What if being me is enough?

On belonging, relationships, being enough, and the possibility that we don't have to earn our place here...

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What if being me were enough?

What if this moment, right now, were enough?

What if all that is available to me, now, is enough?

I've been mulling these questions over lately, alongside all sorts of thoughts about relationship, how we meet one another, and how we meet ourselves.

And today, with the New Moon in Libra, feels like a good moment to sit with them. Libra, relationship, balance... how we find our way with one another, especially when things aren't quite as we'd like them to be.

I've been thinking about what helps us feel secure in our relationships. Dr Sue Johnson, who developed Emotionally Focused Therapy, uses three words to describe something of what makes a relationship feel secure.

A.R.E.: Accessibility, Responsiveness, Engagement.

Are you there for me? Can I reach you?

Will you respond to what matters to me?

Do I matter to you?

Such simple questions, and yet...

I wonder how early we begin to learn the answers. Long before we have words, we're already experiencing relationship. Is there room for me? Can I reach for someone? Am I met? Is my coming welcome?

And what happens when those early experiences leave their mark? We find ways of protecting ourselves, of staying close or pulling away. We carry these ways of being into our relationships, often without realising it. We can long for connection and, at the same time, find ourselves doing the very things that make connection harder.

This takes me back to something I was exploring in my work over the summer, how rupture can begin long before we think of it as rupture. Sometimes it's not the argument or the obvious moment of disconnection. Sometimes it's much quieter. That moment I turn away from you, or from myself. Close a little. Disconnect.

And I wonder what might happen if we could notice these moments, without immediately making ourselves wrong for them.

Not everything needs fixing in that moment. Perhaps sometimes we just need to notice what's happening, pause, and see what else might be possible.

A little New Moon practice, if it feels useful...

Bring to mind a relationship that matters to you. It might be with someone you love, or with yourself.

And gently wonder:

Where do I feel met here?

Where might I be longing for something more?

Is there something small I could offer, or ask for?

And then perhaps just pause, without needing to do anything with the answers straight away.

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I came across this quote from Eckhart Tolle the other day, through my daily quote on Insight Timer:

“Acknowledging the good that you already have in your life is the foundation for all abundance.”

And then, around the same time, my  Traditional Chinese Medicine doctor was reminding me that we all need to practise gratitude more.

It's stayed with me, and I've been mulling it over...

Recently, I spent time with four generations loved ones, including my tiny great-niece, who is just three months old. And there is something about being with a baby that brings me back to the simplicity of being.

She doesn't need to achieve anything. She doesn't need to be useful, or become someone, or prove that she deserves her place here.

She is here.

And I found myself thinking about our elders, too. How easily we can begin to overlook someone's value when they can no longer do all the things they once did. When being useful, capable, productive starts to matter more than simply being.

And I wonder when we begin to learn that we have to do something to be something. To be good enough, helpful enough, successful enough. To earn our place.

I know how easily I can get caught up in that myself.

Yet what if our worth isn't something we have to create? What if there is something much more fundamental about us that doesn't need to be earned at all?

I keep coming back to this sense of being welcome. Not necessarily feeling safe all the time, because of course our experiences shape us, and there are times when we have very real reasons to feel unsafe. But something deeper than that. A knowing, perhaps, that our existence itself is not an error that needs correcting. That we belong, even when our experiences have taught us otherwise.

I wonder what it would be like to live from there...

And what might change in our relationships if we weren't always trying to prove our worth, protect ourselves from being found wanting, or make ourselves into someone more acceptable?

I don't mean that we stop tending to the things that hurt, or that gratitude means overlooking what isn't right. Some things need to change. Some things need boundaries, grief, or a different kind of care.

But can we hold that alongside an appreciation for what is here, too? The difficulty and the goodness. What needs our attention and what is already alive between us.

I find myself thinking about the scales of Libra, and what balance might actually mean. Not everything being as we'd like it to be, or everything sitting in perfect balance... but perhaps enough room for what's here, including our differences.

These are some of the things I'm finding myself wanting to explore more deeply over the coming winter. I'm feeling into the possibility of gathering three people for a small, supported exploration of relationship and what it means to experience more security, both within ourselves and with those we love.

Each person would bring their own questions, perhaps around a particular relationship, perhaps around their relationship with themselves. I'm imagining meeting over four or five months, with space to explore, to be witnessed, and to learn from one another along the way.

I haven't worked out all the details yet. I'm letting the idea take shape, and would love to hear from you if something in it speaks to you.

For now, though, I'm sitting with those first questions again.

What if being me were enough?

What if this moment, right now, were enough?

And what might I notice, if I could meet myself, and the people around me, with a little more welcome?

With love,

Fayenen