Jeanne Favini penned this piece in the Burn Wild workshop last week. Her description of the overpowering critic thoroughly resonated with the group. I also love the beautifully expressed hope.
Not Good Enough
There are always plenty of people to let you know you’re not good enough. It started early enough that I had no choice but to believe it. Why would your parents lie to you about something like that?
And from there it became a chorus.
Sister, cousins, friends, teachers – critics all. Look around: everyone is doing this better than you.
It has seeped through whatever protective shell you may have had, saturated your skin and bones, taken over your brain, heart and soul.
You don’t need the outer voices any more.
Congratulations! You are now your own worst critic.
The critic: that chatty, snarky little bastard that never sleeps, never relents, never gives you an inch of daylight or hope. Swimming in an ocean of not-good-enough, drowning in self-enforced mediocrity.
Suffocating my own life.
Now gasping for air, plugging my ears, looking for the crack where my self can shine through. Hoping I have the guts, and the time to prove all the critics wrong.
I have fearless granddaughters. I’d like to be remembered as part of that cohort of shining women.
–Jeanne Favini
