you are enough.
hey sole sister,
How’s your heart? Have you taken any time to sit with your experiences lately? Process them? Feel them? Investigate what they mean?
Let’s talk about balance…. That age-old term that everyone wants so desperately, and few are willing to put in the hard work for. And I mean h.a.r.d. w.o.r.k. That sneaky little word that shames every mother into thinking that they can’t do it all, that career driven woman who is set out to conquer the world, the go-getter who can “absolutely stay for a few hours extra at work to finish the project.” And the next one. And the next one. And the next one after that. That word that we are ashamed to say out loud that we are trying to maintain for the sake of our own sanity, because somewhere along the way we believed that if we were fighting for balance, then we weren’t good enough. We weren’t driven enough. We didn’t make the mark. We weren’t enough. Period.
Somewhere along the way we believed a lie. Then, we built our careers on it. Our motherhood approaches. Our comparison game. Our relationships, friendships, marriages, etc. Somewhere along the way our motive changed from “do your best” to “be the best.” From “finish your milk” to “buy the cow, milk it, seal it, distribute it, consume it, repeat.” And the most egregious part? We believed it. What happens in a structure like this is that the foundation of our lives gets built on the approval of an outside party being the judge of our enough-ness. So much so that we measure like this:
People who are “enough”: clean home, exercise daily (and it better be yoga or pilates, something real cute and then brunch after with drinks, because what else would you Instagram?), hair/makeup done, kids bathed, those clean kids clothed in beautifully matching outfits, a job with flexible hours that pays top dollar for your salary, excessive vacation days, college education, graduate degree, doctorate degree, CEO, CFO, or any other C_O, a kind and loving spouse who adores you at every moment of your perfect little day, a spouse or significant other at all, a harmonious relationship at that, etc. You get the point.
People who are “not enough”: everyone else.
What if we were to take our freaking power back and change the scale? The scale on which we often measure enough-ness is i.m.p.o.s.s.i.b.l.e. (shout out, Shontelle). I mean look at that list! And that’s only a few of the things upon which we measure. So take yourself off the scale. Let’s rewrite it. What if two things were true? What if you were to have a messy house AND be enough? What if you were to have gotten into a “I hate everything” type of fight with your significant other yesterday AND you are enough? What if you didn’t pass an exam that could have dictated the trajectory of your career AND you are still just as enough as you were before the exam? What if your enough-ness was not even on this scale at all? What if it is actually immeasurable? What if your enough-ness just exists because YOU exist?
You are enough. In fact, when we function out of our inherent enough-ness, it is there that it is easier to swallow, process, and cope with the ups and downs that life throws at us. God never promised us an easy way out of life. He promised that He would never leave or forsake us. He promised that He will work all things together for the good of those who love Him. So let’s lean in. Let’s find our balance.
I had a friend once share with me a picture she believed God gave to her about balance. In a season where she had many, many demands on her life academically speaking and she was adding other personally fueling and grounding activities to her schedule where she was able, despite the obvious logistical challenges with that considering her time commitment to her schooling/researching. She had people and mentors telling her she needed to take some things off her plate. It just didn’t sit right with her. She felt like God gave her this picture of a scale. She saw that there were two ways to balance the scale.
1. Take off from one side of the scale.
2. Add on to the other side.
What is God asking of you? Are there responsibilities that are necessary for you to let go of for the sake of balance? Are there things you simply need to add into your life and make room for, so your life-scale is more balanced?
Let’s find our balance today. Let’s fight really hard for it. And let’s believe together that when we fight for balance, we are advocating for our enough-ness and that is a worthy cause.
You are worth fighting for, sole sister, even if you are the one that has to do the fighting.
Love you mean it,
Cat
