Dear Truth Teller,

I'm a 46-year-old woman, married, two beautiful, well-adjusted, engaging, teenagers, that are both good students, involved in great activities, and have friends I couldn't have chosen better myself. I have a lovely home, and an exciting in-home business that I run with my husband - who, by the way, adores me.

So what's my problem?

I feel like I'm not living up to my potential.

Although things are on an even keel now, I don't have a sense of well-being. Is it the traumas from the past that haunt my future - and this family has had their fair share - is it the tapes that play in my head, old recordings of voices that aren't mine (probably my dad's) that I'm allowing to drown out my higher self?

Is it ego?

Is it all the recent, and hard fought attempts to break my ego, that is generating this ultimate "final exam?"

Tell me, Truth Teller, how do I let go of this sense of not enough?

Signed,
Full Life in Philly, But Struggling with Lost Potential

Dear Struggling,

I have a sense it may be a combination of all of the above. We all have tapes in our heads whose time has come and gone and it's definitely time for your tapes to be gone. Both your "trauma response" as well as your dad's pressures may run deep. Try to unhook both of them by replacing them with something new.

I want to ask you to try an experiment. Every time you feel the anxiety of "not enough" rising up in your chest, say these words to yourself, "All that I have is all that I need". You have to trick yourself into a new view. Keep doing this until you really believe it. It may take a while, but be patient.

Your attempts to break your ego are steps in the right direction. Your realization that any time we compare ourselves to others, it's an ego response, rather than a "true you" response, the ego lessens. It would be wonderful if this were just a big test. Try to look at it that way. I've heard it said we are either either going into a trial, in a trial, or coming out of a trial pretty much all the time until we become enlightened. So, perhaps you are now coming out of a big trial, but still a bit shaken.


Please use your new mantra for 30 days and let me know if you get results. TT