“I am not good enough.” Was the thought that went through my head while I was staring at myself in the mirror this morning. Wiping a few tears off my cheek as I processed a hard conversation that Darby and I had last night. As I peeled back the layers of garbage and lies that I have believed for years that I was holding so so tightly as truth… I heard my whole being echo those words “I am not good enough”
These moments are rare and normally there are months or years that go in between them. But they happen, they come by surprise.. and the frustrating thing is when our Core Fears have surfaced, been triggered, or even grazed against.. they tend to linger. Linger in the most unpleasant of ways. They infiltrate your most promised and protected roles as a wife and a mother and try to convince you that an idea is truth without any surmountable evidence except, for a big old pile of emotions and hormones to show you the light.
I remember sitting in my therapist’s office about 10 years back when I was in an internship and I remember her sweetly saying, like a loving grandmother.. “ Amanda, you take yourself to seriously.. and you have so much to offer this world. One day you will see it. but even better.. one day you will believe it”.
I feel like my journey of doing business alongside my husband, and becoming a business owner myself has brought me back to this place more times than I can count. This place of immense vulnerability where a desire for deep grace and acceptance for who I am and whom I am married to is needed. What I mean by this is, we both have this innate core fear of wondering if we are good enough. Whole enough. If we have what it takes to provide for our family in the unique and dynamic ways that only we can.
I have found the more layers that I pull back and the more honest conversations that I have with Darby about this idea of striving to provide for our family; there is a deep deep desire to do the same in a different way for our family. I am learning, with each conversation Darby has this desire to provide in any and every way that he can. There is a fire that lights underneath him when it comes from laboring and finding new dynamic ways to provide for our family. I, as a wife and a mom, feel this deep desire to know that the well being of my family is taken care of. This desire to nurture the whole well being of my family. Mentally, emotionally, physically watch for little traps that we can often fall into where we are not taking care of ourselves to the fullest.
Often where Darby and my disconnect comes is when my desire for the well being of my family is fueled by my core fear of not being good enough. What it mean is, when the budget gets tight and things have to get sacrificed.. if I am triggered into a spiral of “I am not good enough” it fleshes out and projects onto Darby as.. . “You will never take care of us”. Why? because that is how core fears work. Core fears twist a current truth to feed what your heart defaults to. When my fear is triggered, I default to self- sustaining. I default to taking care of myself, and self reliance. What does that create in our marriage… a big ol’ fat wedge called bitterness.
In the same ways that I have a play on core fears.. Darby’s deep desire to provide and take care of our family… when it is backed by his core fear of never being good enough projects into “You don’t believe in me and I will do this without you” Which makes for some hard, toxic, crazy, insane months of conversations if we let it. Which leads to another big ol’ fat wedge of discontentment and heartache.
So what happens when the heat is on? How do we navigate this pressure to bring everything to the surface in a healthy way and choose to work together? I think for Darby and I, it’s about finding our sweet spot. You can call it our Zen or when we are firing on all cylinders. It is this place where we are flourishing on all fronts and both feel equipped and taken care of. You have to fight for it, and it will not come easy.. because here is the thing.. when you are pursuing the right things, THERE IS ALWAYS OPPOSITION. And often times we feel that we are in our sweet spot at different times. Which really means.. we aren’t. So here is what we believe is the perfect storm for our sweet spot.
Communication is firing on all cylinders.
This sounds so simple. Truly think about it… it’s so easy to communicate, celebrate, be excited and also be scared when you are constantly talking. Meaning making time for actual meaningful conversations. I know that Darby and I are in a good season when it doesn’t pain me to bring up money, because we are in constant communication about it. It’s the season where i know I truly am doing life with my best friend and I don’t even feel nervous when that stanky core fear comes up because He is right there with truth and loving me right where I am at. Communicate, Communicate, Communicate.. then communicate some more.
Always have Open Books.
This one is probably the trickiest of ones for us to overcome. If we are in our sweet spot, Darby and I have a good acknowledgment of our relationship with money. We both understand not only how great of a tool that money can be for our businesses, but how easily we can fall into the trap of letting it lead our lives. When we are in our sweet spot, Our personal budget is openly talked about. We are both aware of the needs of all of our businesses and we are working as a team to accomplish those needs. We freely say “No” to things that do not fall into the things those needs.
Freedom to work.
When you are working from home with your spouse the time constraints already get demanding. Add in a couple kids and only few optimal hours to on things… then the demand for making your business a priority step in. We have an unspoken rule that we live by. We evaluate our time, we evaluate the worth of the time it will take to do projects, we evaluate if we say “yes” to that thing will we be saying no to something important? We evaluate, Can we truly have it all? In our sweet spot we can. To be honest, it sounds crazy but we have navigated some wild seasons this past year and came out on top. Profitable in our business, and profitable in our personal lives. There is nothing more dampening to spirit then to feel that your projects are put off to the side and your spouses projects are being put first. Some of the ways we have prevented this in our lives.. ( again we are not perfect at this) is creating our own workspace in our basement, creating a workspace upstairs where i can be and work from while with the kids. Flexible schedules that accommodate both of us, and paying for a babysitter in the afternoon.
**Momma’s and Wives, I would say that this is the hardest one that I have had to encounter because we want all the time in the world to be ours to control and to say where our family’s time goes. LET GO.**
Date Yo Boo.
This one is probably my favorite thing to talk about when it comes to running a business alongside my stud of a husband. One of the first things that we talked about when it came to Darby switching to full time entreprenuership, was my nervoursnes about losing time with him. Not him in general, but him as in my husband. What I mean is that the single most important thing to me about marriage is being alongside someone for the rest of my days. Doing life. We are constantly reminded, that we did not say “I do” to just live in a house, have some babies, and to be good people. We said “I do” because it was our best friend, forever and ever. We said yes, to falling more in love everyday. With little surprises, big suprises, reliving first dates, celebrating new adventures together. So, we date our boo. We hire a babysitter or we trade weekends with friends… and we get out of dodge. We leave business off the table and we connect like the first time Darby swept me off to a local lake town and baked me a apple pie from scratch. This single handedly, will bring us back to our sweet spot. This is where we rediscover where we belong. And that crux of who we are is Better together.
KNOW, YOU CAN DO IT.
The best things are often fought for. I have learned this lesson time and time again. I truly believe, our life is one of the best lives out there. We have fought hard and we choose to continuously fight for the best things. I will leave this thought with you as you leave. How do you react to the pressure? Truly, when the heat is on.. and the bills are piling up? or when the schedule is insane and the laundry is piling up.. how do you respond? I believe we can learn the most from ourselves when the heat is on. When we literal football fields away from our sweet spots. Do you self sustain, isolate, walk away? Do you put your spouse on the other team? Because here is what I know to be true. The best way to do this thing… is authenticity, venerability, and pure grit. I mean dig deep down inside you, stare yourself in the mirror and repeat after me…
I AM CAPABLE
I AM WORTHY
I WILL NOT QUIT
I WILL NOT SURRENDER
I WAS MADE FOR THIS
I CAN DO THIS.
Believe in what you and your spouse get to be apart of. Celebrate it and truly live free in it. NO one on this whole stinking planet can do what you and your spouse are equipped to do. Because there is no better partner in this world then your spouse. There is no other person on the planet that has your best interests in mind, but them. Their personal gain, is your personal gain. YOU have something to bring to the table.. and when you are working in the Sweet Spot… you feel crazy and the confidence that exudes from your whole heart. In that authentic, beautiful, messy, screwed up, imperfect sweet spot is where the Fullest Life is found.
YOU ARE CAPABLE
YOU ARE WORTHY
YOU WILL NOT QUIT YOU WILL NOT SURRENDER
YOU WERE MADE FOR THIS
YOU CAN DO THIS