It began today. My dance with self love. My dance with being enough. My dance with my soul. It took me by surprise. At a busy stop light in Miami Beach.
The cars were lined up in front of me. This gave me enough time to daydream. To ask a question. To receive an answer.
How will I ever truly give and receive love if I can’t accept myself. If Im not kind to myself. If I keep looking in the mirror and finding fault? If I believe that beating myself up will redeem me from every wrong I’ve ever done.
Self judgment as an act of redemption doesn’t work. Scratch that. It works. It’s worked really well at keeping me stuck in feeling like I have to keep improving. It’s a catalyst. No, it’s a cattle prod for those of us addicted to not being enough.
What? We are invested in not being enough so we can get things done? So we can feel like we are growing? Like we are adding value?
Not Enough= Egos trip at keeping you on its course. Whatever that is.
There is a new breed of not ever feeling enough. I know because I’m one of then. I call them Conscious Not Enoughers. For the sake of being economic with my words, and even though it’s not the exact acronym, but pretty much describes the behavior, let’s call this part of us, CON.
Con’s are those of us that are addicted to getting better.
Getting better in order to feed the part that doesn’t feel we are enough.
It sounds twisted. Somewhat crazy. Counterintuitive almost.
My CON has attended every seminar and read every self help book. She even earned herself two master degrees in psychology, which she loves to brag about especially in her defense of not feeling like she’s enough.
CON is a false motivater that motivates a false self into existence. It’s another win for the perfectionist team. Self Help Hero as a guise for Punitive Perfectionist.
CON is an epidemic among seekers and self help junkies. It feeds on the validation it receives from the outside world. Oh how sweet that validation can taste when you never feel enough! But CON must continue to feel bad in order to push you along on it’s course. Push being the operative word here.
And at what cost?
Well I can only speak for myself: Back pains, grey hairs, worry, anxiety, and stress. Relationships that I’ve stayed in for way too long. Jobs that Ive stayed in for way too long. Lot’s of second guessing and questioning things. Oh and chronic rumination.
CON seeks to fill a void. So it chooses things that seemingly do that, while Soul knows I’m whole and complete and seeks only to surrender to divine will.
CON has attempted to direct my destiny and now I want my soul to surrender to my destiny.
Last September I went away to Vipassana, a 10 day silent meditation retreat in hopes of getting anchored more deeply in what my soul wants.
I found stillness. Then madness. Then stillness. Then madness. And around and around I went. But Vipassana wasn’t enough. Am I surprised? No. Because nothing ever will be. Because to live from not enough only gets you more of the same.
So what’s they way out? The way out is the way in. I’ve started looking at my choices and I ask myself: Who is guiding this thought/action/behavior? CON or my soul. Often CON wins, but I’m totally onto her now.
I’m no surrender expert, yet, but I can only share what’s helping me: Catch yourself on your little scheme of using Not Enough to push your Soul into submission of doing what your ego wants. Choose your soul first and be willing to wait. Sometimes it takes great patience to sit in the seat of the soul and tune into its guidance. I’ve always been thin on patience. But I guess it’s not about little me anymore. Soul is not on little me time. Soul Time requires an abandonment of agenda. It requires a giving up of everything you’ve know so you can relearn..the lesson of the soul…the language of the soul that seeks to bring you back to truth.
