being committal to you.

Your father, your mother, your brother didn’t change to the better because you were in their lives, no matter how hard you tried. This man didn’t either, so you wonder what about you is lacking for not having made that difference, and what could you have done better.

Your unfortunate experience with the man at 18 is significant, but not in the very formation of this core belief.

anita