Tiny Buddha

Author: Erika Sardinha

  • How to Finally Believe That You Are Enough

    How to Finally Believe That You Are Enough

    “We often block our own blessings because we don’t feel inherently good enough, smart enough, pretty enough, or worthy enough. But you’re worthy because you are born and because you are here. Your being alive makes worthiness your birthright. You alone are enough.” ~Oprah Winfrey

    When I was a little girl, I loved making cute drawings at school and gifting them to friends and family. I’d pour my heart into them, and at the end of the day, I’d rush home, all excited to give my treasured creations. I was such a happy kid! Always running and jumping up and down the street, noticing quirky details on the road and picking flowers to bring home.

    This one, I made my mom a drawing. When I got home, I stood beside her, my eyes sparkling with anticipation, only to see her looking at it with disdain. She harshly criticized what she thought was badly drawn on paper and then tossed it in the trash. I looked at her, shocked and hurt, as she said: “What do you want me to say, that this drawing is beautiful? It isn’t.”

    I wish I could say it was the first time I had an interaction like that, but the reality is that it happened again and again. So much so that I gave it a name: “not enough notes to the self.”

    These are the moments when something happens that makes you start questioning your worth, and you begin internalizing that somehow, your being and whatever you do is not and will never be enough. If you have a few moments like these in your life, it may not leave so deep of a scar, but when the notes pile up, you start feeling differently about who you are.

    You go from being purely and authentically you to shrinking into a mold of what’s expected of you, even if the mold keeps changing and becoming more demanding each time. You realize you’re damned if you do but also damned if you don’t, and without the right tools to escape the conundrum, you feel like you have no other option but to keep going in the hopes of someone seeing you and telling you that you are enough.

    That’s what happened to me.

    Too many events, people, and circumstances told me I wasn’t enough. And I believed it. So, I spent most of my life trying to prove I was.

    I attempted to be the best at everything, with no room for error, because maybe if I were perfect, I would finally be enough. But no matter how hard I tried, the goalpost just kept moving.

    Then, after years of healing from past traumas, I heard a voice inside me that said, “To the eyes of the Universe, you are enough.” And it clicked! It does not matter what the world says, I am enough, so there is no need to prove it! I always was.

    I wish I could tell you I instantly embraced that thought. But by then, I had spent my whole life trying to prove myself, hiding behind a perfectionist facade, weighed down by anxiety and the need to please others, so it wasn’t easy to suddenly believe I was enough without all the trying and the masking.

    I had to reflect deeply and ‘do the work’ to get my mind, body, and soul to align with this newfound truth. It was such a beautiful journey of self-love and acceptance, and I cannot wait to share it with you today so you too can realize the undeniable truth that you are enough, and always were, and free yourself to bask in the happiness of knowing. And achieve your goals and wildest dreams along the way without having ‘not-enough notes to the self’ blocking you from the life you’re meant to live.

    Ready?

    The first step I took was to dig deep into my mind to find all the ‘not enough notes to the self’ I had on repeat all these years. I looked back into my past and screened for the moments that made me believe I was not enough. I had many, and from time to time, new ones pop up in my head, but I softly smile at them, like when you encounter an old friend you still care about, but the friendship is over. No hate, only love from a distance.

    Reflecting on these moments, I started to grasp why I felt so worthless. While you may know why you’re haunted by feelings of not being enough, seeing these moments reflected on paper or flying through your mind during meditation makes something click inside you. You just get it.

    And I did. But getting it is one thing, and deprogramming years, decades of not-enoughness is another. That’s where step number two enters the chat: changing the belief that you are not enough.

    Convincing myself I am enough was all about lovingly and repeatedly reminding myself of my enoughness as a birthright and showing it through actions as if parenting my inner child and undoing the parenting I received as a little girl. For that, I used daily affirmations and meditations where I would sit in the present moment and just be.

    That allowed me to constantly get back to myself and the truth of who I am: a loving and lovable individual, no perfection needed.

    I started asking powerful questions and practicing self-love. Notice I didn’t say, “I started loving myself.” Back then, I had no idea how to do that, so I just started practicing. I’d ask myself what I’d do if I loved myself. If I knew at my core that I was enough, who would I be? How would I behave?

    This shift was life-changing, and it naturally led me to the next and sort of final step of the journey: to look at my surroundings and reevaluate my relationships. As I began to treat myself with more love and respect, I inevitably started noticing how other people treated me through a different lens.

    As one should expect, when you believe that you are not enough, you tolerate certain situations and behaviors that are detrimental to your health and well-being. Embracing your enoughness leaves little room for that.

    So, I went through a painful period of reevaluating, transforming, and even ending some unhealthy relationships. But in the process, I ended up creating space for true, loving, and respectful relationships that make me feel safe, worthy, and enough.

    My list of ‘not enough notes to the self’ grew smaller. And as it did, my life expanded in ways I could’ve never imagined. But let’s get real: This is a lifelong journey, which is why there’s no definitive last step, just a powerful sort-of-last step.

    The beauty of this process is that you can revisit it time and time again to reconnect with the undeniable truth that you are enough and create the beautiful life you deserve. One thing I can tell you for sure: It gets easier and more natural every time.

    Remember, you are enough because you always were. Time to start walking and talking like it!

  • 3 Healthy Love Lessons for Survivors of Trauma and Abuse

    3 Healthy Love Lessons for Survivors of Trauma and Abuse

    “Maybe it’s time for the fighter to be fought for, the holder to be held, and the lover to be loved.” ~Unknown

    Growing up, I had no reference whatsoever for what a healthy relationship looked like. My parents had me as a result of an affair. I was estranged from my father for a decade or so, and I spent my childhood with my mother and my stepfather. And both were far from healthy.

    I remember vividly this one day they got into a verbal fight. Things got so heated that he angrily threw her a glass of wine at her as she approached the door to go to work.

    Fortunately, the glass hit the wall as my mom closed the door, laughing at my stepfather’s failed attempt to hurt her. I, a little girl, stayed behind to clean up the mess and deal with my stepfather’s rage. Since he could not aim it at her now, he had no problems aiming it at me, hitting and abusing me my whole childhood.

    To add to the mix, we lived a very isolated life; I would never hang out at my friends’ homes or have people over until my mom finally decided to leave him. I was seventeen when we nervously packed our bags and secretly ran away, leaving my stepfather behind.

    Because of the abuse and isolation, I was pretty unaware of other family dynamics. You may laugh at me, but since I had nowhere else to look, sometimes Brazilian telenovelas were my main source of information.

    When I think about it, there’s this particular day that comes to mind.

    I see myself, a skinny little black girl with short, relaxed hair, sitting on the floor, watching a telenovela with my mom and two brothers while dreaming of a telenovela-like, loving relationship. I recall the main characters on screen passionately declaring their love for each other. My eyes sparkled in awe, hoping that that would be me one day.

    I don’t know if my mother would notice how hopeful I looked, but she would bring my hopes down to zero by reminding me that that did not happen in real life.

    Good times, ay? Nowadays, I laugh about it while living my telenovela-like relationship, minus the toxicity characteristic of these shows. I’m so happy she was wrong!

    For years, though, I believed I did not deserve love and that no one would ever want to have a long-term relationship with me, and that got me into a cycle of unhealthy, loveless relationships.

    Luckily, as I started healing, I realized this was not true. It was just something the adults in my life taught me when I was a child, with words and actions. Let’s get real; I didn’t have the best examples growing up.

    But as I always say, just because you didn’t have good examples growing up, that doesn’t mean you can’t be the example.

    Still, I had to be honest with myself. Although I was open to a healthy, long-term relationship, I had no idea how that worked, so I knew I had to start from scratch. And let me tell you: I learned some invaluable lessons on this journey, and I cannot wait to share them with you.

    #1. Your relationship with yourself will dictate the type of relationship you attract.

    I didn’t realize I was still treating myself the way my abusers used to treat me until I was almost thirty years old. Before this realization, my self-talk was atrocious: I would call myself stupid, ugly, dumb, weirdo… As I said, atrocious. On top of that, I’d deny myself things, sabotage all chances of real success, put everyone before me, and bully myself all day long.

    I later learned that even though we tend to do these things in the intimacy of our thoughts, they inevitably show up in all areas of our lives. For example, people with bad intentions see we don’t have self-respect, so they step in and disrespect us. Self-centered individuals notice our lack of boundaries, and guess what they do? Yes, they cross the line over and over.

    I’ve learned the hard way that others will treat you the way you treat yourself. So, when you’re looking to have a healthy long-term relationship, the first step is healing the relationship with yourself.

    #2. Boring is good.

    I’ve noticed that most of the time, when survivors like me talk about being bored in a relationship, we’re not actually talking about being bored; we’re just unfamiliar with peace and “normality.” This was something I definitely experienced.

    I remember being confronted with this feeling on a particular day; nothing special happened, but I felt weirdly uneasy while walking down the street. My survivor’s brain immediately started thinking something was wrong; I started screening my mind for problems and things to worry about. And then it hit me: I was just feeling peaceful and calm. There was absolutely nothing to worry about, and that’s healthy and okay. I was simply not used to it. At all.

    When it comes to relationships, if we’re used to unhealthy patterns and make them the norm, it feels strange when things are good. That’s why we may try to look for problems and things to worry about in our relationship when, in reality, everything is okay, because we don’t realize that’s what healthy feels like—peaceful.

    Of course, if you’re really bored and there’s no love, that’s a different story. But I think it’s worth doing a check-in just in case our brain is trying to trick us into sabotaging true, healthy love to make us go back to the “familiar,” which, for many of us, means unhealthy.

    I know how crazy that sounds, but trust me, our brain thinks all familiar things are good, and it takes some time to reprogram it. I feel like this is an excellent opportunity to start doing the reprogramming work. What do you think?

    #3. Healthy love is easy.

    As someone who grew up watching toxic relationships in telenovelas, endured abuse, and also suffered from society’s pressure and influence, I used to firmly believe that love was hard, painful, a struggle, and that it took work. A lot of work.

    I spent half of my life chasing butterflies in my stomach, only to realize the butterflies were actually anxiety because my now-ex-partner didn’t make me feel safe.

    Today, if there’s one thing I’m confident about, it’s that healthy love is easy, and it flows. Yes, you’ll have challenges, but the whole relationship does not feel like a struggle.

    I promise you, you’ll know healthy love when you see it, especially after you start healing the relationship with yourself and begin looking for peace instead of trauma-related emotions.

    Do you know the feeling of carrying the weight of a relationship? It’s not going to be there in a healthy partnership. The same goes for questioning your partner’s love and dedication to you and the relationship.

    But here’s the thing: We can only experience this if we start healing and stop wasting time in unhealthy relationships.

    You see, the chances of finding someone incompatible with you are infinite, and of course, you will encounter some interesting characters. The secret lies in not wasting your time there. Keep moving. True, healthy love is around the corner!

    I hope this inspires you to welcome and nurture true love and healthier relationships and not let your past experiences tell you what you can or cannot have.

    You are worthy of a beautiful, fulfilling, and loving relationship. Let it in.

  • The Abuse Behind My Happy Family Pictures (and Why We Should Talk About It)

    The Abuse Behind My Happy Family Pictures (and Why We Should Talk About It)

    TRIGGER WARNING: This post deals with an account of physical abuse and may be triggering to some people.

    “There remains what seems to be an impenetrable wall of silence around violence, and we must all play a role in breaking this silence.” ~Reese Witherspoon

    The other day my brother sent me some rare old photographs of my family. In the middle of those aged images, I found a picture of a seven-year-old girl, so cute! She was wearing two perfect long braids and a smile. Oh, the smile of this lovely girl!

    There was also an image of a man sitting down on the sofa, holding a baby in his arms, showing off a big, round, happy face. The man looked loving, respectful, and good to be around. “What a beautiful family!” you would say.

    But for me, the one who lived the story behind the pictures, it’s a different feeling. We all know that nothing is what it seems to be, yet we choose to believe in appearances. I guess it’s easier to believe in what we see instead of going deeper.

    I wasn’t expecting to receive these pictures on my phone, so when I saw the man’s image, my heart started automatically racing, my hands sweating. He passed away long ago, but my body still remembers my automatic response whenever I heard, saw, or even imagined he was near.

    He was actually not a nice person to have around, but you already saw this one coming, didn’t you? I made myself stare at his picture until the feeling faded away. I no longer fear him, but I couldn’t help but get triggered. It was a long time since I’ve seen an image of him.

    The last time I saw him, it was in a dream. Not so long ago, I used to have nightmares almost every single night, where he would chase me non-stop, and I would run and run until I woke up. My heart racing, my hands sweating.

    I had to go to bed with one light on so I could fall asleep. But the last time we saw each other, there was no fear. In the dream, I looked at him, he looked at me, and that was it. I never saw him again until I got the photographs on my phone.

    Those pictures were the image that everyone from outside believed to be the truth or pretended to be. When I was done staring at my abuser’s photograph, I swiped to see the picture of the small girl. I was she, and she was me.

    For years I refused to look at old photographs. I would purposefully hide them in drawers to avoid having to look at them and face the hypocrisy: Happy faces, happy smiles, happy appearances. The sadder I was, the happier the smile had to be. That’s what they told me, with words and actions.

    The first time he beat me, it was so bad that I lost consciousness for a bit; but the thing I remember the most was the shock I felt. I was absolutely in shock when his big hand hit my tiny face and dragged me to a different room to repeatedly beat my skinny body more comfortably.

    He would beat me non-stop everywhere he could, with a rage I never knew existed. I would scream and shout and try to make him stop, but nobody came for me, even though they could. They were still in the kitchen, probably as shocked as I was.

    The next day when I woke up, they noticed I had a stroke in the eye. There were no apologies, no explanations.

    “Everything is okay.”

    “Tell everyone you hit your eye against the table” was the lie I had to tell. I’m a good girl, so that’s what I did. I went to school and I lied to my friends and my teacher, and when I visited family I repeated the same lie to everyone. People were struggling to look at me in the eyes, and my peers wouldn’t play with me. It was hard to watch.

    Just like that, I was ugly, everything was my fault, and my abuser was free to go on and make my life a living hell for an entire decade. Typical: the abuser feels like they can continue because there are zero consequences, and the victim is completely isolated, feeling powerless and ashamed for something that someone has done to them.

    When I look at myself in the picture, I can’t help but think: “Why would you hurt this child?”

    I was kind, I was good. I was a very good girl, I know that now. I took care of my brothers, loved studying, I was funny! I was also very creative and would put on an entire show to entertain you (or bore you to death) in five minutes. I would do anything you say, but I was also an intelligent kid with a strong sense of justice, which did not help me much in my childhood, as you can imagine.

    I’ve been through a lot. I’ve been through so much that I would need a book to describe it all. But the worst thing, the most painful thing besides the heartbrokenness, was the silence. The secrecy.  If you have suffered from any form of abuse, you certainly know what I’m talking about.

    The abuse takes place over and over, and no one speaks up. Plus, we hide it. And we stay silent when we grow up because that’s what we know.

    It’s hard to tell your truth when you’ve kept silent pretty much your entire life, especially if everyone around you is doing the exact same thing. Most of the time, until you speak up, until you tell your truth, you go around thinking that you are alone, that you are not ‘normal.’ Unfortunately, you are normal. You are not a rare exception.

    What happened to you happens all the time; people simply don’t talk about it. And I would love it if we started having more conversations about this, to help victims and families of victims and to hold the abusers accountable.

    The abuse I suffered was perpetuated by silence, and the perpetuation of this silence got in the way of my healing for years. It was through other people’s stories that I was able to start healing. 

    If you have been through trauma, I encourage you to tell your story. Please, don’t get me wrong, I’m not telling you to go public and tell everyone about everything if you don’t feel comfortable doing that, but I’d love you to explore the idea of sharing your story of trauma with the people who are close to you.

    Something magical happens when you open up.

    Each word you let out is a bit of weight that drops. And the more you share, the lighter you feel.  I know it is scary, I know you fear people’s reactions, but I promise people will not see you differently. They will just see more of you, and that’s a good thing.

    I was so scared of sharing my story with my partner, and all it did was strengthen our relationship. We really see each other now, and I don’t feel like I’m hiding something anymore. I feel free to be me, and he loves me even more for that.

    You will see that most people will admire you for the person you have become and understand why you are the way you are or do things the way you do. You will also be surprised to know that some of your friends have been through trauma as well, and you will have wonderful bonding experiences.

    It is true what they say: “The truth will set you free.” I believe that. And I believe that it will help liberate other people as well.