Do things have to be a certain way for you? Do you think about all the possible outcomes for scenarios that may or may not ever exist? Do you constantly feel like you’re giving your all for very little in return?

Chances are that you might struggle with enoughness. I know, I know. Enoughness is not a word and isn’t enoughness the best word to describe those feelings of lack and emptiness? When is enough, enough?

I can’t answer that. Only you can. One has to acknowledge and accept their own capacity of what is enough. We have to look at metrics. How are you measuring yourself? One could only assume that the outcome is perfection. How does this happen and what are the origins?

On the personal level, this adaptive response could be due to having an absent parent and having to try hard to get approval from that parent because they were preoccupied. This shouts, “Look at me!”. The child learns that constant yearning for others is enough, while over time there is a constant rejecting of self with hard work on the back end to overcompensate for the pain. Enoughness can certainly develop on a personal level. If anything, it certainly can make one susceptible to struggle with enoughness later in adolescence and adulthood.  Where going to come back to this.

What about what happens on a social level? It is very easy to take our enoughness, or lack there of, personal. Especially for those of us that have a trauma history. Everything can seem personal almost like it happens to us. What about our consumer culture that is wrapped up in productivity and the delusion of grandeur? Think about how insignificant that can feel.  (Anti)Social-media can also poke at our finite arrogance as if we aren’t fragile and overadapting. We’re all satiating for more, in our own ways, because we can feel so inadequate. This is happening largely on a social level. Loneliness is becoming the real pandemic and it’s our enoughness that it’s coming from.

This is why we need each other so desperately. We are dying alone. Through compassion and understanding, and maybe only then, can we really find the true value in ourselves. Authentic connection and vulnerability with others will create the safety needed to grow in enoughness. If something is feeding into your inadequacies, then get rid of it. If there are things that bring your peace, then invite it in. We can find ourselves wholly in our enoughness even if for only moments at a time.