I’m not enough.
I’m too emotional.
I should be able to handle this.
I’m not a good enough mother.
Something must be wrong with me.
Have you ever stopped to notice how you feel when you say those things to yourself?
Maybe discouraged.
Ashamed.
Anxious.
Overwhelmed.
Insecure.
Or simply exhausted from constantly trying to prove that the lie isn't true.
This is something my friend Kylie Hine and I recently talked about on the podcast, and I believe it is one of the most important connections we can make as women:
What we believe about ourselves affects how we feel—and how we feel affects how we show up in our lives.
When a Thought Becomes “Who I Am”
The problem isn't that an unhelpful thought occasionally pops into our minds.
We all have thoughts.
The problem comes when we've repeated a thought for so long that we stop questioning it.
Instead of thinking, I'm having the thought that I'm not good enough, we begin believing:
I'm not good enough.
It becomes part of our identity.
Kylie described what that can feel like:
“I'm just going to be stuck in this thought spiral of I'm not doing enough while I'm also at the very same time doing 8 million things too much.”
Eventually, we start believing we're always going to feel overwhelmed, stressed, or like we're getting life wrong.
And Kylie reminded us:
“That's just simply not true.”
But when you're living inside the belief, it certainly feels true.
That's why awareness matters so much.
Your Emotions May Be Pointing You Toward a Belief
Years ago, I had a counselor who would end our sessions by telling me:
“Remember, be gentle with yourself.”
Do you know what my first reaction was?
I was offended!
What do you mean, be gentle with myself?
But eventually I realized something.
She could hear something in the way I talked about myself that I couldn't hear yet.
I wasn't gentle with myself.
Life was hard. Motherhood was hard. Womanhood was hard.
But underneath those circumstances was an interior conversation.
What was I saying to myself about all of it?
That question changed so much for me.
Today, when I'm coaching a woman who says something like I'm not enough, I'm too much, or I should be able to handle this, I want to get curious.
Where did that belief come from?
Whose voice does it sound like?
What emotion does it create?
And perhaps most importantly:
What fruit is this belief producing in your life?
Because our thoughts don't remain neatly tucked away inside our heads.
They affect our emotions.
Those emotions influence our actions.
And those actions produce fruit.
Kylie said it beautifully:
“These thoughts lead to actions, and we have to test the spirits and look at the fruit.”
What is the fruit of believing I'm not enough?
What happens when you believe I'm a bad mother?
What happens when you've spent years believing I'm too emotional?
Does that belief produce peace?
Confidence?
Freedom?
Love?
Or does it produce shame, fear, comparison, perfectionism, resentment, jealousy or anxiety?
The fruit gives us information.
What If You Don't Have to Keep the Thought?
This is one of the most freeing things I've learned and now teach my coaching clients:
You don't have to believe every thought you think.
I like to compare thoughts to clothes.
When my son was born after seven years of infertility, people gave me bags and bags of boy clothes.
I didn't keep everything simply because someone gave it to me!
I looked through them.
This fits.
This doesn't.
This one is useful.
This one has a stain.
This one can go.
We can learn to do something similar with our thoughts.
Some beliefs were handed to us by our families.
Others came from teachers, relationships, painful experiences, culture, social media, or our own interpretations of something that happened years ago.
But just because someone handed you a belief doesn't mean you have to wear it for the rest of your life.
As Kylie said:
“We can't control what pops into our head, but we can choose what we pay attention to.”
My friends, that is freedom.
And This Goes Even Deeper Than Our Emotions
One of my favorite moments in my conversation with Kylie was when she connected our beliefs about ourselves to our relationship with God.
She said:
“If we're made in the image of God, and our image of self is distorted, our image of God is going to be distorted.”
I immediately made her say it again!
Because WOW.
Think about that.
If deep down I believe I'm unlovable, how difficult will it be for me to believe that God truly loves me?
If I believe I'm constantly getting things wrong, perhaps I begin imagining God constantly disappointed in me.
If I believe I have to earn my worth, maybe I begin approaching God as though I have to earn His love too.
Kylie put it simply:
“If I don't see myself as lovable, I'm not going to think that God sees me as lovable.”
This is why this work matters so much.
We're not simply trying to “think positively.”
We're uncovering what we actually believe.
We're examining it.
We're bringing it into the light.
And ultimately, we're bringing it to God.
“Jane, I Want You.”
There was a season of my own life when I was constantly bringing everyone else to God.
Lord, take care of my children.
Lord, help this person.
Lord, love them.
And one day at Mass, I sensed the Lord speaking something very clearly to my heart:
“Jane, I want you.”
Me?
It was almost as if my response was, "No, no, Lord. I'm fine. Take care of everyone else first."
The martyred mother.
The woman who puts everyone else ahead of herself and quietly believes that somehow this makes her holier.
But God was wooing me.
He wanted a relationship with me.
He loved me.
And receiving that truth began changing something inside of me.
This is what Kylie and I want for other women too.
What Could Change in Just One Hour?
That's exactly why Kylie and I created our FREE workshop:
Our goal isn't to magically undo every belief you've developed over decades in sixty minutes.
Our goal is to help you see.
Because once you see a belief, you can begin questioning it.
And once you begin questioning it, you no longer have to automatically obey it.
During our hour together, we want to help you identify a belief that may have been shaping the way you see yourself.
You'll begin asking:
Where did this belief come from?
Is it actually true?
What emotions does it create in me?
What fruit has it been producing in my life?
Is this how God sees me?
And then we're going to do something incredibly important.
We're going to bring it to Him.
Kylie and I will combine practical coaching tools with prayer to help you move from what you've believed about yourself toward what is actually true.
Imagine walking into our workshop believing:
“This is just who I am.”
And walking out thinking:
Maybe it isn't.
Maybe I don't have to keep believing this.
Maybe this thought isn't telling me the truth.
Maybe I can bring this to God.
Maybe He wants to show me something different.
That little bit of space between “This is who I am” and “Is this actually true?” can change everything.
Because you are not the sum of every thought that has passed through your mind.
You are not defined by something someone said to you years ago.
You are not your perfectionism.
You are not your insecurity.
You are not your mistakes.
You are a beloved daughter of God.
Unique.
Unrepeatable.
Created intentionally by a God who knows you completely and desires a relationship with you.
Kylie said something at the end of our conversation that beautifully captures what we hope happens when we gather:
“If we come with open hearts for the Lord to illuminate whatever yuckiness there is hiding in there, He is going to do it.”
So come with an open heart.
Come with the belief you haven't been able to shake.
Come with the thought that keeps creating the emotions you don't want to keep experiencing.
Come even if you don't know exactly what's underneath all of it yet.
Give us one hour.
Let's uncover what you've been believing, examine the fruit it has been producing, and invite God into the places where you've forgotten who you really are.
Join Us for the FREE Workshop
Break free from the beliefs that have shaped how you see yourself and rediscover the truth of who you are in God's eyes.