Enough

Enough.

It is hard in today’s culture to know what is Enough. What is Enough to eat? What is Enough not to eat? What is Enough weight? What is Enough weightlessness. What is Enough of Me? What is too much? Too much Me?

I remember a day when I baked a pie. Because I had eaten what was left of the first pie. And the second. I had thrown it all up.  So I could eat more, to feel full Enough. But I felt Not Enough. So, I ate more. I was ashamed. Too much. Not Enough. I had to bake a third pie and eat two more slices to be sure it looked “right” Enough. So that he would not notice. And when he came home, hungry, wanting… he ate a piece of pie. And then he ate another and said “I’ve had Enough.” I watched him eat, trying to see, hear, feel what is Enough. What is Full Enough. What is not yet Enough.

In those days, I weighed myself three times, four times, five times, every hour. Not Enough. I couldn’t lose Enough. I couldn’t nudge the needle down one more pound so that it would be Enough. So that I would be Enough. I would sit on the edge of the bathtub, sobbing, exhausted, heart pounding. Purging, purging, trying to get it all back up, trying to get Enough back up so that I could know Enough.

It can take a long time to figure out Enough. When the body has had no sense of what it knows, when the lines have been unclear for too long, when the numbers don’t add up, when the emptiness is Too Much, it is hard to know, hard to find the way back.

Magazines and TV, Instagram and facebook, feed us pictures that mislead our minds, and so we mislead our bodies. Our bodies scream Enough, Enough, but we flail our arms and pinch our flesh and scream Not Enough, Not Enough in one big voice that hurts.

Is life Enough? Is living a fearless, foodfull, healthy life Not Enough? Are you Enough? Am I Enough? Are any of us Not Enough? Would you tell your baby he or she is Not Enough? Can you look in the mirror and tell yourself, with love, I am Enough?

Speak it. Know it.

I am Enough.

Time for a New Story

Jeff, a man in his late 30s battling recurrent drug abuse and serial seductions, woke up in a stranger’s bed and decided – once again – he needed to face his demons. He knew he must turn his life around or it was going to end, and in a very bad way. Jeff sought out a new therapist, another in a long trail of counselors and interventionists. He arrived in this man’s office with his horrific story coursing through his veins, ready to once again let loose the familiar diatribe wound like a noose around his heart. It was a sad and terrible story. Raised in an environment of deep negativity and verbal abuse by parents who were out of touch and unavailable, Jeff was a therapist’s dream. Except, not this therapist’s.

After listening for about 20 minutes to Jeff’s well-versed story of being raised by two narcissistic individuals who had no business ever having had children in the first place, the therapist stopped him.

Jeff?

Yes?

Where are you going with this?

What do you mean? This is my story!

Yeah, I know. And it’s tragic! It’s God-awful! But what do you want from me? ‘Cause if you want my sympathy, man, you got it! That is one fucked up family!

Jeff was silent.

But what is your life now, who are you now?

In that moment, Jeff’s story changed forever.

It is easy to stay stuck in our story. That fuzzy familiar blanket woven from well-worn memories envelopes us in a seductive cloud of all-knowing experience. Retelling and reliving the pain of being abandoned or forgotten or lost reminds us of who we are and how we got here and that we matter. But there comes a time when that same blanket can suffocate us and keep us from moving forward.  At some point, the soft blanket becomes a rough canvas scratching at old scabs and reopening wounds that no longer serve the new person we have become despite our story! It is time for a shift. It is time to re-story.

But I can’t re-write my story! you scream. These things really happened!

Yes, they did. And now, they don’t. Remember the monkey in “The Lion King”? He hits Simba on the head with his walking stick, screeching, “The past is in the past!”

Re-story.

There comes a time when you must let go of the chapters in your life that re-injure you or cause you angst.  Those voices are no longer part of your Once Upon a Time. They are part of The End.

Think about opening the toy box you treasured as a child and acknowledging each item you chose to keep and deciding as a grown-up it is time to either re-gift it or throw it away. Experiences are the same. You are not the same person you were last year or even last week, so how can a 20-year-old negative experience serve the person you are now in this moment? Choose to keep the moments that truly honor the person you are now, that serve you today on your journey to the next level. Re-gift to the Universe those memories that no longer apply.

Perhaps a ceremony of letting go is in order – writing memories down and throwing them in a fire or dropping them in the ocean or burying them in the sand. Forgive parents, siblings, teachers, past friends. You are not denying the experience by letting it go, but rather honoring yourself in the moment and moving on in the here and now.  Celebrate!

To think about:

What is your new story? Is there someone or something you need to forgive so you can live a story that better serves you? What experience do you choose to re-gift to the Universe?

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