Daphne Rose Kingma - When You Think Youre Not Enough: The Four Life-Changing Steps to Loving Yourself

Praise for Daphne Rose Kingma

Daphne Rose Kingma writes with such elegance that she could turn self-help into a literary genre.

L.A. Weekly

Thought-provoking perspectives on relationships.

News Tribune

Praise for The Ten Things to Do When Your Life Falls Apart

Anyone going through a dark night of the soul needs to have this book. It will be your closest companion and your most tender angel. Daphne Rose Kingma more than speaks to your soul; she knows how to heal it.

Marianne Williamson, author of A Return to Love

Praise for The Future of Love

In this innovative book, Daphne Rose Kingma breaks down the popular myth of how love is supposed to be by introducing us to a broad spectrum of intimate connections. She reveals how to work through the various confrontations that every relationship encounters and reach deeper levels of love and intimacy.

John Gray, author of Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus

Deeply insightful and daringly fresh, this book takes a breath-taking step away from tradition and into the possibility of saying yes to the true and grandest desire of our being: to love fully.

Neale Donald Walsch, author of Conversations with God

Praise for 101 Ways to Have True Love in Your Life

Daphne Rose Kingma was my first teacher of the heart. With tender care, she taught me how to love myself and others. I can never express how grateful I am for all her wise advice about the profound practice of relationship.

MJ Ryan, author of Attitudes of Gratitude

This edition first published in 2012 by Conari Press, an imprint of Red Wheel/Weiser, LLC

With offices at:

665 Third Street, Suite 400

San Francisco, CA 94107

www.redwheelweiser.com

Copyright 2004, 2012 by Daphne Rose Kingma.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from Red Wheel/Weiser, LLC. Reviewers may quote brief passages. Originally published in 2004 as Loving Yourself by Conari Press, ISBN: 1-57324-924-6.

ISBN: 978-1-57324-534-0

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data available upon request

Cover design by www.levanfisherdesign.com/BarbaraFisher

Printed in United States of America

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For you, because you've finally decided to love yourself and because your soul knows you deserve no less

And in memory of my parents, Jan Willem and Gezina Stuart Kingma, who from so little gave so much

Part One
Moving Forward, Looking Back

Part Two
The Path to Self-Love

L oving thanks and appreciation to Jan Johnson of Conari Press, who gave energy and inspiration to my vision for this book. Gratitude and heartfelt thanks to Mary Jane Ryan, for once again sharing her editorial gifts so generously with me. Thanks also to Don and Ana Li, who always welcome me home with open hearts and open arms. Much love and thanks to Molly, who moved our old oak dining room table into her new red dining room, so I could sit there and write with the Jack-dog at my feet. I.L.Y. Sweet love and thanks to Moe Bruce, Maureen McCarthy, and Zelle Nelson for sanctuary, love, and fun and yes, for all those questions. Deep thanks and love to Rebecca Witjas for going to Bhutan with me, and also to Karma Gayley for the beauty of our trek. Special thanks to B.J. Hambleton for precious friendship, love, and sweet encouragement along the way; and a mystical rose bouquet of gratitude to Diane Dickerson. Your generosity in offering the sunlight of your soul and of your rooms allowed this book to be born in joy. If we could all love ourselves in the pure and gentle way you love all those who cross your path, Diane, this would be a world of exquisite sweetness. Thank you for your soul-deep hospitality.

U nfortunately, in the years since I first offered this book, the issue of self-love has not become irrelevant. That's sad, of course, but in another way weirdly encouraging: the difficult feelings we all have from time to time about not being enough are, in fact, an invitation to each of us to develop a higher quality of self-regard.

Loving yourself is not an incidental undertaking. It's the most important job that each of us has come here to do. It's the one thing we really need to accomplish on behalf of the one and only person for whom we're totally responsible. It's also the key to opening the door to greater love, warmth, and intimacy in all our other relationships. Indeed, it's only when you reside in the nourishing feeling of loving yourself that you have a clear sense of what you seek in your relationships with others, as well as what you can offer them in return. When you know how good it feels to trust, honor, and enjoy yourself, you know that these same feelings, invested in someone else, can lift other people's spirits and give them a sense of their own value. In this way self-love becomes the standard not only for what we want to receive, but also for how to become a more loving person and have deeper, richer, and more meaningful relationships.

Self-love also serves another important function in our lives: it allows us to understand exactly what we have to offer to the world. As we come to recognize our specific gifts and talents, we also discover the specific purpose that we are here to accomplish.

The opposite of such life-enhancing self-regard is the haunting belief that you are somehow not enough. It generally shows up in the form of that creepy little dust-covered voice in the basement of your consciousness that keeps climbing up the stairs and telling you that you're not beautiful enough, tall enough, smart enough, educated enough, or intelligent enough to get chosen, to be loved, to succeed. You aren't a good enough parent, a sexy enough lover, a supportive enough spouse, a strong enough provider, a decisive enough leader, a submissive enough employee to get the outcome you desire. Even a chronic over-giving do-gooder type can worry about not doing enough: giving enough money, saying the right thing, bringing the right gift, choosing the best card. No matter what its specific message, one way or another the nasty little voice keeps wreaking havoc with your ongoing attempts to feel good about yourself.

Sometimes the voice makes a billboard pronouncement: Of course he wasn't going to pick you, you idiot; you're not pretty enough. Or How could you possibly make the right choice; you can't even decide what to order for dinner? At other times, it seems to have taken up fulltime residence on the couch of your consciousness and just plain laughs in your face when you try to make a concerted effort at loving yourself: What's the point? it says, Good things never happen to you.

Why are we so darn hard on ourselves? Why are we always measuring ourselves against some invisible, perfect, utterly outrageous standard? Why can't we lay off? And if we could stop for even a minuteone friend told me she realized she hadn't beat herself up for four whole hours yesterday!how can we replace the feeling of not-good-enoughness with the kind of positive, self-honoring self-celebration that could change not only us, but ultimately, everyone around us?