Enlighten Up! a blog

Being Enough

9/1/2020

“You are enough. You are so enough. It is unbelievable how enough you are.”
- - - Quote from Mary Setrakian made famous by Sierra Boggess

In 1980, I was thirty-seven years old, divorced, a single parent with a full-time job in broadcasting and twenty-one credits toward a master's degree in communications. Picture that with the caption: "Middle class, African-American woman/feminist, tries to do it all and prove herself competent, capable, connected and enough to be a credit to the race. That is a heavy burden, and it weighed heavily on me.

The cues I was getting from society and my family fed the directive to do it all, but inside I felt crazy. Beneath my struggling and juggling, I was constipated and stressed. I developed TMJ (temporal mandibular joint dysfunction). There was not enough time, not enough energy, and not enough of me, to go around and do all that was expected of me and all that I expected of myself.

It felt like I was being ripped in half. I needed to find an answer to the question, “What does it mean to BE enough?”

I figured out that if I could recognize or create an internal sense of contentment, I would be able to manage my existential angst and be enough, at least to myself. Some people find self-esteem and actualization in church, some in the creative process, and others in sports. I found mine in yoga.

The physicality of it appealed to me enormously. It felt like dancing. I loved to dance. It relaxed me. I needed to relax. It was a perfect fit. I was hooked. I bought books and tapes and I practiced alone, waiting for enlightenment and bliss.

Over time, I “enlightened up” a few degrees. I got that I could not “do it all” without risking my health and sanity. I gave up business suits and heels along with several committee and board positions—and watched external validation from a number of people and organizations melt away like cold butter on a hot summer sidewalk. Did I need that validation anymore? Could I be a credit to the race on my own terms, in my own voice and still be me? I didn’t know, but I felt myself inching closer to a resolution.

It was at a yoga weekend in New York’s Catskill Mountains when the idea of being enough shifted from an intellectual concept to a cellular understanding. It was during a sweat-popping practice.

"Hang in there," said the teacher, "Breathe. Feel your power. Let me hear some deep sighs."

I struggled to hold up my body on one foot and one hand in a side arm balance.
I sighed and hung in through alternate leg lifts. Glued to the ground from chin to pelvis, I inhaled both my legs off the ground and felt them float up into locust pose. I ached with the effort, but I groaned and sighed and squeezed and held on just a bit longer than I thought I could.

At last Savasana! Relaxation!

"Welcome the benefits of the universe,” the instructor said. Her voice was soft, soothing and musical. “Feel yourself melt into the ground. Breathe deeply. Inhale through the head; roll the breath down the body. Exhale it out through the toes. Relax."

Being away from home and family, with work responsibilities on hold, I found myself, in that moment, halfway between sleep and wakefulness, floating somewhere between here and there at the same time. Grace, bliss, surrender and contentment!

It’s been a long process. When I look back, I realize that it took 37 years for the threads of external directives, striving and feeling not enough, to tie themselves into knots big enough to feel. Does it matter that it took another 37 years to untie those knots and let the threads dissolve? Nope. In the end, the only thing that matters is that I’ve found the discipline to work through the knots moment-by-moment, bit-by-bit, and thread-by-thread.

Today, I am a lot better at managing stress. I haven't been constipated in years. My TMJ bite plate sits unused on the top shelf of the medicine cabinet. My yoga practice is much gentler and more contemplative these days and is as important to me as breathing.

I no longer think that enlightenment will come suddenly, bliss me out and whisk away my struggles. I rejoice in the fact that underneath the African, underneath the American and underneath the woman, is a being, who can occasionally and surprisingly "be here now." In those moments, I can rest amid the chaos and be present in my life with its problems and joys. I can experience it, and me at the same time. I am competent, capable, connected and authentic, a credit to universal consciousness in all its forms. And that is enough.

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Having Enough

9/1/2020

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“He who knows that enough is enough will always have enough. “
— Lao Tzu

What does it mean to have enough? Maslow's hierarchy of needs is a psychological theory that describes five basic human needs in the following order.

1. Physiological; air, water, and food
2. Safety; clothing and shelter
3. Social connection
4. Self-esteem
5. Self-actualization

It’s difficult to imagine being enough, or finding a healthy attitude toward having enough until your basic needs of air, water, food, clothing and shelter have been met. So let’s start there. How much of those things is enough?

That varies from person to person and depends on several factors. The National Institutes of Health has documented a growing body of research on the associations between social and cultural factors and health. They include:

Gender and sex roles
Education level
Work environment and status
Physical and social environment
Race and cultural background
Social networks and support
Personal beliefs and behavior
Genetic inheritance

Where you’re born, the economic class you’re born into, how the larger society views you and how you view yourself, will clearly affect your personal definition of having enough and how much is enough.

Fortunately for me, having enough never felt like an issue. I was raised in a middle class family in a small New England town. In any other place, we might have been considered working class because my dad was a janitor and my mom, a secretary. Because of the work ethic of my mom’s family in earlier generations, we owned property — two houses on two lots side-by-side. Both mortgages had been paid off long ago. The houses and their furnishings weren’t fancy but it was enough.

My mom worked full time; my dad worked the night shift, so he needed to sleep during the day. My brother and I always had somewhere to go after school because Aunt Lucy’s house next door was a warm and welcome refuge. We knew when mom would be home and when dad would go to work. And we knew that Aunt Lucy was always there. This provided a stable solid routine that depended on relationships as opposed to material things. For a child, this was enough.

However, I did want things. As a kid, I wanted a chemistry set so I could make baking soda and vinegar bombs. As a young adult I wanted the latest kitchen appliance, new car or that perfect ‘little black dress,’ (which I did not find) but I never had that clutching feeling in my chest that if I didn’t have or couldn’t find the things I wanted that I would be crushed. I just lived life with the feeling of having enough as an internal foundation built by my mom, my dad and my Aunt Lucy. It wasn’t until I studied yoga philosophy that I understood why I felt that way.

Aprigraha, the fifth yama, teaches the concept of non-attachment. At first that sounded like renouncing material things, which did not appeal to me at all. I like my ‘stuff.’ Then a deeper meaning evolved with a focus on having the right attitude toward the things you have no matter how much or how little that might be. Somewhere I heard, or read, a story that illustrates this perfectly:

“Once upon a time there were two monks who lived side by side in neighboring caves. One monk owned only a single wooden begging bowl. The other monk owned an impressive collection of begging bowls, which he proudly displayed on stone shelves carved into the cave walls. The monk with one bowl was somewhat disapproving of his neighbor’s bowl collection thinking it improper for a monk to have and display so many material objects.

One day they decided to visit their teacher who lived on a mountaintop across the desert that bordered their caves. The monk with one bowl tucked it neatly into his clothing. The other monk carried several of his bowls in a heavy sack that he slung over his back. As they crossed the desert a fierce sandstorm overtook them. The winds ripped their clothing and carried off all their bowls. The monk with one bowl was distraught, while the other monk was calm and serene, simply accepting what had happened. “It is what it is,” he said.

Each monk had enough, according to their personal view but their attitudes about what they had was vastly different.

I’ve always liked to keep things simple, and by simple I mean clutter free; a place for everything and everything in its place. I live in a renovated factory with a few hundred feet of open space; no attic, no basement, no garage and no extra storage pods, cubes or containers. I feel like I have enough.

I’m still working on the healthy attitude idea. I’ve learned that it’s enough to be grateful for what I have, to know when I have enough and to work on being okay if it should all disappear in an instant due to fire, earthquake, financial collapse or some other disaster. But to be honest, this does not include my body parts, bank account or my cell phone and computer! It’s not always an easy practice but I think it’s one worth working on.

Here are a few questions to wrestle with:

Do you have enough?
If not, what do you need to have in order to feel like you have enough?
How would you feel if you lost it all?
What things would you miss the most?

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Being Enough

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