ou are Enough
Do you ever feel as if you aren’t enough? Not good enough. Not smart enough. Not thin enough. Not young enough. Not old enough. Not successful enough. Not strong enough. Not athletic enough. Not wise enough. Not spiritual enough.
Or do you have the opposite issue, that you are too much? Too strong. Too smart. Too large. Too intense. Too creative. Too quiet. Too energetic. Too sensitive. I could go on and on. You fill in the blanks for yourself. I have been both in my life depending on the situation, but I’ve more often been deemed too much. When I was younger, I noticed that I was like a thermometer for people. When they felt good about themselves, they felt good about me and when they didn’t feel good about themselves, who I was brought out their dislike. That revelation was painful.
We all probably have feelings of not-enough or too-much, and perhaps more of one than the other. This can lead to inner turmoil and self-judgment. Our culture, and even our families or friends can feed into this but ultimately, I’ve found they are just feeding what we already feel within the stuck place of our own making. The “stuckness” of not-enough or too-much.
A classic rock song by the Rolling Stones gives voice to this feeling that we may all share about how we have gotten stuck in dissatisfaction. Let’s recall some of the lyrics. Sing along rockers!
I can’t get no satisfaction
I can’t get no satisfaction
‘Cause I try and I try and I try and I try
I can’t get no, I can’t get no
When I’m driving in my car
And that man comes on the radio
And he’s telling me more and more
About some useless information
Supposed to fire my imagination
I can’t get no, oh no, no, no!
Hey hey, hey! That’s what I’ll say
I can’t get no satisfaction
I can’t get no satisfaction
‘Cause I try and I try and I try and I try
I can’t get no, I can’t get no
I sense, at least for me and those I work with in spiritual direction, that the issue of not-enough or too-much comes to a head in a feeling of dissatisfaction or discontent. I happen to like the word discontent. It feels like it has a divine connection somehow to healing. More on that later. The opposite is feeling content. That word harkens back to spiritual teachings about what a deep life looks like, because when we are content, we lack nothing, no matter what we have or don’t have. That feels like healing to me. We can easily though, get stuck in being discontent with ourselves and with others. We might project our discontent outward by blaming or shaming others, or inward through self-negating. And if we don’t get the contentment we desire from within or from others we can easily blame God as well. The result can be that the harder we try to alleviate discontent, especially through surface fixes, the worse it can get. It’s like a vicious circle that keeps spiraling until we either give up or we go deeper in search of the source.
When we are with people (or ourselves) who are discontent it is a draining experience. It might feel like the energy in our bodies is seeping slowly out the bottom of our feet. Even holding a conversation is enervating, like sapping the joy out of a happy time. There is always something wrong, something that could be fixed, something that wasn’t up to par. It’s like the adage, my bucket’s got a hole in it. It feels like our life energy is seeping or dripping slowly out of our bucket. When we are stuck, I wonder if maybe we aren’t ready or aren’t able to repair the bucket.
Perhaps a few expressions from our discontented selves will serve to remind us of that turmoil.
*My boss will never appreciate my gifts so I’m going to just slack off.
*God doesn’t think I’m worthy enough to listen to, so I’ll just bear this by myself.
*I get so annoyed with people who seem happy or joyful when I feel so unloved.
*My kids don’t take care of me the way I want them to.
*My parents don’t take care of me the way I want to be cared for.
*I can’t find my niche because I don’t really belong anywhere.
*My partner will never turn out to be what I expected when we fell in love.
*I feel guilty when my creativity flows, and I sense jealousy from others.
*I’m in an abusive situation and I’m afraid to change because I may get hurt more.
A long history of feeling discontent.
This feeling of discontent is far from new. It goes way back into history. The Israelites, bless them for their true humanity, complained and were discontent no matter what happened. They were in bondage in Egypt and finally won their freedom, after numerous interventions from Moses. They were barely through the famous Red Sea miracle of rescue when they began to complain about not getting the preferred food they wanted on their sojourn. They even suggested going back to Egypt. They attacked Moses who had risked his life to save them. They even rejected God, their other rescuer, by building their own golden calf to worship. Have you or someone you know ever been rescued from an abusive relationship, a serious illness, a stale job, or a toxic environment only to quickly lose all perspective/hard-earned wisdom and instead complain about some person or procedure that was not good enough? Yikes. Discontent starts to sound too familiar.
Then there is my personal favorite, Jonah, who was the most reluctant prophet and worker of good perhaps in the whole Bible. Even when wildly successful in saving the people of Nineveh, he still didn’t experience contentment. Jonah was a classic whiner. A current example might be receiving generous gifts from friends, yet not feeling grateful because we are unable to take in that love. Or a highly successful author who complains about having to write a book a year. As for me, even when I‘ve received a lot in my life, I desire more and I need to be reminded again and again to be grateful for what I do have. Ever been there?
Underneath being discontent; perhaps holy discontent?
Let’s start first with unpacking discontent. I think there are at least two kinds of discontent. One is the kind I described, that of not feeling grateful for or even aware of all that has been bestowed on us. Or longing for more when what we already have is better than what we would gain if we got what we think would make us happy. This happens at all levels of society. We get what we want, and it makes us temporarily happy but fades, or even makes things worse. I’m not talking about abject poverty or homelessness since even the basics are not met in these circumstances. However, I’ve met several homeless people who seem more content or at least more grateful than many people. We have much to learn about the gift of joy!
The other kind of discontent comes when we are in a situation (or with a person or group) that is not only unhealthy but may be dangerous for our physical, mental, spiritual, or emotional health. We can feel imprisoned in this relationship since even to talk about it or to leave feels unsafe. But the discontent that we feel so keenly and project so unwisely, is likely the signal to us that we need to seriously consider our own selves first, no matter what others think. The discontent is inviting or perhaps requiring us to act in our own self-interest. Yet often fear or shame overrides our safety. This can occur in marriages, in work settings or even in churches. It’s the worst kind of discontent and it is the hardest to change. But when it is addressed, it is always transforming.
There is a sacred call that I think is part of our discontent. That’s why I think of it as divine discontent. Like the Israelites and Jonah there is something else happening here that is asking for a deeper healing and a deeper connection with God, the Holy or our Higher Power. But we need to go deeper into or under the discontent to see what that divine call is.
Underneath the surface of discontent is usually, in my life and those I see in my spiritual direction practice, the more insidious emotion of shame. The discontent is a camouflage for the emotion of shame. Shame states that who we are is impaired or flawed or unlovable. And that nothing can be done about it. Shame differs from guilt in that guilt is related to things we do that we are sorry for or for which we need to apologize. In shame we fear we can’t apologize or make amends because our flaws are who we are. This is a very deep and isolating lie, but it is a lie that we often believe. Brene Brown has written extensively (my favorite is Daring Greatly) about healing shame as has Kurt Thompson (The Soul of Shame) but suffice it to say, with time and loving attention and courageous honesty, we can heal shame. And release it.
In my life I hit a wall of shame when I realized that although I had quite a bit of what life would consider a cause for contentment, I felt deep discontent inside. I even wrote a poem about it called The Good Life. I listed things I’d gotten; the house I wanted, the work I loved, travel I enjoyed. Yet I had gotten myself into an untenable primary relationship that was thwarting my emotional health and my spiritual sustenance. It affected everything on that list in a depleting way. I didn’t even know what shame was, but I was projecting my unhealed history onto others, onto my good life and onto myself. The triggering event that caused me to wake-up was two-fold. First, I had a serious muscle spasm that landed me in the emergency room. It was my body’s way of warning me not to dive into this ocean of discontent. Yet I knew at a deep level that I had to. Second, I had a dream that I was inside a locked and burning box car traveling in a figure eight, the symbol for infinity. On the outside of the box car was a sign with my mother’s name on it. She had died young while herself in an untenable primary relationship. So, I knew I had to do something about this. And I did. I’ve written details about that elsewhere but essentially, I had to deal with shame and the fear that attends it in my unhealed relationship with my parents, with my partner, but also and more importantly, with God.
As a spiritual director, I sense something even deeper than shame that we need to also address for healing, at least for people who profess to believe in a Higher Power. That “something deeper” is that we do not believe that God loves us, that we are lovable, that God created us in love, or that God is a loving presence in our lives. Our image of God is unhealthy or even flawed, and until we find a way to heal that image, we will have a hard time healing our shame or our discontent. This takes time and intention—and courage and self-reflection. It takes a lot of undoing, of finding out where those beliefs took root in our lives and who watered and fed them; not to condemn those people but to realize how we got so caught in the shame, false belief, and prison of discontent.
In summary,
*Shame resides within us as does discontent—so we need to start there.
*Our relationship with and image of God is what is flawed, not us.
*God created us in God’s image and continues to see us that way.
*God loves us unconditionally, no exceptions.
*We are all lovable. No exceptions.
A few ideas for mending our leaking buckets, for finding our “enoughness”
I will focus on the spiritual aspects of mending our buckets by citing a few people and ideas that have revived my soul and have helped me mend my leaking bucket, to find my own “enoughness” in God.
Teresa of Avila, a nun and prioress in fifteenth century Spain, lived during the Inquisition. She is my favorite teacher on this topic of inner discontent. She was part Jewish, so she had to be very careful because the Inquisitors who suspected and interrogated her were very dangerous. When she opened a new house for her sisters, she had to do it in the dead of night or risk the possibility that she would be detained from her work. So, she knew what she was talking about when she shared some wisdom about finding contentment.
Teresa has written a lot about finding contentment during chaos (The Life of Teresa of Jesus and The Interior Castle). My favorite idea of hers (and the one that has made the most difference for me) is that although things and people will cause a lot of trouble, God is sufficient for me. In Spanish it reads “Solo Dios Basta” or only God suffices. The story goes that as she walked briskly down that halls of her convent she would mutter, “basta, basta, basta.” I do that myself now!
Another idea that helps me is to believe that we are all chosen and sent to this earth to be or do something that only we can do or be. No matter our lot in life, we are all special in some way and we thwart that to our own peril. So how do we discover what that is? Consider that we all have “sealed orders” (our unique way of giving and receiving love and life). These were given to us before our birth (Jeremiah 1:5) as described by Matt, Dennis, and Sheila Linn in their books Sleeping with Bread and Healing the Purpose of Your Life. Just hearing this was inviting for me. Sitting with a good listener to ask that question of myself has been sheer gift, a healing gift. It has helped me to find my true north and to stay closer to my own lane. Though I still may hear, I no longer believe the not-enough or too-much messages that come my way. It helps me to applaud other people’s sealed orders. My sealed order, as I understand it, is to be a healer. One of the ways I serve as a healer is through essays like this. I enjoy making abstract ideas concrete with the help of a loving and humorous God.
Thomas Merton states this same idea in his own way. He invites us to ponder this truth. “If you want to identify me, ask me not where I live, or what I like to eat, or how I comb my hair. But ask me what I think I am living for in detail and ask me what I think is keeping me from living fully the thing I want to live for. Between these two answers you can determine the identity of any person” (Union Life, June, 1995).
What would you say are your sealed orders? Or what you are living for, in detail?
A fourth idea that has resulted in significant healing for me is to realize, as Henri Nouwen so wisely notes, that God or our Higher Power is our First Love, the love that is always present, never demanding and unusually accepting. Other loves on this earth, from family, friends, partners etc, are Second Love, the love that is significant, satisfying and embracing but that can never be totally free or unconditional. It may be utterly wonderful, but it just can’t equate to our First Love. When we ground ourselves in First Love then our discontent and shame are more likely to heal, and we will be neither not-enough nor too-much but just enough—always and forever. And one other thing I’ve noticed is that when I feel loved by God, I am invited to be my best self and to genuinely invest in the changes and amends that are most needed for my deep contentment, not because I am flawed but because I’m totally loved.
What might contentment or “enoughness” look like?
Let’s review how that original list of discontent might look like from a more healed or content stance. Enoughness allows for new options we might not have even thought of. These are just a few ideas. You might have a variety of other responses.
*My boss will never appreciate my gifts so I’m going to just slack off. (I think I’ll find another place in my life to use my gifts where they are appreciated so I don’t put so much weight on this job fulfilling me).
*God doesn’t think I’m worthy enough to listen to, so I’ll just bear this by myself. (I now know my worth comes from God’s unconditional love and it has nothing in common with my old version of God and myself. God cares for, listens and supports me).
*I get so annoyed with people who seem happy or joyful when I feel so unloved. (I have named my own sealed orders so I can be more appreciative of other people’s joy and gifts.)
*My kids don’t take care of me the way I expect them to. (I am learning that God will bring the people and the ways that will be best for my care, so I don’t put undue expectations on my children.)
*My parents don’t take care of me the way I want to be cared for. (My parents did their best to raise me and now I need to find other adults to be present to me in life-giving ways, for mutual nourishment.)
*I can’t find my niche because I don’t really belong anywhere. (The place I know I belong is with God and that is my niche. I trust God to show me who and where I can best connect here on earth. I am excited to find those people and places.)
*My partner will never turn out to be what I expected when we fell in love. (I realize in deep and wise ways that First Love will sustain me, so I don’t expect all my needs to be met by a partner. Now it is me, God, and my partner in a loving partnership.)
*I feel guilty when my creativity flows and I sense jealousy from others. (In my enoughess I accept my creativity and its flow when it arrives, and I realize I am here on earth to share that joy however it lands for others.)
*I’m in an abusive situation and I’m afraid to change because I may get hurt more. (I know now that God would not encourage me to stay in this abuse, so I am seeking resources to help me change the situation or leave. I trust the whole process to advocates and to God.)
May you find your own enoughness in yourself, in your spiritual life and on this earth.
May your mended bucket fill with refreshing Love that you can then pour out to others.
I leave you with the lyrics of a song that is my life song. The song is sewed on an icon in my studio where I am writing these words. It reminds me of what matters most, that my First Love will never let me go. The words may be old, but the message is forever new!
"O Love That Will Not Let Me Go"
O Love that will not let me go
I rest my weary soul in thee
I give thee back the life I owe
That in thine ocean depths its flow
May richer, fuller be
O light that followest all my way
I yield my flickering torch to thee
My heart restores its borrowed ray
That in thy sunshine's blaze its day
May brighter, fairer be
O Joy that seekest me through pain
I cannot close my heart to thee
I trace the rainbow through the rain
And feel the promise is not vain
That morn shall tearless be
George Matheson (1842-1906)
Janet O. Hagberg, 2023. Please pass this along.
Do you ever feel as if you aren’t enough? Not good enough. Not smart enough. Not thin enough. Not young enough. Not old enough. Not successful enough. Not strong enough. Not athletic enough. Not wise enough. Not spiritual enough.
Or do you have the opposite issue, that you are too much? Too strong. Too smart. Too large. Too intense. Too creative. Too quiet. Too energetic. Too sensitive. I could go on and on. You fill in the blanks for yourself. I have been both in my life depending on the situation, but I’ve more often been deemed too much. When I was younger, I noticed that I was like a thermometer for people. When they felt good about themselves, they felt good about me and when they didn’t feel good about themselves, who I was brought out their dislike. That revelation was painful.
We all probably have feelings of not-enough or too-much, and perhaps more of one than the other. This can lead to inner turmoil and self-judgment. Our culture, and even our families or friends can feed into this but ultimately, I’ve found they are just feeding what we already feel within the stuck place of our own making. The “stuckness” of not-enough or too-much.
A classic rock song by the Rolling Stones gives voice to this feeling that we may all share about how we have gotten stuck in dissatisfaction. Let’s recall some of the lyrics. Sing along rockers!
I can’t get no satisfaction
I can’t get no satisfaction
‘Cause I try and I try and I try and I try
I can’t get no, I can’t get no
When I’m driving in my car
And that man comes on the radio
And he’s telling me more and more
About some useless information
Supposed to fire my imagination
I can’t get no, oh no, no, no!
Hey hey, hey! That’s what I’ll say
I can’t get no satisfaction
I can’t get no satisfaction
‘Cause I try and I try and I try and I try
I can’t get no, I can’t get no
I sense, at least for me and those I work with in spiritual direction, that the issue of not-enough or too-much comes to a head in a feeling of dissatisfaction or discontent. I happen to like the word discontent. It feels like it has a divine connection somehow to healing. More on that later. The opposite is feeling content. That word harkens back to spiritual teachings about what a deep life looks like, because when we are content, we lack nothing, no matter what we have or don’t have. That feels like healing to me. We can easily though, get stuck in being discontent with ourselves and with others. We might project our discontent outward by blaming or shaming others, or inward through self-negating. And if we don’t get the contentment we desire from within or from others we can easily blame God as well. The result can be that the harder we try to alleviate discontent, especially through surface fixes, the worse it can get. It’s like a vicious circle that keeps spiraling until we either give up or we go deeper in search of the source.
When we are with people (or ourselves) who are discontent it is a draining experience. It might feel like the energy in our bodies is seeping slowly out the bottom of our feet. Even holding a conversation is enervating, like sapping the joy out of a happy time. There is always something wrong, something that could be fixed, something that wasn’t up to par. It’s like the adage, my bucket’s got a hole in it. It feels like our life energy is seeping or dripping slowly out of our bucket. When we are stuck, I wonder if maybe we aren’t ready or aren’t able to repair the bucket.
Perhaps a few expressions from our discontented selves will serve to remind us of that turmoil.
*My boss will never appreciate my gifts so I’m going to just slack off.
*God doesn’t think I’m worthy enough to listen to, so I’ll just bear this by myself.
*I get so annoyed with people who seem happy or joyful when I feel so unloved.
*My kids don’t take care of me the way I want them to.
*My parents don’t take care of me the way I want to be cared for.
*I can’t find my niche because I don’t really belong anywhere.
*My partner will never turn out to be what I expected when we fell in love.
*I feel guilty when my creativity flows, and I sense jealousy from others.
*I’m in an abusive situation and I’m afraid to change because I may get hurt more.
A long history of feeling discontent.
This feeling of discontent is far from new. It goes way back into history. The Israelites, bless them for their true humanity, complained and were discontent no matter what happened. They were in bondage in Egypt and finally won their freedom, after numerous interventions from Moses. They were barely through the famous Red Sea miracle of rescue when they began to complain about not getting the preferred food they wanted on their sojourn. They even suggested going back to Egypt. They attacked Moses who had risked his life to save them. They even rejected God, their other rescuer, by building their own golden calf to worship. Have you or someone you know ever been rescued from an abusive relationship, a serious illness, a stale job, or a toxic environment only to quickly lose all perspective/hard-earned wisdom and instead complain about some person or procedure that was not good enough? Yikes. Discontent starts to sound too familiar.
Then there is my personal favorite, Jonah, who was the most reluctant prophet and worker of good perhaps in the whole Bible. Even when wildly successful in saving the people of Nineveh, he still didn’t experience contentment. Jonah was a classic whiner. A current example might be receiving generous gifts from friends, yet not feeling grateful because we are unable to take in that love. Or a highly successful author who complains about having to write a book a year. As for me, even when I‘ve received a lot in my life, I desire more and I need to be reminded again and again to be grateful for what I do have. Ever been there?
Underneath being discontent; perhaps holy discontent?
Let’s start first with unpacking discontent. I think there are at least two kinds of discontent. One is the kind I described, that of not feeling grateful for or even aware of all that has been bestowed on us. Or longing for more when what we already have is better than what we would gain if we got what we think would make us happy. This happens at all levels of society. We get what we want, and it makes us temporarily happy but fades, or even makes things worse. I’m not talking about abject poverty or homelessness since even the basics are not met in these circumstances. However, I’ve met several homeless people who seem more content or at least more grateful than many people. We have much to learn about the gift of joy!
The other kind of discontent comes when we are in a situation (or with a person or group) that is not only unhealthy but may be dangerous for our physical, mental, spiritual, or emotional health. We can feel imprisoned in this relationship since even to talk about it or to leave feels unsafe. But the discontent that we feel so keenly and project so unwisely, is likely the signal to us that we need to seriously consider our own selves first, no matter what others think. The discontent is inviting or perhaps requiring us to act in our own self-interest. Yet often fear or shame overrides our safety. This can occur in marriages, in work settings or even in churches. It’s the worst kind of discontent and it is the hardest to change. But when it is addressed, it is always transforming.
There is a sacred call that I think is part of our discontent. That’s why I think of it as divine discontent. Like the Israelites and Jonah there is something else happening here that is asking for a deeper healing and a deeper connection with God, the Holy or our Higher Power. But we need to go deeper into or under the discontent to see what that divine call is.
Underneath the surface of discontent is usually, in my life and those I see in my spiritual direction practice, the more insidious emotion of shame. The discontent is a camouflage for the emotion of shame. Shame states that who we are is impaired or flawed or unlovable. And that nothing can be done about it. Shame differs from guilt in that guilt is related to things we do that we are sorry for or for which we need to apologize. In shame we fear we can’t apologize or make amends because our flaws are who we are. This is a very deep and isolating lie, but it is a lie that we often believe. Brene Brown has written extensively (my favorite is Daring Greatly) about healing shame as has Kurt Thompson (The Soul of Shame) but suffice it to say, with time and loving attention and courageous honesty, we can heal shame. And release it.
In my life I hit a wall of shame when I realized that although I had quite a bit of what life would consider a cause for contentment, I felt deep discontent inside. I even wrote a poem about it called The Good Life. I listed things I’d gotten; the house I wanted, the work I loved, travel I enjoyed. Yet I had gotten myself into an untenable primary relationship that was thwarting my emotional health and my spiritual sustenance. It affected everything on that list in a depleting way. I didn’t even know what shame was, but I was projecting my unhealed history onto others, onto my good life and onto myself. The triggering event that caused me to wake-up was two-fold. First, I had a serious muscle spasm that landed me in the emergency room. It was my body’s way of warning me not to dive into this ocean of discontent. Yet I knew at a deep level that I had to. Second, I had a dream that I was inside a locked and burning box car traveling in a figure eight, the symbol for infinity. On the outside of the box car was a sign with my mother’s name on it. She had died young while herself in an untenable primary relationship. So, I knew I had to do something about this. And I did. I’ve written details about that elsewhere but essentially, I had to deal with shame and the fear that attends it in my unhealed relationship with my parents, with my partner, but also and more importantly, with God.
As a spiritual director, I sense something even deeper than shame that we need to also address for healing, at least for people who profess to believe in a Higher Power. That “something deeper” is that we do not believe that God loves us, that we are lovable, that God created us in love, or that God is a loving presence in our lives. Our image of God is unhealthy or even flawed, and until we find a way to heal that image, we will have a hard time healing our shame or our discontent. This takes time and intention—and courage and self-reflection. It takes a lot of undoing, of finding out where those beliefs took root in our lives and who watered and fed them; not to condemn those people but to realize how we got so caught in the shame, false belief, and prison of discontent.
In summary,
*Shame resides within us as does discontent—so we need to start there.
*Our relationship with and image of God is what is flawed, not us.
*God created us in God’s image and continues to see us that way.
*God loves us unconditionally, no exceptions.
*We are all lovable. No exceptions.
A few ideas for mending our leaking buckets, for finding our “enoughness”
I will focus on the spiritual aspects of mending our buckets by citing a few people and ideas that have revived my soul and have helped me mend my leaking bucket, to find my own “enoughness” in God.
Teresa of Avila, a nun and prioress in fifteenth century Spain, lived during the Inquisition. She is my favorite teacher on this topic of inner discontent. She was part Jewish, so she had to be very careful because the Inquisitors who suspected and interrogated her were very dangerous. When she opened a new house for her sisters, she had to do it in the dead of night or risk the possibility that she would be detained from her work. So, she knew what she was talking about when she shared some wisdom about finding contentment.
Teresa has written a lot about finding contentment during chaos (The Life of Teresa of Jesus and The Interior Castle). My favorite idea of hers (and the one that has made the most difference for me) is that although things and people will cause a lot of trouble, God is sufficient for me. In Spanish it reads “Solo Dios Basta” or only God suffices. The story goes that as she walked briskly down that halls of her convent she would mutter, “basta, basta, basta.” I do that myself now!
Another idea that helps me is to believe that we are all chosen and sent to this earth to be or do something that only we can do or be. No matter our lot in life, we are all special in some way and we thwart that to our own peril. So how do we discover what that is? Consider that we all have “sealed orders” (our unique way of giving and receiving love and life). These were given to us before our birth (Jeremiah 1:5) as described by Matt, Dennis, and Sheila Linn in their books Sleeping with Bread and Healing the Purpose of Your Life. Just hearing this was inviting for me. Sitting with a good listener to ask that question of myself has been sheer gift, a healing gift. It has helped me to find my true north and to stay closer to my own lane. Though I still may hear, I no longer believe the not-enough or too-much messages that come my way. It helps me to applaud other people’s sealed orders. My sealed order, as I understand it, is to be a healer. One of the ways I serve as a healer is through essays like this. I enjoy making abstract ideas concrete with the help of a loving and humorous God.
Thomas Merton states this same idea in his own way. He invites us to ponder this truth. “If you want to identify me, ask me not where I live, or what I like to eat, or how I comb my hair. But ask me what I think I am living for in detail and ask me what I think is keeping me from living fully the thing I want to live for. Between these two answers you can determine the identity of any person” (Union Life, June, 1995).
What would you say are your sealed orders? Or what you are living for, in detail?
A fourth idea that has resulted in significant healing for me is to realize, as Henri Nouwen so wisely notes, that God or our Higher Power is our First Love, the love that is always present, never demanding and unusually accepting. Other loves on this earth, from family, friends, partners etc, are Second Love, the love that is significant, satisfying and embracing but that can never be totally free or unconditional. It may be utterly wonderful, but it just can’t equate to our First Love. When we ground ourselves in First Love then our discontent and shame are more likely to heal, and we will be neither not-enough nor too-much but just enough—always and forever. And one other thing I’ve noticed is that when I feel loved by God, I am invited to be my best self and to genuinely invest in the changes and amends that are most needed for my deep contentment, not because I am flawed but because I’m totally loved.
What might contentment or “enoughness” look like?
Let’s review how that original list of discontent might look like from a more healed or content stance. Enoughness allows for new options we might not have even thought of. These are just a few ideas. You might have a variety of other responses.
*My boss will never appreciate my gifts so I’m going to just slack off. (I think I’ll find another place in my life to use my gifts where they are appreciated so I don’t put so much weight on this job fulfilling me).
*God doesn’t think I’m worthy enough to listen to, so I’ll just bear this by myself. (I now know my worth comes from God’s unconditional love and it has nothing in common with my old version of God and myself. God cares for, listens and supports me).
*I get so annoyed with people who seem happy or joyful when I feel so unloved. (I have named my own sealed orders so I can be more appreciative of other people’s joy and gifts.)
*My kids don’t take care of me the way I expect them to. (I am learning that God will bring the people and the ways that will be best for my care, so I don’t put undue expectations on my children.)
*My parents don’t take care of me the way I want to be cared for. (My parents did their best to raise me and now I need to find other adults to be present to me in life-giving ways, for mutual nourishment.)
*I can’t find my niche because I don’t really belong anywhere. (The place I know I belong is with God and that is my niche. I trust God to show me who and where I can best connect here on earth. I am excited to find those people and places.)
*My partner will never turn out to be what I expected when we fell in love. (I realize in deep and wise ways that First Love will sustain me, so I don’t expect all my needs to be met by a partner. Now it is me, God, and my partner in a loving partnership.)
*I feel guilty when my creativity flows and I sense jealousy from others. (In my enoughess I accept my creativity and its flow when it arrives, and I realize I am here on earth to share that joy however it lands for others.)
*I’m in an abusive situation and I’m afraid to change because I may get hurt more. (I know now that God would not encourage me to stay in this abuse, so I am seeking resources to help me change the situation or leave. I trust the whole process to advocates and to God.)
May you find your own enoughness in yourself, in your spiritual life and on this earth.
May your mended bucket fill with refreshing Love that you can then pour out to others.
I leave you with the lyrics of a song that is my life song. The song is sewed on an icon in my studio where I am writing these words. It reminds me of what matters most, that my First Love will never let me go. The words may be old, but the message is forever new!
"O Love That Will Not Let Me Go"
O Love that will not let me go
I rest my weary soul in thee
I give thee back the life I owe
That in thine ocean depths its flow
May richer, fuller be
O light that followest all my way
I yield my flickering torch to thee
My heart restores its borrowed ray
That in thy sunshine's blaze its day
May brighter, fairer be
O Joy that seekest me through pain
I cannot close my heart to thee
I trace the rainbow through the rain
And feel the promise is not vain
That morn shall tearless be
George Matheson (1842-1906)
Janet O. Hagberg, 2023. Please pass this along.