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​By QueenB.Divine | From the Pages of My Life | Self-Love and Self-Care Will Get You There

Notice this. Do you feel like you're enough? I mean, really enough? Not the kind of enough you read on a coffee mug, wear across your chest on a T-shirt, or repeat in front of the bathroom mirror while you're brushing your teeth. I'm talking about the kind of enough you believe when life has knocked the absolute crap out of you, your bank account isn't looking particularly friendly, and you're wondering whether you've accomplished anything worthwhile. Do you still believe you're enough then? Because I'm going to question one of the most popular self-love affirmations floating around the internet today: You are enough. And before you get all worked up thinking I'm about to trample on your self-esteem, hear me out. I'm actually trying to help us build a stronger one.

But before we get into that, how are you? Seriously, how are you doing? Are you taking care of yourself, or are you just checking things off a list and calling that living? I want to thank you for being here, for reading, for listening, and for giving me a little piece of your day. I have this wonderful blessing of waking up in the morning and thinking. Good grief, do I love thinking. Sometimes I think about what I could have done better yesterday, sometimes I think about absolutely ridiculous things, and sometimes I stumble onto a thought that makes me question something I've believed for years. That's how many of these conversations begin. I'm not sitting here pretending to have life figured out. I'm sharing what I'm learning while I'm still learning it.

And one thing I've learned is that yesterday can teach you something without becoming the place you live. I don't want to spend my entire morning dragging yesterday's mistakes into today's coffee. But if there's a lesson in there that can make me a little wiser, a little kinder, or a little more aware of how I treat myself and others, I'm taking it. That's part of why I created my self-love and self-care YouTube channel. I try to share something meaningful twice a day and write a blog every week, not because I'm some perfect example of positive thinking, but because I know what it's like to spend years thinking you're not worth very much. And I know how much work it can take to change that conversation inside your own head.

Now, the first time I really started hearing people say, "You are enough," I laughed. Oh, brother. Here we go. Another beautiful little sentence that's supposed to fix a lifetime of feeling inadequate. Put it on a pillow, print it on a shirt, say it three times, and suddenly you're healed. Wouldn't that be lovely? Unfortunately, my childhood didn't come with that kind of instruction manual. I didn't grow up feeling like I was enough. I grew up feeling like everybody else had too much and somehow I had not enough. Not enough money. Not enough confidence. Not enough importance. Not enough of whatever mysterious ingredient made other people seem so comfortable being themselves.

Sometimes I joke that somebody stole my enough. And the funny thing is, I spent a good portion of my life looking for it in places where it was never going to be found.

If you've been following my story, you'll know that Grade Three was a major turning point in my childhood. I was growing up in Ontario Housing in Scarborough, Ontario, adjusting to siblings I was still getting to know, changing schools, and trying to understand where I belonged in a family that didn't look anything like the television families I'd imagined. By the time Grade Four came around, things seemed a little calmer. In fact, when I look back, Grade Four might have been one of the quietest periods of my young life. Not necessarily the happiest, but quieter. And when you've experienced enough confusion, quiet can feel like a luxury.

I remember singing in the school choir, playing house league hockey, basketball, and getting involved in sports. I loved sports. My brother loved sports, and I followed that boy around like I had a lifetime membership to his personal fan club. If he learned how to wrestle, I wanted to learn how to wrestle. If he played something, I wanted to play it. He'd show me moves, and I'd try them. There was something comforting about having somebody to follow, somebody who seemed to know what he was doing. Maybe that was part of the problem, though. I was so busy looking for direction outside myself that I hadn't figured out how to believe in the person doing all that following.

And isn't that something we still do as adults? We follow people who seem successful. We follow financial influencers, business owners, motivational speakers, spiritual teachers, and everybody else who appears to have discovered the secret to life. We watch their routines, buy their books, listen to their advice, and sometimes convince ourselves that if we could just become a little more like them, we'd finally feel good about ourselves. But here's a question worth asking: Why do I never feel good enough, even when I'm doing everything I'm supposed to do?

I can't answer that for everybody, but I can tell you what I see in my own life. When you've spent years measuring yourself against somebody else's version of success, your own accomplishments can start looking terribly small. You could finish a marathon and still be upset because somebody else finished faster. You could build a business and feel like a failure because somebody else built a bigger one. You could have a perfectly good life and spend half of it staring at a screen wondering why yours doesn't look like theirs.

Good grief. That's an exhausting way to live.

Grade Four also brings back some funny little memories. Pancake days at school. Those early computers sitting at the back of the classroom, with their strange green writing and floppy disks. Does anybody remember those things? You'd put a disk into the machine, hear all those peculiar noises, and wait for some little math game to appear. We thought we were living in the future. And look at us now. We've got computers in our pockets, artificial intelligence answering questions, cryptocurrency trading around the clock, and people having emotional breakdowns because somebody didn't like their Instagram post.

Technology certainly got faster. I'm not convinced our self-esteem kept up.

But here's something about those simpler school days that still stays with me. Even when life appeared calm on the outside, I was carrying things I didn't know how to explain. I thought there was something wrong with me. I didn't have the language to describe insecurity or emotional stress. I certainly wasn't sitting around in Grade Four discussing childhood experiences and their effect on adult self-worth. I was a kid. I was trying to get through the day, enjoy my sports, figure out my family, and not embarrass myself.

And I'm going to share something personal because I think sometimes the things we hide are the very things somebody else needs to hear.

I used to wet the bed.

There. I said it.

It continued into my childhood, around Grade Four, and I remember feeling embarrassed and frustrated with myself. My mother wasn't particularly patient about it, and I felt like I had to figure it out on my own. I tried changing little habits, including when I drank water, because I wanted the problem to stop. But the hardest part wasn't just what was happening at night. It was what I started believing about myself because of it.

I thought I was the problem.

And here's why I'm sharing that. Children can experience bedwetting for different reasons, including developmental and medical factors. It doesn't mean they're lazy, weak, emotionally damaged, or somehow less worthy than other children. I understand that now. But little me didn't understand it. Little me was busy turning something I couldn't fully control into another reason to believe I wasn't enough.

Have you ever done that? Taken something that happened to you, something you struggled with, something you didn't understand, and turned it into a permanent description of who you are?

I failed, so I must be a failure. Somebody rejected me, so I must be unlovable. I don't have enough money, so I must not be successful. I made a mistake, so maybe I'm just not capable.

Notice how quickly an experience becomes an identity.

And that's where I think the conversation about self-esteem gets interesting. People often ask, "How do childhood experiences affect self-esteem in adulthood?" I believe some of those early moments become the stories we keep telling ourselves long after the circumstances have changed. The school year ends. The family changes. We grow up, get jobs, fall in love, raise families, build businesses, and learn new skills. But somewhere in the background, an old voice can still be whispering that we're not good enough.

Sometimes we don't even recognize the voice because we've heard it for so long that it sounds like our own.

And that brings me to money.

I remember somebody asking me years later whether I'd ever considered investing. My reaction was almost immediate. Investing? Me? Oh, I can't do that. That's for people who know what they're doing. That's for people who have money. That's for people who have their lives together. Not somebody like me.

Now, where the hell did I get that idea?

Nobody handed me a certificate in childhood declaring that I wasn't qualified to learn about investing. Nobody proved that financial knowledge belonged to one particular kind of person. Yet somehow I had created this entire set of rules about what I could and couldn't do, based partly on what I believed about myself.

That's why I keep returning to the connection between money mindset and self-worth. Can low self-esteem affect your financial decisions? I think it can. If you don't believe you're capable of learning something, you may never begin. If you believe financial success is reserved for other people, you might talk yourself out of opportunities before you've even explored them. If you're constantly trying to prove your worth, you might chase money or achievements without ever stopping to ask whether they actually serve the life you want.

And no, I'm not saying money is bad. Good grief, money is useful. It pays bills, buys groceries, keeps the lights on, and gives us choices. I'm learning about investing because I want to understand how money works and how to make thoughtful decisions about my future. But money and personal worth are not the same thing. Your bank balance is a financial number. It is not a measurement of your value as a human being.

That distinction took me a long time to understand.

Because when you grow up feeling like you don't have enough, it's easy to imagine that becoming financially successful will finally make you feel like you are enough. Maybe it will bring relief in certain areas of your life. Financial security matters. But I don't believe money alone can resolve every feeling of inadequacy we've carried since childhood.

And that leads me back to the phrase I promised to question.

Are you really enough?

Now, don't throw your coffee at the screen. I'm not asking whether you're worthy of love, dignity, respect, or a good life. You are. You don't have to earn your basic worth by becoming richer, prettier, thinner, more successful, or more popular. What I'm questioning is whether we sometimes use the phrase "I am enough" as a reason to stop examining ourselves.

Because there's a difference between believing you're worthy and believing you have nothing left to learn.

Maybe you are enough as a human being, but you haven't yet developed the skills you need for the future you're dreaming about. Maybe you're worthy of love, but you still need to learn how to communicate honestly in a relationship. Maybe you deserve financial stability, but you haven't learned how to budget or invest responsibly. Maybe you're a good person, but there are habits, fears, and patterns that could use a little attention.

And that's okay.

You can be enough today and still want to become better tomorrow.

That's the part of self-love I think deserves more conversation. We spend so much time telling people to accept themselves that we sometimes forget to explain that acceptance and growth can exist together. Loving yourself doesn't mean pretending every decision you make is wonderful. It doesn't mean ignoring your mistakes. It doesn't mean staying in situations that are hurting you because you've convinced yourself everything is fine.

Sometimes self-love sounds like, "I deserve better." Sometimes it sounds like, "I need to do better." And sometimes it sounds like, "Good grief, what was I thinking?"

All three can be part of a healthy conversation with yourself.

Another question people wrestle with is, "Why am I afraid to try new things?" And I wonder how often that fear comes from the possibility of discovering we're not as capable as we hoped. It's easier to say investing isn't for me than to admit I might have to learn something difficult. It's easier to say I'm not a business person than to risk starting a business that might fail. It's easier to stay comfortable than to step into a situation where we might feel embarrassed.

I recognize that fear because I've lived with it.

And sometimes I think we confuse comfort with fulfillment. We say we're good where we are, and maybe we genuinely are. There's nothing wrong with wanting a peaceful, simple life. Not everybody needs to chase another promotion, launch another business, or reinvent themselves every Tuesday. But sometimes we're not staying where we are because we're content. We're staying because we're frightened of finding out what happens if we try.

Only you can answer which one is true for you.

When I look back at the first half of my life, I can see how much energy I spent trying to prove I was enough. I pushed myself, challenged myself, and sometimes exhausted myself because I thought achievement might finally fill that empty space. And yes, I learned a tremendous amount about what I could do. I also learned that constantly trying to prove your worth can become its own kind of prison.

You can run yourself ragged trying to become enough for people who were never going to give you the approval you wanted anyway.

And that brings me to one of my favourite memories from Grade Four. It's a memory that still makes me emotional because I didn't realize at the time how much it would mean to me later.

I was on the track and field team. All girls. I was so excited. I loved running, and I had the opportunity to compete at Birchmount Stadium. I remember preparing for the 100-metre sprint, standing there with all that nervous energy running through me. The starting gun went off, everybody took off, and guess what happened?

I fell.

Oh, my goodness. I tripped over my shoelaces.

There I was, watching everybody else run ahead while I was on the ground, crying. The race was practically over before I'd had the chance to do anything. I was embarrassed, disappointed, and completely convinced there was no point continuing.

But my teacher wasn't having any of that.

She came over, helped me with my shoelaces, and told me to finish the race.

I remember thinking, what's the point? Everybody's gone. I've already lost.

But she insisted.

And I ran.

Not because I was going to win. Not because there was a medal waiting at the finish line. Not because I could somehow rewind the clock and pretend I hadn't fallen. I ran because somebody was teaching me that finishing something could matter even when the outcome wasn't what I'd hoped for.

I didn't understand the full meaning of that moment at the time. I was just a little girl with untied shoelaces and a bruised sense of pride. But looking back, I think that teacher gave me something far more valuable than a lesson about running.

She showed me that falling didn't mean I was finished.

And isn't that exactly what so many of us need to hear as adults?

Maybe you started a business and it didn't work. Maybe you invested in something you didn't fully understand and lost money. Maybe you tried to improve your health and fell back into old habits. Maybe you trusted somebody who disappointed you. Maybe you're looking at your life right now and wondering whether you've fallen too far behind to catch up.

But what if catching up isn't the point?

What if the real question is whether you're willing to get back up, tie your shoelaces, and finish the part of the journey that's still yours to run?

I eventually became a strong track athlete, but that isn't why I remember that race. I remember it because I lost, cried, got up, and finished anyway. The lesson wasn't that I had to become a champion. The lesson was that one terrible moment didn't get to decide what I believed about myself for the rest of my life.

And that, to me, is a much stronger foundation for self-esteem than pretending we never fail.

People ask, "Do positive affirmations actually work?" I think affirmations can be useful when they help us challenge harsh self-talk and develop a more compassionate way of thinking. But repeating words without examining what we believe underneath them may not be enough to create lasting change. Sometimes we need experience to help those words feel real. Sometimes we need to take a chance, make a mistake, survive it, and discover that we're still capable of moving forward.

That little girl at Birchmount Stadium didn't need somebody to tell her she was the fastest runner in the world. She needed somebody to help her understand that she could finish the race even after falling.

And I wonder how many of us are still standing beside our own unfinished races, waiting to feel confident enough to begin again.

Maybe you're waiting until you have more money to learn about investing. Maybe you're waiting until you feel better about yourself to start a relationship. Maybe you're waiting until you've lost weight, found a better job, built a bigger audience, or become some imaginary perfect version of yourself before you allow yourself to feel worthy.

But what if you stopped making your worth conditional on your next achievement?

What if you believed you were enough to begin, even if you weren't yet skilled enough to succeed?

There's a big difference.

I don't believe you need to push yourself to extremes to prove your value. I've tried enough of that approach to know how draining it can become. You can discover your abilities through curiosity, patience, practice, and small challenges. You can grow without punishing yourself. You can improve without treating the person you are today like somebody who needs to be replaced.

And if you're happy where you are, genuinely happy, that's worth respecting too. Growth doesn't always mean doing more. Sometimes it means learning when you've done enough.

As I continue learning about money, investing, and the emotional decisions we make around both, I'm discovering that confidence isn't necessarily knowing everything before you start. Sometimes confidence is trusting yourself to learn what you don't know. It's understanding that mistakes are possible, that risks need to be considered, and that your worth doesn't disappear when something doesn't go according to plan.

I wish somebody had explained that distinction to me when I was younger. I wish that little girl who followed her brother around, played sports, sang in the choir, struggled with embarrassment, and fell on a running track had understood that she wasn't a failure simply because something went wrong.

But maybe that's part of getting older. We return to those memories with a different understanding. We look at the child we used to be and realize she wasn't nearly as inadequate as she thought.

She was learning.

And so am I.

Grade Four was an interesting year. It was quieter than many of the years around it, but it carried lessons that would follow me into adulthood. And Grade Five? Oh, good grief. That's where another chapter of my story begins, because that was a year when my belief that I was a failure became even harder to ignore. But we'll get to that. One childhood revelation at a time, please. I haven't even finished my coffee.

For now, I want you to think about something. When you say, "I am enough," what do those words actually mean to you? Do they mean you're worthy of love and respect regardless of what you accomplish? Do they mean you're capable of learning and growing? Or are you using them to convince yourself you don't need to confront something you've been avoiding?

There's no need to give me a perfect answer. In fact, I'd rather hear an imperfect, truthful one.

Because I believe real self-love begins when we can look at ourselves without pretending. We can acknowledge the things we're proud of, the things we're still working on, and the things that hurt us without turning any of them into a verdict on our worth.

So whether you're investing in your finances, your relationships, your health, your education, or simply trying to make it through another complicated day, remember that you are at the centre of the decisions you make. Give yourself the opportunity to learn. Give yourself permission to make mistakes. And when you fall, don't automatically assume the race is over.

Tie your shoelaces.

Get back up.

Finish what matters to you.

And if the finish line looks different from what you imagined, that doesn't mean the journey was wasted.

I still think about that teacher. I still think about that little girl crying on the track. And I still feel grateful that somebody cared enough to tell her to finish.

Because sometimes one person believing in you can become the beginning of learning to believe in yourself.

And eventually, you have to become that person for yourself.

So let me leave you with this: You don't have to prove you're worthy. But you do owe yourself the opportunity to discover what you're capable of.

That's what "I am enough" means to me today. Not that I'm finished growing. Not that I have all the answers. Not that I'm never going to screw something up again. Good grief, I'm human. It means I have enough worth to begin, enough courage to learn, and enough self-respect to get back up when things don't go the way I planned.

And I hope you begin believing that about yourself, too.

I'm QueenB.Divine, and I want to hear from you. Have you ever questioned whether you're enough? Did something happen in your childhood that made you feel like you constantly had to prove yourself? Or have you ever experienced a moment when somebody encouraged you to keep going after you'd already given up?

Share your story in the comments. You never know who might be standing beside their own unfinished race, needing to hear that falling doesn't mean they're finished. And if these honest conversations about self-love, childhood experiences, money mindset, and mental health speak to you, follow my journey and subscribe to my YouTube channel. We're learning together, and there's a whole lot more to talk about.

Remember, the race isn't always about who finishes first. Sometimes the greatest victory is discovering that you can finish at all.

Self-love and self-care will get you there.

— QueenB.Divine​

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