You Are Enough!

You are enough...today...just the way you are.

You are enough today...just the way you are.

You are enough today just the way you are.

Many of you will be traveling home to be with family and friends. For many of us this is a wonderful thing. For others, it's a mixed blessing or an outright curse that you are dreading. We regularly compare ourselves to others, often seeing ourselves as lacking attributes, relationships, experiences, material items, etc. that other people have, leaving us feeling like we are not enough...that we are somehow deficient in some area that we feel is valuable or important. When around family, we are sometimes told--either implicitly or explicitly that we are "not enough"...that we are not meeting the expectations of our parents, guardians, grandparents, older siblings and/or your crazy Uncle Egbert.

You're majoring in {fill in the blank}? What are you going to do with that?

Oh, you have a tattoo. I should have invested in a tattoo removal laser business--I'd be rich in 10 years when your

generation regrets getting these tattoos.

So, you're still single, huh?

That profession is beneath you. You can be more than that.

You're graduating in {fill in the blank} and you still don't know what you want to do?

These are actual statements from my own family members from my trips home during my undergraduate years. You might not hear these exact veiled and not-so-veiled critiques, but if you do and your sexuality, academic major, career aspirations, relationship status, hair color, wardrobe, gender identity or any other aspect of who you are becomes the subject of explicit or implicit criticism or passive aggressive ridicule and judgment, please remember that YOU ARE ENOUGH! TODAY! JUST THE WAY YOU ARE! Your parents, siblings and Uncle Egbert don't have to live your life--this is your life and, damn it, YOU ARE ENOUGH TODAY JUST THE WAY YOU ARE!

If over the holiday you are struggling with self-acceptance, there are some things you can do. Check out these "Six Tips for Achieving Self-Acceptance" by clicking on this hyperlinked text. And, the mantra of YOU ARE ENOUGH TODAY JUST THE WAY YOU ARE! was created with you in mind.

GRATITUDE

I used to hate when people would tell me how important it is to have an "attitude of gratitude" (to be honest, the saying still rubs me the wrong) but the science does not lie. Gratitude is a critical component and practice that can help to bolster your happiness. There are gratitude apps for your phone (https://positivepsychology.com/gratitude-apps/), gratitude journals and podcasts exploring the importance of practicing gratitude in your daily life. Dr. Laurie Santos, the Yale psychologist who hosts the Happiness Lab podcast, talks about the value of gratitude in the video excerpt below, recorded several years ago on CBS This Morning.