James Martin SJ
Introduction
The following is an extract from a new book, Come Forth, by James Martin, SJ., worthy of reflection.[1]
Not Enoughness
Loving oneself is a struggle for an astonishing number of people. Over the past thirty years as a Jesuit and especially in my ministry as a spiritual director, I’ve met dozens of people who face crippling doubts about their own value and worth. This happens even to people who would be considered by many as “successful.” It is a contemporary disease that plagues almost everyone—feelings of what one professionally successful man in his thirties described as “not enoughness.”
Often it manifests as feelings that one is inadequate, unintelligent, or a failure in life. It also manifests in embarrassment or shame about an aspect of one’s body, personality, family of origin, educational background, or financial status. This may include highly negative perceptions about physical appearance, fear of being unable to succeed in one’s chosen field, feeling unpopular, or simply having vague feelings of unworthiness. Sometimes these feelings can be traced to childhood, when people describe parents for whom nothing ever seemed to be enough (or at least this is the way that some people internalized their parents’ expectations).
Although it may sound like I’m copying this from a book on psychology, I’m describing multiple experiences with people who have seen me for spiritual direction and counselling over the years. And the number of people who must confront not enoughness seems to grow each year. This feeling can influence the way people imagine, understand, and relate to God, thus having a profound impact on their spiritual lives. People’s conceptions of God naturally are influenced by how they saw their parents: judgmental or accepting, gentle or harsh, demanding or accepting. These experiences, positive or negative, are often imported into their spiritual lives. Having judgmental parents, for instance, can mean that people may judge themselves severely—and believe that God does as well. Often, they will say to me the same thing, word for word: “I know I shouldn’t feel this way, but I feel like I’m just not enough.”
This moves beyond guilt over something they did and into an unhealthy sense of shame. Guilt says, “I did a bad thing”; shame says, “I am a bad person.” Such feelings can be crippling. How can we feel at peace if we are “not enough”? Nothing that we do, and nothing that anyone can say to us, can fill that need. No amount of success, no amount of money, and no group of friends can paper over that tear in a person’s psyche.
Key to combating not enoughness is a healthy sense of the gifts and talents God has given us and the blessing we are for others. Often, I ask people simply to take time—hours, days, weeks—to focus on the blessings in their lives. What talents have you been given? What friends have you had? Where have you experienced love and support? What are your successes? What brings you joy? How have you helped others to flourish? This is not a papering over of the not enoughness. Rather, when we are stuck in feelings of inadequacy and unworthiness, it helps to see, in concrete terms, where we have been blessed, what gifts we have been given, and who we have been able to become with God’s grace. Gradually, people can come to see how God loves them, which means they come to see that God loves them. They are invited to relate not to the God who has lived in their minds (harsh, angry, judgmental) but the God they experience in real life (loving and accepting, who has blessed them). Often this recognition means a kind of smashing of “idols,” that is, false images of God. When you ask people if they follow the Second Commandment, “You shall not make for yourself an idol,” they look surprised, then appalled. They say, “Of course I don’t worship idols! Or make little statues that I bow down before!” But sometimes people have created in their minds a false image of God—a God for whom nothing is ever enough, a God who disapproves of who they are, a God who condemns them. This is every bit as much of an idol as a little clay statue. And these false images must be destroyed if they are to have an encounter with the Living God.
This approach is not a panacea for the disease of not enoughness, which may need to be treated with a psychotherapist to uncover its deeper roots. And it does not eliminate our need to look at our own sinfulness and failings—none of us are perfect. But this is the approach I have found most useful in helping people face this situation: centering people on blessings. It also invites them to detach from what society often considers valuable: financial status, educational credentials, perceived good looks (all of which, especially the last category, are subjective).
This approach helps people move away from unhealthy measures of value and, more important, reveals to them their essential goodness and the love that God has for them. This helps them, over time, to accept that they are enough. Greg Boyle, a Jesuit priest who works with former gang members in Los Angeles at Homeboy Industries, once said: “We all think we are not enough. We all think we are an eternal disappointment.” He says that one of life’s key goals is to see things as God does. Because otherwise we end up creating God in our own image. “We measure, but God doesn’t know what we’re talking about. We evaluate outcomes, and we chart results, and chronicle progress and polish up success stories,” Boyle says. “God doesn’t.”
Questions to reflect upon
1. When you say, as Jesus did, "Come forth", who or what emerges?
2. How do you experience and describe, "loving yourself"?
3. How do you help someone (yourself) clarify the statement "God loves me"?
1 An excerpt from Come Forth: The Promise of Jesus’s Greatest Miracle, by James Martin, SJ, which will be published in print, e‐book and audio on Sept. 5 2023. Available for pre‐order now at: https://www.harpercollins.com/products/comeforth‐james‐martin
December 2023
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