you are enough

“Sit down wherever you are

And listen to the wind singing in your veins.” ~ John Welwood

You are enough.

Is it fair to say that taking these three simple words to heart is one of life’s great challenges?

Lately, they’ve been giving me pause.

I’m near the end of a seven-month yoga training that’s tested me in ways I didn’t foresee when I signed on. Our small group of women meets for one long, intense weekend a month at the studio here in our town. Some are working toward becoming certified instructors. Others, like me, enrolled because it was a local opportunity to deepen our practice, to refresh our skills, and to read and study the philosophy of yoga and meditation with an inspiring teacher and some like-minded souls.

Early on, I realized that a large part of my own journey in this course would be about making peace with limitations. Two years after having both hips replaced, I’m able to walk and stretch and sit cross-legged without pain. In yoga class, though, I confront the edge of what’s possible. While my ego says, “Try harder, go deeper, be better,” my bionic joints offer a different message: “Be ok with where you are, breathe here, don’t push it.”

I can put myself into a deep lunge or forward fold, but the creepy popping sound of two artificial hips subluxating part way out of their sockets is a compelling reminder that no good can come of it. And so, I use blocks placed on the high end. I move slowly and with care. I practice transforming my desire for something more into gratitude for what is. The real challenge isn’t about lowering my thigh or my hands to the floor. It’s about finding a new way to work with that word enough.

But the inner dialogue doesn’t end with lunges and bends. Assigned a lengthy list of muscles and tendons to understand and memorize, I was surprised to observe how these unfamiliar words run through my brain like water through a sieve.   I can read and comprehend just about anything that’s in front of me. Take the printed page away, though, and ask me to recite any of it back, and there’s a kind of foggy sky where there was once a solid mental blackboard full of whatever I was supposed to know.

I don’t really think my mind is going, but it’s changing. Seven years ago when I did my own teacher training, I made flash cards and memorized the Sanskrit names of all the poses, the bodily systems, the basic anatomical terms. I don’t have to do all that again, thankfully. But could I, if I had to? I’m not so sure. Do I actually know enough to teach anyone anything? Can my mind be less than it once was and still be enough? And if I’m less capable in some areas, can I still be enough in others? Does being enough as I grow older include continually surrendering to diminishment, narrowing possibilities, and loss?

My deep sadness this winter at the sudden death of a life-long friend has been complicated by regret for not having been a better friend myself. I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve re-read our last email exchange, from the end of January, wondering how I could have failed to read between the lines, failed to realize how sick she was, failed to let her know how much she meant to me. I wrote her back, urging her to take care of herself. But I didn’t call. I didn’t jump on a plane to Santa Fe. I didn’t even write again the next day, or the next, to check in. And then she was gone.

“She always loved you best,” a mutual friend said recently. “You were an anchor for her,” said another. And also: “She spoke of you often.” “Your name always came up.” “What you two had was special.” All of these kind words, intended to console, only make me feel worse. I should have been there. I wasn’t.

You are enough? Oh no, I’m not. Not always. Sometimes it’s just so hard to live with our own damned humanness.

In recent days I’ve inadvertently offended a cherished friend, left a forgotten load of laundry to solidify into a wrinkled mass in the dryer, failed to read the book club book, and procrastinated once again on cleaning the basement, which I meant to do in January. I haven’t exercised or meditated or written anything (till now). I ate two entire crème brulees in one sitting. At night I lie awake beside my sleeping husband, restless, thinking about all the things I’d do differently if I could.

But. I have also been forgiven, with grace and kindness, by my friend. I’ve driven a neighbor to Boston and back for a doctors’ appointment, made a special dinner for my parents, written notes to loved ones, gone on a date with my husband, and had long heartfelt phone conversations with my kids. I can still iron those shirts. I can show up for book group and trust I’ll be welcomed anyway. I can take a walk, or sit in silence for twenty minutes, or make a first pass at the basement. Those crème brulees didn’t kill me or even matter in the grand scheme of things. Whatever I do, or fail to do, life goes on.

Before I flew to Nashville last month to interview Anna Quindlen, I prepared like the diligent English major I once was – as if I were going forth to teach a graduate seminar rather than to have an hour-long chat with her. I read (or re-read) the backlist, highlighter in hand, watched every interview she’s ever done, and filled about a hundred file cards with notes and questions, knowing all the while that when the time came I’d have to step out onto the stage without any of those crib sheets in my hand. (That brain-like-a-sieve thing had me worried, though, and I figured the more homework I did in advance, the more at ease I’d be in the moment.)

As it turned out, our conversation flowed readily. Small in size but large in stature, Anna is as warm and kind and funny in life as she is on the page. A kind of Rock Star/Normal Person, she is quite a commanding presence, completely self-assured yet also approachable. This, I sensed right away, is what “enough” looks like — a woman who is at home in her own skin and at home in the world.

And for that hour in front of the audience, I was “enough,” too. All those weeks spent reading and thinking and writing weren’t wasted. They’d made it possible for me, the quiet introvert from small-town New Hampshire, to be wired up with a microphone and engage in a lively, spontaneous chat with the Pulitzer Prize-winning, best-selling novelist from Manhattan.  Sometimes, for me, being enough means putting in the extra time and effort required to bring my very best self to the table.

At one point toward the end of our talk, I observed that Anna is, among so many other things, the queen of the commencement address. She’s given dozens of them over the years, full of candor, insight, and encouragement for those setting forth into their young adult lives. Reading through those speeches was enough to make me a bit envious of the thousands of students who’ve received her hard-won wisdom.

“I wish you could give a commencement speech to all of us who are entering our older adult lives,” I said. “Approaching sixty feels like its own right of passage, just with different questions and uncertainties. What do you have to say to those of us who are graduating out of middle age?”

Anna didn’t hesitate. “At a certain point in my fifties,” she said, “I woke up one morning and decided I was just done. I was done listening to all the negative voices in my head.  The voices that said, ‘You’re not pretty enough, or smart enough, or nice enough, or thin enough, or good enough.’ I realized that I am who I am — and I’m fine with that. I’m enough. And having that clear sense of myself, and that acceptance, completely freed me. I suddenly had a lot more time and energy to put into the things that matter. Like living my life and doing my work.

“The women I know in their sixties,” she went on, “they all rock. They’re doing exactly what they want to do, and they are enjoying life to the fullest, because they aren’t wasting any more precious time doubting themselves or doubting their worth.”

This insight was the real take-away, the gift of the few hours I spent hanging out with Anna Quindlen, both onstage and over a late dinner with Ann Patchett and my soul daughter Lauren: Life is a lot more interesting once we finally get over ourselves.

We can go on rehashing our familiar litanies of regrets, mistakes, and self-doubts. Or, we can put the tired old stories away, step into our own power, and have a fresh look around – for a way to be helpful right here and for something to be grateful for right now.  And guess what? The whole world glows a little brighter as soon as we lighten up and turn our gazes outward.

Being “enough,” it turns out, is a choice not an accomplishment. Being enough has nothing to do with our achievements and everything to do with our qualities. And so the conversation I want to have with myself these days isn’t “Am I enough?” but rather, “Am I being kind? Am I being honest? Am I being useful? Have I made the day a little easier or a little better for someone else?”

In a way, this intention lets me off the hook for all the things beyond my control – the wrinkles and forgetfulness and creaky joints; being shy and solitary by nature; feeling sad or anxious or less than confident. And it allows for my mistakes and failures, too, because being enough in no way means being perfect. It means both forgiving myself and making my own ordinary life be about something bigger than me.  It means starting where I am with what I have: this body, this temperament, this day, this task of being alive in the world — a world much in need of all the care and compassion and healing each one of us has to offer.

As so often happens when I (finally) do sit down at my desk, the universe provides a whisper of encouragement. Today it was the poem below, which appeared this week on the always wonderful and often magically serendipitous site First Sip. The lovely “You Are Enough” ladies are the paper-mache work of Nova Scotia artist Jane Creelman, an early Mother’s Day gift from Lauren which touched my heart and helped inspire these reflections. You can follow Jane on Instagram here. Finally, congratulations to reader Reena Roshgadol, who won the signed copy of Anna Quindlen’s Alternate Side. If you didn’t win, I hope you’ll treat yourself to this provocative novel in any case, and also to my all-time favorite book of Anna’s, Lots of Candles, Plenty of Cake. It’s the one I return to every time I need a dose of confidence, courage, or compassion.  (Just click on the titles to order via my affiliate link on Amazon.)

Sit down wherever you are

And listen to the wind singing in your veins.

Feel the love, the longing, the fear in your bones.

Open your heart to who you are, right now,

Not who you would like to be,

Not the saint you are striving to become,

But the being right here before you, inside you, around you.

All of you is holy.

You are already more and less

Than whatever you can know.

Breathe out,

Touch in,

Let go.

~ John Welwood

 

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