07 Jul Who would you be if you were already enough?
So many of us spend so much time believing we'd be happy when…when we're fitter, stronger, thinner, wealthier, more successful etc.
But so many of us would think we're awesome already, if only we focused on the more positive aspects of ourselves and our lives.
In many ways, this is at the heart of happiness.
And happiness is at the heart of living a good life.
So read this great article from Tiny Buddha to understand who you might be if you believed you were already good enough…
By Carla Poertner
As our plane left the runway heading from Vancouver to Thailand for our six-week backpacking trip, I said a little prayer.
It went something like, “I’ll be honest, I’m searching for something profound on this trip, so is it too much to ask for some enlightenment to illuminate my way? And please, please keep these three boys and me safe.”
We’re back now, after a few harrowing and eye-opening experiences, a sea-full of adventure, and a lifetime’s worth of wild beauty. And perhaps, if it’s not too presumptuous to say, I return accompanied by at least a fragment of the enlightenment I requested.
I didn’t find it in the temples we prayed in, on our late night explorations of the beaches, in the jungles we paddled and hiked through, or on the mountains whose rock faces we climbed.
In fact, I didn’t find it at all. It found me. Or was it always there and I finally opened to seeing it? Was it by leaving my usual reality, with only the few belongings that fit in a backpack but took care of my needs as adequately as a houseful of stuff, that I was able to look on as a stranger peering in?
Whatever ushered in this understanding, when I did see it, my response was to scowl a bit and ask somewhat disdainfully, “I came all this way. Is this it?”
Because it was only a question. A question I had been asking myself quietly over the years, but was back now, crystalline in its clarity, loud and ringing as I looked at this woman: she, me, and realized that she had lived many years trying to be enough.
And the question.
“Who would you be if you were already enough?”
Enough as you are, right here, today.
Beyond all the goal setting, visioning, planning, and achieving.
If I listened to this voice, this understanding that I had at first shrugged off, when would I be enough, and who would I be then?
When is my body, in its exact shape, weight, and size, with every change that accompanies me as I age, enough?
When is my mind, and its gathering of thoughts, enough?
When are my belongings, the home I live in, the clothing I wear, all of my accumulations, everything I’ve given away, found, enough?
When are my relationships with my friends, partner, and loved ones enough?
When are my status, achievements, finances, all the identities I associate myself with in this physical world enough?
Who would I be, how would I feel, if I were already enough, even if just today?
I sat with that question. On stuffy midnight bus rides with travellers from all over the world crowded around me and my five-year-old sprawled asleep, arms awkwardly thrown overhead, legs across my lap…
…keep reading the full & original article HERE