Being Enough
What do we really mean when we talk about wanting to feel like we're 'enough'?
And is being enough, really enough?
Synonyms for enough include:
➡️ sufficient
➡️ adequate
➡️ ample
➡️ suitable
➡️ tolerable...
... along with slightly more generous words like 'plentiful' and 'abundant'.
But to me, enough always meant just... enough.
Not more.
Just the amount required.
Job done.
Box ticked.
To me, after some serious work on my perfectionist and people pleasing-driven behavioural patterns, enough now ALSO feels…
… content.
Comfortable.
Powerful in an easy, you've got this, no sweat required kind of way.
I LOVE that kind of enough.
It's enough for me these days.
I am enough.
My life is enough - although there's always room for more awe, wonder and exploration in a truly embodied, enough kind of world.
But being 'sufficient' or 'adequate', I suspect, isn't what the majority of my clients - or most driven people - have in mind when they say they just want to feel enough.
Because most of them aren't just 'ok', 'will make do with acceptable', 'happy to be tolerated' kind of people.
Hell no. Me neither.
People like us usually feel we need more than enough, to feel whole and happy - because we've never known what enough looks and feels like in the first place.
Enough has always been elusive.
It feels unattainable.
Like it's somewhere out there, wrapped in a shiny bubble that looks like perfection - a bubble that's floated away, every time in our lives that we've reached out to grasp it.
For some of us, nothing we do ever feels enough.
Because we've never felt that enoughness coming from within.
So unless we're feeling:
▶️ heard
▶️ seen
▶️ appreciated
▶️ recognised
▶️ valuable
▶️ validated
▶️ loved
▶️ stimulated
▶️ - or completely closed off from the world around us...
... we can go on chasing that bubble forever.
Trying to be more.
Trying to be better.
When we don't realise we already are, fundamentally, enough.
And it's only once we learn to let go of all the wounds that robbed us of our enoughness in the first place - that we can lean in a little more to the comfortable, content, easy kind of enough.
The kind where we can relax.
The kind that gets to be wonderful.
That doesn't feel simply 'adequate', 'sufficient' or 'tolerable'.
But absolutely frickin' fantastic.
Is that enough?
Are you ready to BE enough?
A x
I'm an experienced psychotherapist, mentor and founder who's been on one hell of a journey to uncover her enoughness.
I get how it feels. All of it.
And I'm here to hold space for you to share as much or as little of your journey as you like (though I don't recommend we talk forever 😅) - before we heal those wounds of inadequacy, people pleasing and perfectionism, quickly, effectively, and without digging in to the pain.
If this resonates, please feel free to reach out and share your story.