Having traumatizing experiences in your past can make abundance work in the present harder, in a lot of ways.
Everyone reacts differently to their trauma, but there’s one big theme that seems to come up pretty consistently: lack of self-worth.
A deep-seated feeling of not being worthy or good enough for the abundance you’re seeking can lurk below the surface and create resistance to the things you’re trying to create or call into your life. And if you’re unaware of this resistance in yourself, it can be hard to pinpoint why the manifestation and abundance work you’re doing isn’t working.
That was my experience.
“Not Good Enough” — The Hidden Saboteur of Abundance
In my Law of Attraction coaching certification program, the instructor brought up that clients might have underlying thoughts and beliefs that would work against the Law of Attraction, but that we should actually avoid discussing those things because it would take them out of the attraction vibration and they wouldn’t get results.
Ok, cool, so let’s just pretend those things don’t exist, right?
That’s a valid option for people who don’t have a trauma background. Everyone in the world walks around with a little bit of self-doubt, and for those of us who’ve never ingrained those doubts into deep beliefs, bypassing them is perfectly fine.
But for those, like me, who’ve spent more than 20 years believing that they’ll never amount to anything or find any true joy in their life, bypassing doesn’t exist.
Even when you consciously decide to not think those things, or not believe in them anymore, or have convinced yourself that you’re past them, they can be what’s working inside your nervous system and neural pathways that cancels out all of the manifestation and abundance work you’re doing on a conscious level.
My Anti-Abundance Beliefs
I have childhood trauma, and it was ongoing. In the clinical world, my diagnosis would be complex trauma or Complex Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (C-PTSD). If you want a really good explanation of what complex trauma is, I recommend this article: “What is Complex Trauma and How Does it Develop?”
Basically, I suffered ongoing emotional abuse and it resulted in a long-term belief that I was useless. My sense of self-worth was compromised to the point of feeling like I was never good enough, in any way.
Relationships? Not qualified.
Finances? Sucked at ‘em.
Work? I’d never succeed.
Health? Lost cause.
The list goes on and on.
When I started my journey to abundance and discovered manifestation, the Law of Attraction, and so on, I thought it was an answer to my prayers, because there was a power outside of myself that I could use to improve myself and my life.
But as is often the case with manifestation and LoA, I would successfully achieve smaller goals rather easily, while the bigger things remained far out of my reach.
It wasn’t until months into my therapy journey that I realized how deep my lack of self-worth actually went, and understood that I had been unconsciously sabotaging my goals all along.
How to Overcome “Not Good Enough”
There’s work you can do on your own to get over your feelings of “Not Good Enough” (NGE), and there’s work you can do with others. I’ve done both, and whichever route you choose to tackle, know that you’re on a journey that won’t be instantly beneficial, but is hugely worth it for your future self and success.
Seek Therapy
If you suffer from the “not good enough” lie yourself, I can’t recommend therapy enough.
I started therapy to help me overcome the anxiety I was experiencing on a daily basis as a result of my trauma history, and once I was able to get control over it, I discovered there was so much more work to be done.
Talking with my therapist weekly was really key in uprooting the deep underlying beliefs that have controlled my life for decades. And on top of that, my therapist was able to guide me in asking questions of myself that I wouldn’t have even known to ask.
Therapy changed my life in so many ways, but the improvement to my sense of self-worth is by far the greatest result — one I never knew I needed.
Take Action Yourself
Whether you work with a therapist or not, there is work you can do now to start improving your self-worth. We live in the age of the internet, and there are so many free resources you can use to get started.
When I first began to explore NGE, I did a simple Google search, “how to get over not good enough,” and this is the article I started my journey with:
How to Get Over “Never Good Enough” by Psychologist Margaret Rutherford
There’s wonderfully detailed information in it for you to explore conceptually, and there’s also action steps you can take right now. The point is this: you are not condemned to your current reality forever. You can start making changes in your life on your own. All you have to do is start, and move forward.
Start Journaling
NGE is insidious, and often we aren’t able to identify it by examining things inside our heads. For that reason, I recommend you start writing. You can freewrite, or you can use journal prompts to get you started.
One of the questions I asked myself in my own journal was this: “How has NGE negatively impacted my life up to this point?”
Here are a few things that came out as a result:
- “I’ve given up on dating entirely because no one would want me.”
- “I don’t do art anymore because it doesn’t compare to what others are capable of.”
- “I’m not committed enough to kick my bad habits or create new good habits.”
- “I’m not responsible with money. I might as well be broke.”
- “If you don’t do it well, it’s not worth doing at all.”
These are all thoughts and untrue beliefs that I had about myself, but wasn’t aware of. Journaling can help you uncover them so they’re no longer lurking in the subconscious of your brain, and instead you can confront them and work through them.
The Wrap Up…
“Not Good Enough” is a pretty normal experience for humans, but when you have a trauma background, it can potentially derail the abundance work you’re doing. In fact, it can be devastating.
But that doesn’t mean you’re stuck living with it forever. You can overcome it, and I recommend you start working on it now, because it takes time to work through.
Now with all that said, let me be clear: I am not a trained psychologist, and all I can do is share my and/or my coaching clients’ experiences in this work, in an effort to help you see potential issues that might come up on your personal journey to abundance. If you are struggling with your mental health, please seek professional help.
