What’s good about not feeling enough? 🌺

At a Monday relateful session in Austin this week, many of us went deep into explorations of “not-enoughness”; ways we isolate ourselves, hold deeply seated and often unrecognized beliefs we don’t deserve to exist, or otherwise have to earn love.

Sure, we could have countered these views, or even questioned the very dualistic foundations the idea of “enough” rests on, but in classic relatefulness fashion we didn’t assume this belief was something we needed to change. That might be applying the same mistaken belief to itself! If the “enoughness” frame is truly bogus, what can be threatened by holding the illusion of it? Even the belief that we’re not connected can’t threaten the fact of our interconnectivity!

One man named that he believed he couldn’t connect with others unless he healed his past and became “enough”. Much to his surprise, allowing his vulnerability ‘dropped the group into’ a shared resonance of intimacy, insight, and compassion. His not enoughness was enough. As we could see ourselves in him and each other, the room quieted. A few people spoke their appreciation for him speaking up. We started exploring various facets of the world through this “not-enough” lens we all knew so well, and could now explore together in an embodied way. In what ways are we genuinely not-enough? Without judging our not-enough feelings*, we can see many benefits. For example, they’re information about how much we need each other, at a personal and global level. "Not-enough" becomes a doorway beyond self-sufficiency. Most of the world’s more pressing problems can’t be solved by one or even a few of us; our "not-enough" helps us widen our perspective, surrender our need to control, and work with others on a much larger scale.

Of course there’s a load of mistaken assumptions and hidden commitments too in the sense of not being enough, but despite being unfinished, I think this "thing" is enough, at least for now…

*technically not a feeling

With love, Jordan