SELF-IMPROVEMENT

I Am Here, Therefore I AM Enough

Day 17, 50 questions for deep self-reflection

This is day 17 of the 50 Questions for Deep Self-Reflection challenge from Know Thyself Heal Thyself created by Diana C.

DAY SEVENTEEN: How can you wash away the idea that there is a certain standard that you have to exhibit to be enough?

Perception, expectations, boundaries converging right here!

What does it mean to ‘be enough’? It’s interesting that we each must answer that for ourselves and each of us will inevitably answer that differently. And it’s also interesting that most of us will answer that question with an external marker, or worse, the external marker of someone else. How dissociated do we need to be from inner happiness to tick the societal box of enough?

As long as we continue to seek our ‘enoughness’ from without, we’ll never find it, because it doesn’t exist OUT THERE. As a child, I learned that I wasn’t enough according to those around me, family (sadly, this is where we tend to learn it).

Growing up… I was not my own person and therefore, did not have my own wants or needs. All I had that was mine were my thoughts, and they were judged as wrong. It was expected that I would do and say as I was told, and for the most part, I did.

What is it to me to be enough?

For me, I feel being enough is in the allowance of emotions and experiences. I had a great therapy session today and one of the things that came up was that I am no longer pushing myself to focus and getting angry at myself for not doing everything I ‘need’ to get done. It’s a perfect example because that self-focused anger and reprimand came from a place of not being enough. I was expecting more of myself than I was emotionally, physically, mentally, and spiritually able to give at the time. In releasing those expectations of self and just letting self DO, I achieved more, I focussed more, I was enough. I am enough.

Let’s take a dive

But we’re still sitting on the surface. There are three universal fears:

• The fear of not belonging
• The fear of not being loved
• The fear of not being enough

We all have a little of each of these fears — that’s why they are called universal fears, but we’ll tend to fall into one more than the others (and it’s usually the one that relates to the need that was least fulfilled in childhood). For me, the fear of not being enough was always my strongest fear of the three. In the desperation to be enough (in other people’s eyes), my own standards and happiness were flexible.

I negotiated on every boundary I tried to set. It wasn’t about my comfort, wants, or needs, it was about desperately searching for that tiny morsel of respect I was seeking.

Again, looking at what it is to be enough, the truth is (and let me add the caveat that this is the truth in my current perception of it) enough is an arbitrary concept. Isn’t everyone, enough? Just by their existence, are they not already, enough? What more can anyone possibly be than the person they are in this moment right now? Yes, we can grow, expand, evolve, and we must, but right now, right at this moment, are we not all right where we need to be? Are we not all everything we have worked to be in this moment? And therefore, are we not all, already ‘enough’?

Reflecting on the question

How can I wash away the idea that there is a certain standard that I have to exhibit to be enough?

Let’s go back to a previous challenge day. I realized I was not respecting my friend in holding from them information that was important to me. Was that perhaps really about my enoughness? Was I perhaps worried that he wouldn’t accept what I had to share with him? That he would reject me? That I would not be ‘enough’ in his eyes? In HIS eyes.

My enoughness does not exist in someone else’s eyes. It is nothing but a reflection of my own fear.

I AM ENOUGH

If you are interested in the journey so far — all the days that came before, I’ve collected all the article links here:

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