Enough?
If I sit down and get really quiet about when I feel like I have enough I can very quickly see a clear pattern. I have enough when I am outside playing in nature, I have enough when I feel my dogs paw pressing against my arm as he takes a deep satisfying sigh of contentment - his 100th of the morning, I have enough when I finish a butt kicking yoga class and my heart is melting onto my mat, sweat trickling down my forehead, I have enough when my wine glass is refilled by one of my dear friends, when I step outside after a week of cold bitter winter to feel my face warmed by the sun. Enough for me is based in simplicity. The recipe of the pattern looks something like this:
Wake up after a restful nights sleep, make a cup of tea, go outside, do something to move my body, stare at my dog, nourish my body with food on the edge of healthy, finish the day with a glass of red wine, a good book and a bit of netflix bliss; press repeat. In this cycle I have enough.
I do not have enough if I begin to participate in behaviors that wildly deviate from the above.
I definitely do not have enough if I go shopping. No matter how many white button up shirts I have hanging in my closet, jeans folded, sweaters pilling all by themselves in their drawers, the very act of walking into a place where I can buy more of these things makes me A) loose all logical grasp of what I need versus what I want, B) gives me temporary amnesia to the fact that I have almost the exact same one at home C) makes me feel like a credit card ninja with the funds and the means to pay off anything that I spend on this fruitful day of shopping (invariably there is just as sharp and poignant non ninja feeling when I actually go to pay this credit card off but of course in the moment this feeling is completely muted). In the land of shopping I never have enough, I never will have enough, and when presented with the tantalizing 400th stripped shirt that will sit beside the 399th strip shirt in my strip shirt drawer if I am in a place and a space where not enough is the name of the game and the whole reason the store/mall/giant store/online store/store-store-store exists is to make you feel like you do not have enough, the truth is I will buy it again and again and again. I feel like a crazy person admitting this. I always assumed that there would come a time in my life when I had quite literally acquired enough clothes to be enough. I have been the same size since I was a teenager and now that I am in my late 30’s (truthfully one strong breeze away from my early 40’s) I realize that this is not the case. If I put myself in a space where I participate in the shopping ritual be that in my living room from my computer, in a trendy hipster style loft retail space with music playing that I know I am supposed to like but really I don’t, or if I go to a traditional mall type space I enter into this deep state of not having enough and no matter how much I have I will justify my way to more.
I also never have enough when I spend too much time on social media. It is just all too pretty, too one big happy family, beach vacation, dogs and belly rubs, mountain peaks and summit chasing, meal preparing, making and sharing and not happening in my living room at this exact moment. It is invariable that if I spend more then 10-15 minutes in a day looking at social media I will feel like my life, me, my existence, my contribution, my orbit is not enough. If I could create one of those fancy chart like curve mapping things I would be able to clearly show you that the more time I spend on social media, the more I want to shop, the more I feel unattractive, the worse my body image is and the less sexy I feel about life and myself in general. To be clear I do not think that all social media is as bad as each other but for me there are a few that are a deep dive into not having and not being enough. I swear If I submitted Everest, rescued a sherpa on the way back down, cooked the entire base camp a meal and then nestled into my sleeping bag for the night and a few hours of social media scrolling I would probably find myself on lululemon.com buying things I don’t need, and liking shit I don’t really need nor want to like all because suddenly no matter what my actual reality is or what I got up to in a day- IT IS, I AM, I DO NOT HAVE— ENOUGH. For me social is a slippery slope.
Siting here thinking about what makes me feel like I don’t have enough has led me to the next obvious contemplation - what makes me feel like I am not enough?
in quick succession: I AM NOT ENOUGH WHEN……..
I am not showing up the way I know I can.
I am not showing up the way I had wanted to.
I loose my temper, my tongue, my good judgment, my kind heart.
I eat too much, or I eat too bad, or drink too much.
I don’t exercise.
I make excuses, flake out on someone, lie.
I want someone and they do not want me back.
It took me close to fifteen minutes to think about what makes me feel like I do not have enough and it took me literally 30 seconds to rattle off the above. I guess my feelings of not enough are a bit closer to the surface.
When I feel like I am enough I can tell you once again it comes back around to simplicity. I am enough when I am clear and honest, when I show up from a place of kindness, when I look into my dogs eyes, when my heart is connected to the greater world through nature and breath, when I am lying there on that yoga mat, sweat trickling down my forehead and I am not wanting for anything. It is curious to me that when I am feeling like a do not have enough, in writing this out I can see that it is in this space I also feel like I am not enough. The two are inextricably linked and the flip side is also true: when I feel like I have enough, I am also enough. Is it really that simple? Probably not. But for the sake of keeping this short I am going to leave it here for now and spend a bit more time thinking about all of this. What makes you feel like you are or are not enough? What makes you feel like you have or do not have enough. Can you easily identify spots in your life that bring you feelings of scarcity, lack, I suck and I am so totally not good enough, I do not have enough?
As always I encourage asking big questions of yourself and those you love - exploration and curiosity are two things that I have identified as key ingredients to living a deep and meaningful life. Keep digging, excavating, and sifting who knows what you will discover next?
