Word of the Year
Since mid-December, when It came to my attention that some people are in the habit of choosing a “Word of the Year,” I’ve been pondering mine.
I had a whole list of contenders—organize, inspire, simplify, balance, joy, serenity, pleasure, transformation, clarity, all close, but none sent that tingle down my spine confirming I’d found “The One.”
All the while I thought of potential words, another reel looped in my head criticizing me for all that I’m not, all that I haven’t done, and all that I haven’t been. And the closer December 25th drew near, the louder the voice became.
“You don’t clean enough. You don’t cook enough. You don’t write enough. You don’t read enough. You don’t blog enough. You don’t tweet enough. You don’t have enough blog or twitter followers. You don’t focus enough. You don’t try enough. You’re not good enough.”
It was the last one, heard one too many times, that finally got me. “Enough,” I yelled out. Enough.
As soon as the word left my mouth, I felt the tingle down my spine. It was my Word of the Year. Enough. But Enough is a complicated, multifaceted word, and I wasn’t entirely sure how it was meant to apply to my life beyond telling that negative voice to shut the f… up.
It was on the Reiki table in early January that I finally understood.
Before every session, my Reiki Master, Libby and I sit opposite each other and talk about what I’m hoping to get out of the session – set our intentions if you may. Sometimes I’m really clear as to what I’d like to focus on, while other times I just wait to see what emerges. That day I was really clear.
(If you’d like to know more about Reiki, check out Libby’s website. There’s also a chapter in my book that illustrates my first-hand experience.)
“I am so tired of feeling less than,” I told Lib. “Of comparing myself to others and feeling like I’m not enough.” Hearing my own words reminded me to explain that I’d chosen Enough as my Word of the Year, but that I didn’t really understand why.
“Why don’t you feel like you’re enough?” Lib asked.
I explained how I put myself out there as this writer and blogger, but that in reality, most of the time I don’t even know what the heck I was doing. I told Libby about these unwritten rules that seem to exist for authors and bloggers, and how I’m never quite sure if I’m doing it right, and most of the time I’m pretty sure I’m not.
We kept talking.
“The thing is that’s so weird,” I told her, “is that the voice that says I’m not good enough, is really not mine. It’s not the real me. Not the me in my soul.” I held my hand to the back of my head. “It’s the voice that lives in the back of my skull, on the right side down by the base of my spine. The real me knows that I do enough and have enough. The real me knows that I am enough.”
“So where do you suppose that voice comes from?” Lib asked.
“From outside, I guess.” I looked out the window and thought a moment. “It comes when I look at what and how other people are doing things and think that their way is the way I should be doing my things, even if it doesn’t really feel true to me.”
Compare and Despair ran through my head.
And then, in the blink of an eye, I got it.
“When I do things my way,” I said, “I am enough.”
Libby clapped her hands together. “Say it again,” she said.
“When I do things my way, I am enough.”
“When you do things your way, you are Enough,” she repeated.
I remembered an appointment I had years ago with our energy healer, Karen. “You’re always looking to everybody else for all the right answers, when really, they’re right inside of you,” she had said. And finally, I understood what she meant. If I’m true to myself, if I honor what feels right for me, then I am Enough.
I AM ENOUGH.
AND SO ARE YOU.
And so are you.
