My husband and I are becoming foster parents soon. It’s been an interesting adventure in bureaucracy and self awareness. We’re both super excited, but in my not-so-strong moments the self doubt creeps in something fierce. It sounds something like this:
- I can’t do this.
- I’m not strong enough for this.
- I’m not smart enough to do this.
- Oh God, this is going to be hard. What am I thinking?
- What if [enter catastrophic story here . . . ]
When we first began the process several months, I would become overwhelmed with emotion just thinking about becoming a parent and question my abilities as a parent, because of my own dysfunctional upbringing.
I have an awesome husband and WE are definitely in a true partnership. So notice how all these voices are extremely selfish. Every statement starts with “I.”
The truth is that I’m not doing any of this alone. We’re doing this together, and we’re also blessed with our friends and family who are supporting us along the way.
Fear is sneaky. It creeps in and then takes over everything.
If you’re anything like me or my clients, we all have fear that creeps in to hold us back. It tell us not to go for it. It tells us that we don’t know enough yet. It tells us that we can’t do it perfectly right now, so we must wait.
These voices hold a tiny bit of truth, but mostly they lie to us. They keep us safe, and they keep us from our life’s work.