Enough.
I love this word. And I am regularly aware of how it impacts my practice and my life. For me, enough comes in three flavors:
I am enough.
There is enough.
Enough is enough.
While I was away in July, I had all of these ENOUGH moments and they shifted my experience every time. I didn’t have to be funnier or smarter or prettier than I am with my family. I am enough. I don’t have to eat all the chocolate. There is enough. I don’t have to keep doing what isn’t working. Enough is enough.
My ENOUGH trip, reminds me of this post I wrote in February 2020, just before the world tilted on its axis (note what feels like an oddly off-hand reference to what was then on the horizon). How does ENOUGH land with you?
February 17 2020
I am enough.
Americans pride themselves on “never enough.” I had a teacher in elementary school who drilled it into us: Good. Better. Best. Never let it rest. ‘Til the good is better and the better best. The cultural norm is constant growth and improvement and relentless striving for more, faster, better. I’m all for challenging our habits and making positive choices but I prefer to do that from a place of “I am enough” right now.
While I was preparing for this post, it just “happened” that my dad sent me this “Note from the Universe” :
February 14, 2020
The presumption at all times and under all circumstances, should always be that you are good enough, worthy enough, and lovable enough. And that you are exactly the right kind of person, in the right place, at the right time. Otherwise, you wouldn’t have been instilled with such dreams in the first place.
Love you,
The Universe
Coincidence? Sure. If you believe in such things.
There is enough.
Similarly, our culture invites us to see the world from a place of scarcity. If you have something I want, the thinking goes, then there isn’t going to be enough for me. If we see life as a zero sum game, the feeling that there isn’t enough can send us straight into fear and grasping. I know the scrambly feeling in my body when I feel like there isn’t enough time or money or energy or love or people to come to my classes. That scrambly feeling can lead to me grabbing what I can and hoarding what I fear I might lose. I feel a profound shift when I take a breath and realize that those fears are illusions. You having what you need doesn’t mean that I can’t have what I need. The truth is that there is enough.
Enough is enough.
It’s happened to me several times in recent months: I’ve bumped into something in my life and got the strong message, “Enough is enough.”
It happened while standing at my kitchen sink and I knew I no longer wanted to participate in the consumption of any animal products. While I had known intellectually the agony that billions of creatures suffer so that we can eat them or their by-products, it took a while for that to penetrate to my heart. While I had the information that animal agriculture is not sustainable for the planet and is a major contributor to climate collapse, it didn’t feel like my choices matter. That morning, looking out from my kitchen window, something shifted and got crystal clear: enough is enough. No more. I will not be part of that suffering.
It happened again when I stumbled, exhausted and stressed into a restorative yoga class and felt a deep unwinding that I knew was essential for my well-being (and that I had been avoiding like the coronavirus). Wrapped around that bolster, feeling my breath deepen, I felt it clearly. Enough. Enough pushing. Enough over-doing. Enough is enough.
What is your relationship to Enough? What is the physical sensation of each of them? Which of these three resonate with you? Which do you resist?
And the last words go to David Whyte in his poem, Enough:
Enough. These few words are enough.
If not these words, this breath.
If not this breath, this sitting here.
This opening to life
we have refused
again and again
until now.
Until now.
~ David Whyte from
Where Many Rivers Meet