When Will We Be Enough?

My Spirit Is Large Enough For Any Circumstance

 I am enough. I have wisdom enough. I have faith enough. I know enough. I do not need to strive or strain. I do not need to reach or worry. I am enough. I allow the Universe to act through me. The Universe is more than enough. And so am I.

~Julia Cameron – Heart Steps

A few years ago, this prayer became my mantra. I wrote it out on index cards, decorated them with stickers and drawings and posted them all over my home. There was one above the kitchen sink, one on my bathroom mirror, it was the wallpaper on my computer and I carried the tiny book Heart Steps, where it can be found on page 31, everywhere I went.

I wasn’t trying to convince myself of this, so much as I was trying to remind myself until I could remember, that I am enough without needing to read it.

Something had happened in my life that had changed my relationship with myself and therefore my world.

What had happened, was that someone I loved dearly did something that hurt me in a really huge way. The situation was doubly difficult because the action had been a response to a mutual friend having also hurt me, and I was devastated.

But the thing is, that I loved my friend. I loved my friend so much, that it became instantly far more important to me that I maintained the friendship despite the fact that the entire situation had left me crying for days.

I’m not an overly sensitive person and it takes a hell of a lot to move me to tears of pain. I say that because I can drop a tear over seeing a cute puppy or a new fawn, but I am hardly going to cry because you don’t like my hair. Or me for that matter.

I managed to think the situation through, recognizing that in fact, my friend did not intend to hurt me. She was doing what she thought was best in a difficult situation and knowing her as I did, I knew that it was not a decision that had been made lightly. I disagreed with how she handled it but I knew that I was not going to convince her to see things my way.

This was one of those, “Is this the hill you want to die on?” moments.

If I was right, no matter how right I was, my friend was just a human being who made a mistake. That’s all. It meant that she wasn’t perfect.

This, was a massive turning point for me.

The self-loathing that I had endured in my twenties and early thirties had been upgraded to low-self-esteem, and then to lack of confidence by this point, while I was completely aware of my issues I just couldn’t quite cross the last hurdle, which was really feeling that I was “enough”.

Recognizing that my friend, who was everything that I could ever admire in a human being, was in fact, a human being, somehow made me realize that she was not someone who was better than me. She, and everyone else, was just the same as me. Human, imperfect, and sometimes, or maybe often, wrong.

Forgiving her showed me how to forgive myself.

Old thought patterns die hard, and so it took time and effort to let go of my old habitual ways of thinking about myself and the world, hence the written reminders. But this situation had been the catalyst for true transformation. Knowing that I am enough is probably the most important thing I have ever learned and it changes everything about how I live and interact with the world.

It has been a few years since then and a lot has happened. My friendship has grown to be stronger than ever, and I grew into a new understanding of myself, and the rest of the people that I happen to share this world with.

I recognize now, that in truth, we are all doing our best, even if it doesn’t look like it at the time.

This can be a hard concept to understand, but if we think about the times where we fell, or failed, even when we knew that we could do better, the reality is that what we do in each moment is the best we can do in each moment.

I may for example, be short or impatient with a customer at work. This is not my usual style, but it happens. It happened a few weeks ago when a customer was requesting something particularly difficult and unrealistic. I didn’t know for certain that I couldn’t accommodate them, but I really didn’t want to. It was the end of a long work day, and I didn’t feel like staying late to try to arrange something that was completely unnecessary.

I realized later, that the truth was that I was simply tired and frustrated and while I had in no way been rude or unprofessional, I had let my mood in the moment affect how I did my job. Why? Because quite frankly, I hadn’t been completely aware of what I was doing in that moment.

Awareness varies in each of us from moment to moment and it varies from person to person. I can swing from being completely aware of my body, my thoughts my actions to practically being asleep while awake.

Now here is the interesting thing about awareness. You cannot become more aware unless you realize that you’re not aware in the first place.

I see this all of the time. It’s easy to see it in others, but not always easy to see in in yourself. We are not always ready to face ourselves, we do it when we can.

Last week, I had some time off from work and created space for some deep reflection. As I contemplated this past year of 2011, I realized that I had fallen short. I had fallen short in working towards my dreams and goals and I had let excuses reign.

What was beautiful about this particular epiphany, was that I was able to accept this without berating myself, or impacting my sense of worthiness. It was very simple. Just a small mental note to “do better this year”. Live an learn.

So often, we fall victim to those around us who do not have this sense of worthiness and they try to take it by being critical of us or others around them. We all encounter this frequently as we live in a culture where shaming and criticizing are such the norm that it actually passes for entertainment. I wish we had a better understanding of how what we do affects us and the rest of the world.

It is now 2012, a new beginning, a new year. I am embracing it by expecting more of myself in the way that a loving parent encourages a child. This is easy, because no matter what I do, even when I fall short, still, I am enough.

If I could teach the world something this year, it would be to say that regardless of your weight, your age, your past, your goals, your occupation, your… ___________. You, whoever you are, are enough.

And, if you do not believe that you are enough now, no amount of success, money, possessions, or plastic surgery will convince you. Understanding yourself as being enough cannot happen through external accomplishments. The transformation happens in the mind. It occurs when you commit to forgiveness, (even if you’re not perfect at it) compassion, kindness towards yourself and everyone else.

This, whatever moment it is, is the starting point from which you will grow into the future. You cannot ever change your past, nor can you change your future without changing the present. This is where you need to be to learn what you need to learn. You are enough in this moment because you are here.

Now go out and give the best you have to give and know that no matter what; it is Enough.

Happy New Year!