PHANTOM GRIEF

Understanding the Sorrow of Not Feeling Enough

In this modern world, despite a growing awareness for meeting others with acceptance and sensitivity, there are consistent messages being cast out into the air you breathe that you are not enough.

We take these messages in from time to time and it makes us weary.

After a while, a certain grief begins to materialize. A strange, oblique and shapeless gloom swells within, implying that you’ve missed something, disappointed someone, or went the wrong way in life, and so you slip into sadness and heartbreak for the things that never existed or the parts of you that did not emerge.

It’s murky. You didn’t exactly ask to be shown the What You Could Have Beens and Not Enoughs — yet there they are, dotted between your perceived deficiencies and dissatisfaction with the way you are, mixed with a pervasive sense of loss over how it all turned out.  

Even if no one died or went away, the sorrow is as if someone special is no longer with you. Because the person you hoped you would be or the ideas you carried about being someone they would love and receive are deceased.

And now the phantom grief that it’s become, living invisibly among your other imaginings and captive beliefs, feels like a heavy, useless burden.

Photo by Anviksha Singh on Unsplash

But where did these ideas and constructs come from? Which belong to you as once attainable aspirations and traits birthed from an organic, pure place inside your tender years — and which ones are not supposed to be your cup of remorse to drink from?

There are personal griefs emanating from the parts of you that have cause to mourn before moving on and ought to be received with love and gentleness. And there are acquired griefs you don’t deserve, nor the despair attached to them. They’re recurrent and uncomfortable because the ghostly grief that stems from losing something you never possessed or achieved is still felt as real, familiar, and saddening. Even more, the figment of Not Enough can remind you of what you once housed as potential before the memory morphs into a deflating sorrow having no apparent place to land.

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THE MESSAGES of NOT ENOUGH and TOO MUCH

The Journey to feeling enough begins with identifying and decrypting some of the reasons why you feel inadequate or not enough.

It’s one thing to say, I am enough and another to believe and live it with conviction. It’s also easy to remind someone, Hey, you’re enough. But it takes time to gain knowledgeable traction as to how this seemingly bottomless wound formed and why it continues to get exposed to subtle and overt criticisms. And I know, you can’t always pick the shards out on your own if the wound has formed into imposter syndrome, or if you’re consistently fending off intrusive thoughts of being marred and inferior, so it’s good to have therapeutic support.

The feelings of Not Enough collapse inside a dark and empty hole. It can feel like carrying dead weight or heaviness, profound sadness, a powerlessness to connect to one’s own valid parts, and sometimes a grief-stricken vacancy after comparing oneself unfairly. The urgency to be seen as complete, trustworthy, and deserving are real, legitimate human cravings we hold as fervent adults. While it will take time to grow up and learn to language their experiences, babies can still feel loved and respond to emotional attachment. So as infants, we begin to be receptive to how we’re treated — and as very young children, we hear what’s communicated to us, even if indirectly. We’re sensitive to energy and intent. We can be conditioned to bear shame if we shine brighter than what’s expected. We take in and eventually differentiate what care and disapproval feel like, as we absorb the hidden meanings of Not Enough and Too Much.

As children or adolescents, we were likely told we are too much of something or not enough of something else.

I’m too quiet.  You’re too loud. She is too stupid and they are too enthusiastic, animated, and imaginative. He isn’t brave enough. I’m not resilient enough and you aren’t good enough to be included.  Some of these messages suggesting or accusing you of being too extra, or a failure in some way, eroded your confidence, introduced shame, and certainly became a threat to your innate creativity.

Can you recall one of the first negative messages you received that implied or directly stated something about you is lacking?

As you reflect on what you were told or how you were minimized and truncated, it’s no wonder your spirit felt as though it had been curtailed and Future You was suddenly cut off from connecting with wondrous possibilities. It’s no wonder you feel a deep sense of loss for these parts of you. Perhaps your imagination, your independence, your drive and desire to take risks and inhabit adventure were not fostered or rewarded.  Are you willing to rescue a part of you that is still back there and in need of validation and uplifting, then bring it forward with positivity and delight?

When persuasive images and prevalent, defined ideas of accomplishment (and even unrealistic notions about emotional healing) attach themselves to our longings, we can get locked into the need to feel fulfilled and be seen as competent and whole. They’re not false needs, they’re real needs being preyed upon.  Can you recognize tactics to purposely engage people, point out their flaws and imperfections, and keep them in a cycle of doing anything they can to fix themselves? Would you prefer to direct your real needs towards nourishing, genuine fulfillment?

Hearing someone share their detailed displeasure that you’re not what they thought you’d be or that you turned out “wrong” is brutal and hurtful, yet there are people who can’t understand how deep this cut can go. Are you able to discern how some often project their personal disappointments onto others as a way of avoiding the pain themselves? That’s one example how wounded people wound other people and this is not your pain to internalize or manage for them.

Unfortunately, we did not all receive the kind of care and messaging that would keep us entirely secure because humans pass down trauma. Children don’t generally turn on their aggressors or abusers, but they can turn on themselves. They can begin an inner dialogue about how much they failed to please, or why they need to pacify everyone around them, or when and how they are allowed to show expression. Does this sound familiar? If so, the space of origin was inadequate and insufficient, not you.  Can you offer yourself the warm and generous praise essential to growing and trying out new and enlivening things?

Gradually, we develop a sense of lack which can deepen into sorrow and hook into our delicate dreams, tear into our yearnings and may not only form a virtual scar on unmet needs, but can expose previously concealed or encrypted desires. Like the things you didn’t know you needed. Have you noticed how the culture has an unlimited supply of opinions and assessments as to what it takes to be enough?

PARTS, LOSS, GRIEF, AND VALIDATION

Sometimes the static about what you should be is blaring over the quiet voice inside desiring to be free and articulate authenticity in all the ways in which your natural, honest self wants to appear and behave.  Consider the parts of you that started out knowing what they wanted, only to be interrupted by what others thought would be much better and more complete. Bringing the precious but lost parts to the surface to receive acceptance is your personal work bridging and reuniting with the Beloved that is YOU.

Think of the past or current traits or parts of you bubbling to the surface, then shunned from existing. What kind of words did you need to feel acceptance around the longings you seem to have to justify? And can you apply those bold words to yourself each day as encouragement to take up more space?

Our Lost Parts can create a sensation of not being enough when their stifled cries from the past are holding out to be acknowledged and grieved, or possibly reanimated in this lifetime. Maybe that looks like music lessons later in life or finally taking a trip that would ignite your lost spirit of adventure and spontaneity. Perhaps it looks like admission, approval, or closure. It could look like putting old recordings of what you thought your life was going to be into words and offering ceremony to the wonder in you, once courageously dreamt and now a testament to your ability envision hope. Allowing our earthly content all the grace, space, and time to be memorialized with any form of tribute are ways we honor ourselves and commemorate our Enoughness.

In the end, you truly are enough. You will live to learn what you are built to handle and it doesn’t mean you are inadequate. It may mean the situation is larger than the space you can offer and demands more strength than you can realistically give.  

So if you find yourself drenched in sorrow and you think it may be a wayward grief associated with not living up to something, or not arriving in time or at all — give yourself permission to process it and nurture it with peace.

I hope something in this newsletter serves to help in identifying and sorting out any haunting emotions and disappointments. There are many different griefs we meet with and while some are short-term, others remain as complicated or lifelong. And there exists a certain, mysterious Grief that arises to explain something significant before it turns to you and says, I know you’ve been suffering, and you are not meant to carry me for the rest of your days…

With love, care and kindness,

Susan

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