When you don’t hear the good about your job enough or even at all, self-doubt creeps in.

Or when a mentor, a higher-up, the boss, the director, blatantly criticizes you in front of your peers, the magic within dies.

Or when your inner-voice tells you, ___  aren’t or isn’t good enough, (Insert the following words – You, Your work, Your art, Your body, Your singing, Your clothes, Your time, etc.) because this is what you have heard before, you wonder, After all this time and all this work, I am still not good enough? 

Why do we listen to the negativity of others? And I’m not talking about constructive criticisms, I’m referring to the the knock-you-down, blow-you-over, tear-you-apart comments.

Why do we allow those words to live in our souls, where we create and foster a nest for them in which to take residency?

How and when does this acceptance begin? And how do we end it?

Or better yet, what do I do or say to my own children so this doesn’t ever begin for them? Is that possible?

And I’m not talking about “the haters,” I’m talking about people we once looked up to, respected, heck, even admired. When those people tear through our passions with a few harsh words, moving past those comments, sometimes, is like trying to climb over a tall brick wall using only a spoon.

It can be done, but it is arduous, time-consuming work and there is absolutely no guarantee we’ll move on or ever forget.

So this will be my motto, from now on, when the voices tell me, “You can’t…you’re not good enough…he/she is right about you,” –

Gosh, I feel better already!

Don’t you?