Day 242 (Two-Hundred & Forty-Two) of 365 days

You are enough. I believe that: that you are enough, just as you are, just as you were made to be. Because “you are enough” does not mean that you have been measured and considered and judged and that you have finally earned the label of “enough.” It doesn’t mean that you’ve worked long enough, tried hard enough, presented well enough. It’s simply who you are. The you that you are is enough. You don’t have to be more, or do more, or buy more to be who you are meant to be. That’s what I mean when I say you are enough.

Society shapes us to feel that we must fit perfectly into cookie-cutter moulds. We must be beautiful, we must be intelligent, and we must be successful. We define these goals very one-dimensionally – we ignore the fact that beauty comes in many different forms and facets, and that intelligence is different in every single person. These little pockets we create of how we “should” be are too severe. They leave no space for mystery and no room for uncertainty. They ruin the chances of the miraculous unexpected and put up sharp walls that block us off from personal growth.

But who makes these rules? Why do we fall for these – why do we become trapped by society’s manmade expectations? These rigid rules and strict boundaries make it easy to fall downhill and to slip over the edge. They lead to breakdowns and anxious sleepless nights just because we think we aren’t good enough. All in all, we fall into the dangerous mindset that because we are not living the “right” way, we are not enough. Do you ever stop to think that maybe you are just right?

It is no mistake that you are this person, in this place, at this time. You are enough as you are, mess and all, beautiful and broken, showing up for your life every day. That’s all you have to be and all you have to do. You’re already enough. You are enough means you can grow and change and continue to become because you aren’t trying to prove yourself. You don’t have to strive to become more worthy, more valid, more acceptable, or more loved. You already are all of those things.

There are things you might want to be more of. More open. More honest. More true. More authentic. Freer. More connected. More intentional. More purposeful. Those are all expressions of your enough-ness. They aren’t about changing yourself, they’re about being yourself. You were enough before, you are enough now, and you will continue to be enough as you become more of who you were made to be. And believing that, when the world keeps whispering otherwise, is brave.

You cannot trick yourself by re-framing and rationalising your motives. Simply waking up one day and trying to force yourself to believe “I’m doing this for other people” is like gold-plating a turd. It will just be another act to maintain, to others and yourself. The only way to get here is through the surprisingly difficult realisation that you are ok. You’re more than ok, you are awesome. You are the incredible result of hundreds of millions of years of entropy; the sum of the sacrifices of billions of animals and human beings and moments.

You are messy and imperfect and sometimes afraid (because you’re human) and still learning and growing. You struggle and question and wrestle and some weeks alternate between big belly laughs and broken ugly sobs and it’s all OK.
You’re in a season of hard transition and trying to find your way again or you’ve never really known who you are and what you want. Messy and still enough. You are beautiful and gifted and uniquely wired; you’re lovable and you merit space on this earth.

I am enough. I am open, juicy, artistic, full blast. I am also vain, emotional, demanding, and looking for answers. I am a woman who is open to mysteries, accepting of miracles. I am diving in, devouring, loving, protecting, peeling back the surface of petty desires to the hunger for connection, for belief, for truth. I am full of sparkle and compassion. I genuinely want to make the world a better place. I love hard. I practice kindness. I’m not afraid of the truth. I am loyal, adventurous, supportive, and surprising. I am a woman. I am enough. I make mistakes, but I own them and learn from them.

The past few months were crushingly hard and exceedingly beautiful. In the midst of it all, I learned I am enough. And I know in my deepest heart — You are enough too. I have no idea where the next seven years or the next seven days will lead. That isn’t my business. My business is to decide that I will show up. And the mindset with which I’ll show up. And that when life feels hard and I forget I am loved and needed, I will show up anyway.