traceyclark - i am enough

Tuesday

Aug312010

I am enough from Nancy Barnes

Tuesday, August 31, 2010 at 12:00AM

I am enough.

I am struggling with those words. I have struggled with those words for a long time and never realized it. But now, today, it seems to be particularly nagging at me.

My head – that logical side – screams, “Of course, you’re enough! Don’t be ridiculous,” in that certain motherly tone of voice that resounds of my mother telling me to quit being silly and fly right!

But there’s the heart of me that has always wondered – Am I enough? This from the girl that didn’t want more surgery because she couldn’t stand the thought that people wouldn’t like her just as she is. But still the question was there even then – am I enough?

What is enough? Who defines what enough is?

And that is where my struggle starts.

When there’s more month at the end of the money and the cupboard is bare and someone needs new shoes and the car stops working and you’re the one that pays the bills and does the shopping, it’s not enough.

When there’s a deadline you have to meet and someone changes the rules in the middle of the game and a new deadline rears its ugly head and there’s only 24 hours in a day and you’re the one that makes all the stuff work, it’s not enough.

When there’s not an empty corner in the house to curl up in and the bathrooms are full and someone’s gotta go and the walls feel paper thin and there’s just not air to breathe, it’s not enough.

When you don’t have the answers to everything and you’re the go-to-girl and “Mom, I need help with my project,” and “Honey, can we …(fill in the blank)?” and “You’re so creative; you’ll think of something,” am I enough?

And when the sun sets on another day and dinner is done and bed time is nigh and everyone wants just a little attention – including the cat – and there simply is not enough of me to go around (no matter how large my butt is!), am I enough?

In the quiet of the night, when the world sleeps, and dreams come, I realize that even though I am just me – I am just loved because I am just me – and that alone makes me ENOUGH.

12 years ago today I woke up as a new mother. So this is dedicated with all my love to my beautiful baby boy, Logan (who isn’t so little any more!).

...........

About Nancy Barnes

Nancy Barnes is a wife, mother, daughter, grand-daughter, sister, and cat lover. She feeds her creative soul by writing, scrapbooking, paper crafting and occasional needlework. Nancy lives in Phoenix, Arizona with her multi-generational family of 6 adults and 1 tween.

tracey |

I am Enough from Kim Switzer

Tuesday, August 24, 2010 at 12:00AM

I can’t point to any time in my life when I actually, really felt like I was enough of anything. I was always the oddball in my family, and although they laughed about it and didn’t seem really bothered, I always knew I wasn’t normal enough. But I tried really hard to be normal, so when I was older and there were cool, artsy, offbeat people to hang out with, I wasn’t weird enough for them! It’s funny now, but it was really hard as a teenager not fitting in anywhere.

I’ve spent my whole life feeling like I almost had it. Was almost enough of one thing or another. If only I could master that one thing—be prettier, thinner, funnier, friendlier—then I’d get all the things I wanted and would have a great life.

Of course, now that I’m older, I know that if I had managed to get that “one thing” that always seemed to be keeping me from the Land of Enough, something else would have come up to thwart me. It’s actually human nature—we are strivers. We climb one mountain, and we look for the next, higher mountain to get started on. This is actually okay. This is how we invent incredible things, after all. I just wish I’d known sooner that wanting to do better, to be better is actually okay and doesn’t mean there’s anything wrong with me right now. It just means I have goals!

I’d love to say I finally have it all figured out and that I wake up every morning full of confidence in myself, knowing where I’m going, sure of my abilities to get there. And I do have some days like that. They’re awesome, and I intend to have them more often! But I still struggle with plenty of self-doubt. I still feel out of place and unsure of myself. I still feel like I’m not quite enough of various things depending on my focus at the moment.

What’s really different now is that I can see that the doubts in myself aren’t truths. I can at least contemplate the idea that these are just passing thoughts and feelings and not reality. I can tell myself that the negative voices in my head aren’t right; I don’t automatically believe them and agree with them any more. I can hear the negative talk in my mind and say, “You’re wrong! I am enough!” And when I say it, I can hear that there really is truth in it even when I’m not quite feeling it in that moment. And I know that I’m moving more and more into a reality where, in my heart, I know I really am enough.

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About Kim Switzer

Kim Switzer is a professional muse (a.k.a. creativity coach), practitioner of whimsy, writer, teacher, embroiderer, photographer, experimental cook and all around creative indulger. She’s been a bank teller, an English teacher, a stockbroker, and an Avon lady (although not necessarily in that order). Although she’s just starting out as a creativity coach, she’s already loving it because, as she says, “I can tell I’ve finally found my place.”

You can find Kim on the web at her coaching site, MuseCraft™, on her Facebook fan page, on Twitter, and at her personal creativity blog, WordColors.

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Tuesday

Aug172010

I am Enough from Jeanne McGlinchey

Tuesday, August 17, 2010 at 12:00AM

Am I Enough? I Am Enough! This flag banner hangs above my bed as a testament to that idea. I see it when I get up, when I get dressed, when I go to bed. It reminds me to keep believing even when my self-talk tries to fool me otherwise.

Sometimes I feel like I’ve spent my entire life watching from the outside, wanting to be a part of things but afraid. I remember sitting in my bedroom as a child watching the neighborhood kids play together outside. I wanted to join them but my fear of them not liking me, teasing me, me not being enough was too much for me to overcome. I don’t know where that “I am not enough” script came from at that young age but there it was.

Last night I came across an old journal from 2003. Inside, I found the following entry. “I want to share myself with others, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. I want to release my fears about not being cool enough, smart enough, thin enough, pretty enough.” Enough, enough, always trying to be enough! It is now 2010 and I fight that battle every day, but I also find signs that I am winning.

I am rewriting my self-talk, and it goes something like this:

I weigh more than I should. I Am Enough.

I am not a good enough daughter to my aging mother. I Am Enough.

I do not have a 9-5 career anymore so people think I’m not working. I Am Enough.

I should exercise more. I Am Enough.

I am a failure because I will never be able to have a child of my womb. I Am Enough.

Flip the script, Jeanne.

I Am Enough because I am “Auntie Jeanne” to all of the children in my life, and someday I may be able to adopt a child of my own.

I Am Enough because I am studying to get my Master’s in Early Childhood Education so that I can influence children to know from the start that they ARE enough, just as they are.

I Am Enough because I take care of my family, friends and loved ones to the best of my ability, while still taking time to take care of myself.

I Am Enough because I make new steps everyday to take care of my body with exercise and healthy foods.

I Am Enough because I continue to share the world I see through my photography and art.

I Am Enough simply because I am.

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About Jeanne McGlinchey

Jeanne McGlinchey is a wanderer, a lover of life, of children, of books and words. She continues to fight the battle of “being enough” while taking care of her extended family and studying for her Masters in Early Childhood Education. She loves to capture glimpses of everyday life, and to explore new places near and far. She knows that truth is all around us if we only look. Jeanne shares her view of the world through photography, collage, writing and recipes in her blog Boston Girl on the Verge and in her Etsy shop.

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Tuesday

Aug102010

I am Enough from Jodi Crane

Tuesday, August 10, 2010 at 12:00AM

As a young girl and adolescent I was tall, skinny, and flat-chested. On top of that I was very shy. Scared- of- my- own- shadow shy.

As a preacher’s kid I thought everyone was watching me, holding me up to some unclear standard, and then judging me negatively. In actuality I was probably the one who was doing the most judging of myself.

My ultra-sensitivity and tendency to see the glass half-empty only compounded matters, resulting in depression.

Fast forward to today. I’m a wife and mother, still tall and flat-chested, and not so skinny.

It’s taken me two rounds of counseling in my late teens and 20’s and plenty of life experience to say:

I AM ENOUGH.

If you were to see me teaching my students or presenting to my peers, you might be surprised to know that young girl was me. And yet, at times, I can still be a bit shy and prone to the blues. But it's okay now because I know the truth.

I have the fortunate opportunity to be a play therapist. This means I get to use the therapeutic powers of play to be present with and assist clients, particularly children, who feel they aren’t enough. My ultra-sensitivity now actually helps me to be more in tune with my clients.

Each and every time I engage in play therapy I am reminded not to take myself too seriously…and I am able to continue to tell a young girl I know (me)—

YOU ARE ENOUGH!

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About Jodi Crane

Jodi Crane, PhD, LPCC, RPT-S, lives in a small town in Kentucky with her husband and their 11-year-old daughter and 5-year-old son. She is an Associate Professor in the School of Professional Counseling at Lindsey Wilson College and the Director of the Appalachian Play Therapy Center. Her creative sister Cori of Sacred Arts Studio inspires her as she dreams of one day writing a book and starting a playful blog.

For more information about the healing power of play therapy visit the Association for Play Therapy.

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Tuesday

Aug032010

I am Enough from Lindsey Mead

Tuesday, August 3, 2010 at 12:00AM

For thirty years I thought it was my accomplishments, my resume, my brass rings that made me enough. My father said a thousand times that my greatest skill was “doing just well enough to get to the next thing,” and I took that to heart. I was enough, but it wasn’t really about ME. The enough was in my performance, in my achievement, in my leaping over the hurdles that I saw in front of me.

What made me enough was what I did. And what I did was what I thought the world was asking of me. And so for years I did that, to feel like I was enough. I went to boarding school, to an Ivy League college, and then to another Ivy League graduate school. I was not unhappy through these various phases, because I was so tuned into the world’s approval. The clamorous applause of the world at large drowned out any whispers of concern that I might have heard from my own internal voice. In retrospect, I am aware of those whispers, though I did not recognize them at the time. There was the leave of absence I took from my first job because I did not feel I had the space to process the deaths of two close family members while I kept working. There was the time in the crypt of the cathedral at Assisi that I burst into tears, unbidden and un-understood, and was unable to stop. There was the panic attack the week before I started business school, where I could not breathe at night and wanted desperately to pull out of my class.

All of these, I recognize now, presaged the knot of feeling in my chest that grew more and more intractable in my early 30s. In my early 30s, I began to realize that a life strategy built on accomplishing the next most impressive thing collapsed entirely when there was no next thing. My smooth, speedy reaching of milestones that I’d considered an asset my whole life, dissolved into a frantic restlessness. I began to feel a vague but persistent unease in my own life. I knew this life looked charmed on the outside, but it echoed emptily on the inside. My life, which had gone exactly as I had planned, was nothing like I expected. I did not, in the ways that really mattered, feel like I was enough at all.

It took years of work to realize that truly being enough wasn’t about what I DID, but about who I WAS. It feels odd to call it “work,” since the work was mostly sitting still, breathing, reading, being calm, and feeling my feelings. But, perhaps sadly, all of those things were work for me – and often remain so. Still, I’m about to turn 36 and I am finally aware of the fact that my real life is actually in this very real, imperfect, beautiful moment. There is no point of focusing on that next glittering goal, because first of all, there aren’t any more to aim for, and second of all, that takes my attention away from the true riches, which are right in front of me. And it is in this dwelling, this quiet, this actually opening to the notion that life’s real meaning is right here, that I’ve finally realized that just by being me I am enough.

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About Lindsey Mead

Lindsey Mead writes at A Design So Vast. She is a woman, daughter, mother, sister, wife, friend, and writer. She is also a runner, a sometime yogi, a disillusioned MBA, a reformed nailbiter, and a proud natural redhead. She struggles mightily to find a coherent sense of self in all of these splintered identities. She writes and works in the business world and tries to spend time with her children, her husband, her friends, and occasionally run as well.

She is troubled by her inability to live more presently, which makes her keenly sad about the passage of time. The way that her children mark the inexorable movement of time is sometimes so bittersweet that it is almost unbearable. Her blog, A Design So Vast is about both that and the moments of incandescent peace or laughter that she doesn’t want to forget. She writes about the challenge of truly inhabiting the moments of her life, the work of being a mindful person, and about her efforts to find something to believe in, as she gropes around the edges of her faith.

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