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into that process, whether it's a friend or a professional.
    4. Recognize the beauty in your journey .
    You may not feel that all parts of you are beautiful, but there's beauty in the strength and courage that have helped you get where you are. Whatever you did in the past, you were doingthe best you could, based on what you learned and experienced. Shift your focus and take some time to acknowledge how amazing your journey has been thus far. How have you displayed grace and bravery? How have all the chaotic dots of your past shaped up to create something unique and inspiring? If your life were a movie, what positive message would viewers take away?

CHAPTER 2
When You're Obsessed with Fixing Yourself: Realizing You're Not Broken

    W E ' VE ALL FELT IT IN ONE WAY OR ANOTHER — THE FEAR THAT there's something lacking in us. It might translate into a sense of worthlessness, as if we're frauds, flawed, or somehow damaged. It might be a less pervasive feeling, marked by the occasional suspicion we're not as good as people think we are. Or it might be an insecurity bubbling below the surface that we've yet to consciously acknowledge. Whether it's intense, slight, or even subconscious, we all experience this fear of being unworthy to some degree. If you do a Google search for the phrase “I'm not good enough,” you'll find more than 69 million results.
    Oftentimes, it's not just about self-judgment; it's about the foundational belief that we are somehow broken. It may seem like a natural conclusion when we struggle in ways we don't fully understand.Why am I still single? There's something wrong with me. Why do I take things personally? There's something wrong with me. Why do I keep making the same mistakes, or getting into the same unhealthy relationships, or doing the same things over and over and expecting different results? It's insanity, as Einstein said—or otherwise stated, there's something wrong with me.
    We are the constant in all of our troubles, so we can easily blame ourselves every time we deal with something painful (which is not the same as taking responsibility). Or, we can convince ourselves that we wouldn't feel so bad if we could only fix ourselves. But the reality is we often suffer because we fight so hard against everything that hurts. We cause ourselves pain by telling ourselves we shouldn't be feeling it. And we become our own biggest problems by searching so desperately for solutions. We're not unhappy because we can't figure out how to change; it's because we sometimes tell ourselves that we can't be happy unless we do.
    Perhaps the biggest challenge isn't learning how to repair ourselves, but rather learning to accept that we all deal with uncomfortable situations and emotions in life. We all have challenges. We all go through difficult times. We all deal with constantly changing and sometimes confusing feelings. And we all struggle to treat ourselves kindly every now and then. This doesn't make us damaged; it makes us human. At some point we need to decide that we're okay just as we are, even if we have room to grow.
    How can we stop feeling unworthy? How can we challenge the beliefs that tell us there's something wrong with us? How can we stop trying to “fix” ourselves and instead embrace who we are in this moment? Countless Tiny Buddha contributors have addressed these questions on the site, sharing their experiences and insights. Some of those include . . .
ARE YOU RUNNING AWAY FROM YOURSELF?
    by Amyra Mah
    No matter where you go, there you are .
    —C ONFUCIUS
    I am accustomed to not moving. To move was to feel pain—the pain of seeing how worthless I believed myself to be. Sometimes I would sit in the same place for hours, sometimes not leaving the house for days. By isolating myself, I avoided finding evidence in the outside world that proved how I saw myself was the absolute truth.
    My worst nightmare was that others would show me (through what they said or didn't say, or what they did or