How many times have you been going along in life and then BAM! suddenly a little voice creeps in to tell you that you ‘should be doing this’ or ‘such and such is doing that, so I should too’, or ‘this should feel like that, why doesn’t it?’

Too many times?

I know, right.

It shows up in different ways, that little voice, telling us that we’re not GOOD enough. That we don’t HAVE enough. That we aren’t DOING enough.

That we AREN’T ENOUGH.

Somehow, along the way, we’ve fallen short of our own expectations and, in order to rectify the situation, we must do whatever it takes to hide this apparent failing before we get found out.

Or, we’ve created totally unrealistic expectations of ourselves and others, ones we cannot live up to.

Of perfection.

Of idealism.

Of admiration.

Of more, more, more.

You know, when we want to be better, all the time, no matter how great the achievement? Or that nothing is ever good enough, or that our life isn’t turning out EXACTLY how we hoped or expected that it would. And don’t even get me started on the unrealistic expectations we place on those we admire, to be all the things we wish we were and more (to super-human, and often ridiculous proportions).

It shows up in so many different ways, this ‘not being enough’.

Sometimes it means feeling like we should change our personal beliefs to match the people we identify with. Even if we know in ourselves that we don’t align to that (like the yoga teacher who HATES getting up at sunrise like all her fellow yogis).

Or we think we need to buy a new course, go back to school, or get a mentor who appears to know more than us. When, in actual fact, we have different experiences, skills, and education (like when you see a brand new course online and think you need to have it, but when you get the juicy content in your hands, you realise you already knew it).

It might look like not allowing yourself to shine because you can’t see past your admiration of others to see yourself (like the student who won’t share her writing with the class because she heard everyone else’s and hers was so different that it must be wrong, just to find out she got the best marks for her creativity).

It’s everywhere. It’s in the ‘freaking out what to wear because your friend always wears designer clothes’, only to remember that she works all the time. It’s the ‘thinking you need to starve yourself because as if Angelina eats her full amount of calories each day’, forgetting that she just had a double mastectomy earlier this year.

Everyone has a different story that we sometimes forget to see.

Jim Carrey spoke about this recently (and, quite literally while I was in the middle of writing this post):

 

“The imagination is always manufacturing scenarios – both good and bad – and the ego tries to keep you trapped in the multiplex of the mind. Our eyes are not viewers, they’re also projectors, that are running a second story over the picture that we see in front of us all of the time. Fear is writing that script, and the working title is, I’ll never be enough.

This is the voice of the ego. And if you listen to it, there will always be someone who is doing better than you. No matter what you gain, ego will not let you rest. It will tell you that you cannot stop until you’ve left and indelible mark on the Earth. Until you’ve achieved immortality. How tricky is this ego that it would tempt us with something that we already possess.

You will only ever have two choices, love or fear. Choose love and don’t ever let fear turn you against your playful heart.”

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We are all walking a different path, filled with different challenges, different defeats, and all kinds of wins that are as awesome and varied as our mind and heart allows them to be.

And as inspiring, talented, loving, and extraordinary as we all are in our own ways, we are also scared, unconfident, and questioning everything we do (sometimes at the same time).

We are not black and white creatures, us humans. We are not to be boxed into ‘successful’, ‘failure’, ‘teacher’, ‘oldest child’, ‘introvert’.

We are complex and ever-changing. We are capable of wonderful and terrible things.

Depending on the choices we make.

It’s not as simple as saying, I need to be like this person, or have this, or learn that and then I will be complete.

We will never be fully whole, always searching for more and bigger and better. And if we’re not, we’re not living.

So maybe we need to consider that, within the learning and stretching and growing, we are enough. We have the answers. We are capable of greatness.

Everything we need is already part of us, we just need to unlock it, level up, and gain our experience points.

This is not easy. It’s not without pain. But it’s life, and it’s totally worth it.

You already have everything you are inside of you.

You don’t need to ‘become the best you can be’ because you already are. Just accept it.

You are enough.

 

Do you know anyone who could do with a reminder that they are enough? Please share this with them and let’s stop wishing we were better or had more. Let’s just accept where we are right now.

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