What two words influence everything about you? How you act, how you feel, how you think, how you relate to others, who you marry, what job you take, even how far you go in life… I imagine many people would think the two most powerful words are “Yes and No. These are powerful words and they too shape our lives, but the two most powerful words in our lives are “I AM.” They dictate our “Yes and No.” For example, if you believe yourself to be “loving” or another way of saying this is “I AM loving.” You will filter everything you do through this I AM statement/belief. Last night as I was getting ready for this episode, I asked my 21yo son what he thought the two most powerful words in our lives are. He said (reliability and honesty). These are great words, but what he was really saying was “I AM reliable and I AM honest” are two important I AM beliefs because they influence these types of behaviors, which generate a certain possibility of lifestyle. I am proud of these two I AM statements that my son has adopted. He is both honest and reliable. Now, what if we look at I AM beliefs that are not very helpful…As a therapist who works with kiddos from 2yo all the way up to the elderly, one of the most common I AM statements that damages lives is “I AM not good enough.” Now notice that I said that they were clients in my counseling practice…but this pervasive, unhelpful belief shows its ugly face with almost everyone who seeks mental health care. Think about how filtering life through the belief of “I AM not good enough” affects a person’s thoughts, emotions, behaviors, relationships, and future choices. One end of the spectrum is depression. You see little hope in trying anything different. You feel helpless to get out of the pit you are in. Even though you want a better life, it always seems out of reach. Instead of attracting individuals that are positive and encouraging, this seems to grate at you in a way that makes no sense. So you hang out with other individuals who are at the same end of the spectrum because at least they understand you. Your choices continue to support this way of experiencing life, which reinforces the fact that life is hopeless. On the other end of the spectrum, filtering life through “I AM not good enough” creates anxiety. You do see hope in trying, but each choice you make is also terrifying because everything you do is ridden with the fear that you will fail or others will find out that you are actually a fraud. It is pretty easy to see that either end of the spectrum and actually every place in between is not a life that most would wish for. So where do I AM beliefs like “I AM good enough” and others like it start? They usually start at an early age as a result of the strategies we create to get our needs met in our families. Then they may shift as we begin seeing our peers as more important influences in our lives. Then typically it will shift to our significant other or best friends as adults. With all of them, they start with emotion. In the end, all of our needs are emotional. We want to FEEL a certain way. We eat food so we feel energetic. We make money for the FEELING of security and safety or the FEELING that we actually are good enough based on our definition of success.  IF we don’t take the time to assess our feels and beliefs and then challenge these I AM statements we have, we go through life in the role of a victim. Everything in life happens TO US. We base everything about ourselves on how we are viewed by others and what people think about us. If you have 10 people in your life, you will have 10 different ways people think you should be. That is a lot of pressure to live up to and a lot of people to please just so you can FEEL good enough. IT is so interesting…like I said we usually create this and other damaging beliefs when we are extremely young. Let me ask you, would you ask a 5yo what to think and how to live life? Probably not. The immature child version of ourselves is where