Here in the Cowichan Valley on Vancouver Island we very rarely get snow. So when I saw the weather forecast calling for three days of snow I scoffed. It just doesn’t happen, and we had already gotten two whole days more than our usual over Christmas.

I was wrong to scoff, because what the weather network suggested appeared in real life as so much snow I couldn’t work outside for a week.

So much snow that my daughter had four days of school canceled. So much snow I let my car get snowed in because my tires are a little threadbare and the roads are so dangerous here when it’s snowy, mixed with rain and the temperatures hover just above and just below the freezing point.

Mother nature went on a rampage, and I imagine that although the water table will be positively affected this summer, it does feel like this weather is a harbinger of dysregulation in our weather patterns.

There are other ways in which the weather has been changing. By which, I mean my own internal weather systems. The ways in which my thoughts and emotions exist, storm, calm and swirl around.

Last week I was very blessed to have an old and beloved friend come for a visit from the Yukon – with her daughter, who is a former classmate of my daughter’s – over this stormy snowy time period. What I thought would be a sweet little visit, punctuated by my work and their exploring plans, turned into a few lazy lingering coffee and wine filled days of catching up, chatting and general enjoyment of company.

Another friend, who has been using my bodywork studio for her acupuncture practice, came and went from our space, and I felt such a lifting of spirits to have such wonderful women and vibrant teens around, with everyone content, comfortable and present.

Everyone was just being as they were, and being enough, in their own skins. Just, and simply, enough. Beautifully enough.

It catalyzed something in me and I’ve been having the most incredible experiences of enoughness lately; experiences which continue to reverberate.

On Being Enough

Or, how I know I’m getting there, because my reactions and responses to life are changing.

Because my daughter spent an evening looking at me in horror, alternating between asking what was wrong with me and whether I was ok, simply because I felt extremely relaxed and happy and was commenting on the delightful things happening all around us (in our living room.)

Because I took a walk to get some paper at Staples, and when I had my usual impulse to buy candy at the cash register (peanut M&Ms), I couldn’t. Because I looked at the M&Ms and kept asking myself if getting the M&Ms would contribute to a sense of enoughness in me, and each time the answer was no, so I simply couldn’t get them.

Because as I was walking in the snow, I pulled out my phone so I could take a picture of the footprints. I planned to post this snowy picture on instagram, and the second my thoughts started composing a story to go along with the photos I’d taken, my head asked: ‘why are you doing this? Will composing a story about something you’re going to do in the future contribute to a sense of enoughness right now?’ My answer was such a clear no I had to drop the storytelling in my head, and return my focus to the snow, the street, and everything that was around me, as it was.

Because for years and years I’ve automatically looked at myself in mirrors and reflective surfaces. It’s a scrutinizing reflex, and it’s a cruel one – I’m often seeking a sense of acceptability, scrutinizing myself to determine whether I’m attractive enough, stylish enough, anything enough, but never good enough (in my own mind).

But lately when I catch a glimpse of the reflective surfaces as I’m walking by them, I don’t automatically look and assess myself. Instead, my brain leaps in and says ‘will this contribute to a sense of enoughness?’ And, the answer is always always always no. The only exception was when I was on my way in to Staples to get paper, and I saw the reflective of my legs in tights and I thought, with no self-consciousness, ‘damn! I’ve got great legs!’

Because everytime I go to check my e-mail and facebook my head now asks me whether I’m checking out of a genuine need, or from a sense of ‘not enoughness.’ Nine times out of ten, it’s because I’m not feeling enough. Once I know this, I can’t check it.

Because everytime I go to look at amazing Instagrammers and read articles online, I am asked again, internally, whether this choice has to do with feeling like I’m not enough.

Because I pared the Instagrammers I follow down from 400+ to just 70ish. The main reason being that I’m so tired of ‘admiring’ people at the expense of my own regard.

Because when I admire people too excessively, I’ve noticed there’s a secret comparison going on, and I’m always falling short. And once I fall short in my own mind, it starts spinning it’s gears trying to figure out what these amazing people have that I haven’t, and then it starts spinning into covert plans for working harder and self-improvement and I just can’t do this anymore.

I just can’t imagine myself as someone who is not enough.

It’s finally clicked and now, I’m enough. And if I’m not always right there in the enoughness, well, I’m approaching this state often.

Not only am I finally sitting in the very different space of feeling like I’m enough, exactly as I am, exactly where I am, not only am I sitting in this very foreign stew of okayness, but when I start slipping into old thought patterns, my bodypsyche starts humming internally in the most uncomfortable of vibrations, and my head pops up asking questions about my motives, and whether I’m making choices about being enough or not, until I step back away from old thought patterns, and the dissonant hum diminishes.

This state of enoughness, it’s new. It’s almost disorienting because as I’m sitting in a space of deep presence more and more I’m also witnessing how much my ego likes the identity of someone who thinks.

I’m relying less on my thinking processes these days and more on a sense of wonder, an intuition, and acceptance of what is.

I’ts fascinating to watch how much my ego doesn’t like this state of being, it has many judgments about it, and honestly, I don’t really care much for my ego and it’s ideas anymore.

I’m learning how to enjoy this ‘enoughness’ instead.

If you long for this state of being enough I can help.

Personal Mythmaking starts on February 20th. It’s an 11-week course and circle for women who are longing to feel so deeply rooted in a sense of enoughness that they will be unruffled by life’s circumstances.

For those who know they’re enough, but want to experience it. Embody it. Live it.

We investigate, inquire, ask questions and learn to inhabit our bodies.

Our 11 weeks together mix weekly themes (such as language, culture, ancestors, body image, place and physical environment, heroes and villains and more) with playful storytelling/fairytales, embodied anatomy prompts, creative writing prompts and videocalls until, by the end of it, you’ll also have written a surprising, beautiful, optimistic and glorious story/memoir of yourself and your life.

Personal Mythmaking is a small and intimate course (no more than 20 people), in which I’m devoted to providing you with tools and skills with which to awaken your own inner knowing, your creativity, and your connection to your body.

If you have questions, please get in touch.

Or, if you’re curious about signing on but want answers, I’m also happy to chat (free, of course) via telephone or skype.

I have partial scholarships available and I’m also happy to set up payment plans for you, please just ask. And, if the timing doesn’t work for this round, we’re gathering again in August.