The Not Enoughness. A Poem.

When I found out I wasn’t enough it awoke a sleeping giant of not enoughness.  

A tidal wave.  

Smile more, they said.  

Say more.  

Do more.  

Be more.  

Because you’re not enough.   

The world of not enoughness told me this.  

Told me loudly.  

Screamed it at me.  

I heard people talking.

About the not enoughness.  

Could they see it in me?  

Was it showing?  

Transparent?  

Seeping from me?  

I was living in a world of not enoughness but dying to be enough.  

I started hiding.  

Protecting.  

Not cultivating what lay beneath.  

Neglecting. 

Yearning to be released.  

To be known.  

Young people, we suffer.  

We’re bendable.  

Breakable.  

Words are daggers that leave scars bigger than the blade.  

Scars that take years, decades to heal once they’re made.

So we hide.  

Keep hiding.  

Hiding from the not enoughness to survive.  

We protect ourselves with food, with drugs.  

Lying to everyone.  

To life.    

Everyday entering the world as someone we don’t recognize.    

Losing contact with ourselves.  

Becoming someone we despise.  

Until one day… 

We decide that fighting the not enoughness isn’t enough either.  

That trying to be “fake enough” is not enough.  

That trying to be perfect has pushed us further from perfect.  

And that trying to be enough in a world of not enoughness is not enough.  

And a seed is planted.  

And as it’s roots take hold we begin to understand the truth.  

That we were in fact always enough.  

Long before we found out we weren’t enough we were enough.  

We were born into a world of enough before slowly being tricked.

Deceived.

Blinded into believing in what turns out to be a plague.

A contagious virus.

The not enoughness.  

But one we can overcome.  

One with a cure.  

One we can heal from.   

Once the seed is planted.  

It holds the blueprint for the truth.  

The antidote.  

That the world has always been enough and that everyone in it will always be enough.  

And the seed starts to grow.  

And once it’s growing it’s always growing.

Once it’s there it’s always there.

But it will grow painfully slow. 

The process is long.

And impossibly hard. 

But we tend to it.  

Feed it.  

Love it. 

Give it space.  

And time.  

Learn to know it.   

And before we know what’s happening the seed has sprouted.  

Then bloomed.  

And we bask in the sun and the light of enoughness.  

And we are full of life and full of joy.  

And we embrace all that we are and all that we've always been.  

And it is beautiful.   

And it is enough.