Not quite feeling enough

I’ve been meditating most mornings for well over ten years. I started long ago because I wanted to find a way to calm my whirlwind of a mind, to soothe myself and bring down my stress levels. Along with my daily gratitude journalling it’s probably the most impactful practice I’ve built into my life.

My sweet spot is ten minutes but there have been periods where I’ve meditated for less than five minutes, other times when it’s been 20 minutes and plenty of occasions where I skipped it completely. I’ve gone through phases of following guided meditations, being in silence or chanting out loud.

For the past two or three years I’ve added a message I say out loud to myself at the end of the meditation. It’s a sort of affirmation to round off the meditation and to start the day.

The first line is:

When I came up with this line I was completely unaware of my ADHD. But, as I now realise, something within me knew and knew the message I needed to take on board. It’s what I really wanted to understand and believe, to take it to heart each and every day. And I also now realise that it’s a message so many of us who have gone through decades of our lives not feeling enough while living with unrecognised ADHD need too.

So let’s break it down.

“I am enough, whole and complete” – the world tells us, in many ways, from many different directions, that we aren’t enough. That we need to behave in the expected way, be productive, be like this person, do this thing, think this way, feel this way… and only then will we be enough. Only then will we feel like we’re a whole and complete person.

Yet, because we’re each individual human beings AND our brains don’t work in the narrow, neurotypical, prescribed way society says they ought to, we’re never going to measure up and so we’ll never feel enough.

The message is you’re not enough, whole or complete without ticking boxes laid out for you by other people, by society.

When the truth is that you’re enough right now – “Just as I am in this moment and always have been”. You were born a whole and complete person – yes, your neurodivergence included – and you have been every day since.

You can learn and grow, in fact you’re more likely to because of your insatiable curiosity. But, this is an important but, if you get overwhelmed by too many choices on your to do list you’re still enough.

If you struggle to get yourself to do simple stuff like the washing-up or drinking water you’re still a whole person.

If you get super excited about something and then soon after lose all interest you’re still complete.

If you don’t look, sound, behave or live like others want you to you are still enough, whole and complete.

You were as a little girl, as a teenager, as a young woman and as the person you are now, whatever contradictory messages you were given from the people around you or society at large.

“And there is nothing that I, or anyone else, can say or do that will change that”– it’s a fact that you are enough and it isn’t up for debate. Really, I’m serious.

You can tell yourself that you need to be this or do that and it doesn’t change the fact that you are already enough, whole and complete.

Someone else can say that you should do this or be more that and it still doesn’t change the fact that you are already enough, whole and complete.

You can berate yourself and it still doesn’t change the fact that you are already enough, whole and complete.

Someone else can treat you unkindly and it still doesn’t change the fact that you are already enough, whole and complete.

Believing wholeheartedly that we are enough, whole and complete, just as we are in this moment and always have been, and there is nothing that we, or anyone else, can say or do that will change that is incredibly important.

Because for so many of us this was not a message, an understanding, a belief that we were given when we were younger, when we needed it.

For a moment let those words sink in. What does approaching life from this place allow you to do? How does it open you up?

What would you do if you knew that the result doesn’t affect your intrinsic value and worth as a person?

What would you say? How would you be?

This sentence is not a magic formula for instant self-confidence. It can’t miraculously erase the myriad verbal papercuts you’ve endured through the years when you’ve felt too much and not enough for just being you. But, sitting with this new perspective, repeating and reminding yourself of it regularly is a much kinder, supportive and truer message than you’ve received in the past.

What you say to yourself matters because you’re always listening, even if you’re not fully aware of it. All the mean, critical things you say to yourself soak in so how about you try saying something more supportive for a change? In time, these words can create a real and powerful shift, I know it has for me.

So, when you say out loud to yourself: “I am enough, whole and complete, just as I am in this moment and always have been, and there is nothing that I, or anyone else, can say or do that will change that” how does it feel? What comes up for you? I’d love to know in the comments below.