Good. Smart. Pretty. Rich. Successful. Skinny. Brave. Savvy. Strong. Experienced. Coordinated. Courageous. And many more adjectives that easily fit into the blank space. Many of us have thought, said, and maybe even overworked this phrase, replaying it in our heads, never getting quite enough out of it that we keep weaving stories with it.
I’ve been thinking about it a lot lately, especially in terms of my writing. I enjoy writing, and I think I’m pretty good at it. Every once in a while, I’ll reread some of the papers I wrote while obtaining my Masters in Transpersonal Psychology, and I admit to being impressed with my own writing. I am usually amazed at how well they are written, given that I don’t remember writing them! I often think my writing—on particular topics, anyways—is more stream-of-conscious, since I don’t remember how I so eloquently got my point across. Unlike right now, I feel like I’m thinking too hard as I write this paragraph.
Back to not being “______ enough,” I have thought that I need to be some sort of expert on a topic to write about it. I don’t have some great romance novel or epic adventure/mystery/thriller waiting to be written. I’m more interested in writing about topics like consciousness evolution, the Yuga cycle, or some other sort of transpersonal topic. Since it is nonfiction, imparting information that someone out in the world might find interesting or useful, I feel like I should be a walking encyclopedia on the topic. I’m not experienced enough, or smart enough, or worthy enough.
ENOUGH! The bottom line is we are all enough. It is time to remove the “NOT” from the sentence.
Why me? Why NOT me? I might not know all of the ins and outs of a particular topic, but I have a perspective on it, there are people who like my writing style, and there are those (a much more finite audience) who might actually find what I have to write about useful to them in some way. Maybe it will trigger further exploration on their part. Maybe they will discover a new path to travel on in their lifes’ journeys. Maybe it will just be the planting of a seed in their minds that will germinate, take root, and grow over time.
I have jumped into unknown territory with both feet in the past, willing to take on the challenges of learning something new, getting better at it as I moved along, failing at some things along the way, not succeeding as well as I would have liked in other things. Part of the problem is my imagination. I envision typical scenarios of success and when those scenarios don’t unfold as I imagined, I have stamped it a failure. Although failures can be seen as a form of success given the lessons we might have learned, as my friend Cherry suggests, they can still make us shy; make us afraid to try; make us “not ______ enough.” We question ourselves. Why me? Why would I even attempt to write something I don’t know everything about?
I’ve turned a corner, though. I realize “why not me?” I AM ______ enough. And, actually, I don’t need to fill in the blank. Neither do you. It’s not even needed. I AM enough. YOU are enough. We are, each and every one of us, our own unique facet of the universal flow of consciousness (Life Force, God, etc.) here to be exactly who we are for the experiences we have. We ARE enough and, with that knowing, can fully embrace our experiences, create the reality we wish to live in, and lead by example.
Untying “NOTs” can be difficult. They require some work to loosen them to the point where we can begin to unravel them, strand by strand. They can be untied, though. They simply require a change in thinking, a paradigm shift in how we view our imaginations, our talents, our failures, and our successes. I might not be a bestselling author with books stacked up in my brain waiting to be written. I might not be a hard-hitting journalist rooting out the truth of the latest political fiasco. I AM a good reader, researcher, and writer on topics I love. I AM enough. I AM.
We can be no more and no less than who we are in any given moment. I’ll be me. You be you. Pick a strand, and start untying your “NOTs.”
