5 Gita Shlokas for When You Don’t Feel Enough
Riya Kumari | Jul 25, 2025, 17:23 IST
( Image credit : Times Life Bureau )
Highlight of the story: You know that feeling when you're lying on your bed, doom-scrolling through everyone's curated highlight reels, half-eating a protein bar, and wondering if you've somehow missed the global memo on how to be a fully functional adult? Yeah. That one. Maybe it hits at 2AM when you're spiraling about your life choices, or mid-Zoom when Karen from Finance just "organically" mentioned her second Masters and 10K run, casually, like she wasn’t flexing for blood.
There’s a kind of silence that isn’t peaceful. It’s the one that shows up in the middle of a crowded day, when you’re replying to emails, attending meetings, keeping everything running, smiling on cue. And suddenly, from somewhere in that carefully managed life, a voice whispers: “I don’t think I’m enough.” Not loud. But piercing. It doesn’t yell. It just quietly takes the floor. And suddenly, everything else feels performative. The work. The wins. Even the praise.
Because what good is any of it if somewhere deep inside, you don’t feel like you matter?
1. “You have control over your actions alone, never the outcomes.”
You are not your results. We’ve been trained to measure ourselves by outcomes. Marks. Promotions. Praise. Relationship status. Skin clarity. Followers. But outcomes are slippery. They depend on too much outside us—other people’s timing, moods, biases, even randomness. The Gita slices through that illusion. You are not here to win. You are here to do—with honesty, with presence, with effort. That’s it.
Do what is right, what is true, what is needed—and then let go. When you start living by this, something quiet but powerful shifts. You stop negotiating your self-worth with every success or failure. You stop waiting for the world’s approval to feel whole.
2. “The wise do not grieve for the living or the dead.”
This isn’t apathy. It’s depth. We grieve over who we could have been. Who we once were. Over moments we’ll never get back. And while grief is human, there’s a deeper message here: You are more than your roles, your labels, your history. You are not the version of yourself that disappointed someone. You are not the phase you’re stuck in. Not the regrets you carry around like emotional luggage.
To recognize your worth, sometimes you need to let old identities die. Let the version of you that chased approval go. Let the part of you that believed love must be earned, rest. This shloka says: grieve if you must, but don’t forget who you are beneath it all.
3. “The mind is restless, and hard to control. But with effort, it can be trained.”
You are not weak because you struggle with your mind. You are human. This verse doesn’t shame you for overthinking, doubting yourself, or collapsing under the weight of expectations. It says even Arjuna, the greatest warrior of his time, struggled with his thoughts. But it also reminds us: the mind is not your enemy. It’s just... undisciplined.
And like anything wild, it needs patience, not punishment. You don’t fight the storm by shouting at it. You learn to sit through it. And in that sitting, something shifts. The storm doesn’t vanish. But you stop being afraid of it.
4. “One who is equal in happiness and sorrow… is wise and worthy of liberation.”
You don’t have to react to everything. We live like we’re constantly being scored. If people like us, we feel high. If they don’t, we collapse. One compliment can carry us for a week. One insult can ruin our entire sense of self. The Gita says: Don’t build your identity on temporary weather. Your worth is not seasonal. Not negotiable.
The world will fluctuate. People will love, leave, praise, forget. That doesn’t have to shake your core every time. This is not emotional detachment. This is emotional maturity. To feel, but not be enslaved by every feeling. To hurt, but not collapse. To rise, but not become arrogant.
5. “Even in inaction, there is action. And in action, inaction.”
You don’t need to be constantly doing to prove you’re enough. There is wisdom in rest. In saying no. In not reacting. In walking away quietly. In healing silently. We associate worth with motion. But sometimes the bravest thing is to pause. To not explain yourself. To not fight back. To not fix everything right now.
This verse teaches us something radical: Being is enough. You don’t need to earn your existence through endless doing. You are already valid. Already worthy. Already enough.
ENDING
So maybe you didn’t check all the boxes this week. Maybe you don’t feel radiant or resilient right now.
But you read this. You’re still searching for meaning. Still fighting gently to stay kind in a world that demands hardness. That counts. That’s effort. And that, according to the Gita, is more than enough.
So the next time your worth starts to feel like it’s slipping through your fingers, come back to this: You were never meant to be perfect. You were meant to be present. You were never here to prove yourself. You were here to be yourself. And that… is more than enough.
Because what good is any of it if somewhere deep inside, you don’t feel like you matter?
1. “You have control over your actions alone, never the outcomes.”
Duty
( Image credit : Unsplash )
You are not your results. We’ve been trained to measure ourselves by outcomes. Marks. Promotions. Praise. Relationship status. Skin clarity. Followers. But outcomes are slippery. They depend on too much outside us—other people’s timing, moods, biases, even randomness. The Gita slices through that illusion. You are not here to win. You are here to do—with honesty, with presence, with effort. That’s it.
Do what is right, what is true, what is needed—and then let go. When you start living by this, something quiet but powerful shifts. You stop negotiating your self-worth with every success or failure. You stop waiting for the world’s approval to feel whole.
2. “The wise do not grieve for the living or the dead.”
Past
( Image credit : Unsplash )
This isn’t apathy. It’s depth. We grieve over who we could have been. Who we once were. Over moments we’ll never get back. And while grief is human, there’s a deeper message here: You are more than your roles, your labels, your history. You are not the version of yourself that disappointed someone. You are not the phase you’re stuck in. Not the regrets you carry around like emotional luggage.
To recognize your worth, sometimes you need to let old identities die. Let the version of you that chased approval go. Let the part of you that believed love must be earned, rest. This shloka says: grieve if you must, but don’t forget who you are beneath it all.
3. “The mind is restless, and hard to control. But with effort, it can be trained.”
Mind
( Image credit : Unsplash )
You are not weak because you struggle with your mind. You are human. This verse doesn’t shame you for overthinking, doubting yourself, or collapsing under the weight of expectations. It says even Arjuna, the greatest warrior of his time, struggled with his thoughts. But it also reminds us: the mind is not your enemy. It’s just... undisciplined.
And like anything wild, it needs patience, not punishment. You don’t fight the storm by shouting at it. You learn to sit through it. And in that sitting, something shifts. The storm doesn’t vanish. But you stop being afraid of it.
4. “One who is equal in happiness and sorrow… is wise and worthy of liberation.”
Pray
( Image credit : Unsplash )
You don’t have to react to everything. We live like we’re constantly being scored. If people like us, we feel high. If they don’t, we collapse. One compliment can carry us for a week. One insult can ruin our entire sense of self. The Gita says: Don’t build your identity on temporary weather. Your worth is not seasonal. Not negotiable.
The world will fluctuate. People will love, leave, praise, forget. That doesn’t have to shake your core every time. This is not emotional detachment. This is emotional maturity. To feel, but not be enslaved by every feeling. To hurt, but not collapse. To rise, but not become arrogant.
5. “Even in inaction, there is action. And in action, inaction.”
Rest
( Image credit : Timeslife )
You don’t need to be constantly doing to prove you’re enough. There is wisdom in rest. In saying no. In not reacting. In walking away quietly. In healing silently. We associate worth with motion. But sometimes the bravest thing is to pause. To not explain yourself. To not fight back. To not fix everything right now.
This verse teaches us something radical: Being is enough. You don’t need to earn your existence through endless doing. You are already valid. Already worthy. Already enough.
ENDING
But you read this. You’re still searching for meaning. Still fighting gently to stay kind in a world that demands hardness. That counts. That’s effort. And that, according to the Gita, is more than enough.
So the next time your worth starts to feel like it’s slipping through your fingers, come back to this: You were never meant to be perfect. You were meant to be present. You were never here to prove yourself. You were here to be yourself. And that… is more than enough.