Enough

Whereever you go, go with all your heart. Confucious

Yesterday, I mentioned to several of my co-workers my encounter with 'Claire' on Saturday evening. They were delighted, happy, relieved to know she has surfaced and is alive and healing. Debbie, our assistant ED, asked, "Did she say what it was that made her choose to change?"

What makes any of us choose to leave behind the things that hurt us? To change the things we're doing that are causing us pain? To choose life over a living death?

When the pain of what we are living becomes greater than our fear of changing, we let go. When our fear of drowning swamps our fear of holding onto nothing, we start to swim. And when the pain of believing we are worthless becomes too great to bear, we surrender, and fall, in Love.

Like a ping pong ball being forced down into a glass of water, pain rises, over-flowing the container, rushing over our fear, setting us free to feel our spirit calling us to awaken, to gather up our wounded heart and swim away from the place that would have us believe, 'this is all there is'.

There is so much more.

To living. Loving. Being. Experiencing.

There is life. There is Love.

When I was with Conrad, the man who promised to love me 'til death do us part and took the death part way too seriously, I believed the pain of my existence with him was all there was, all I was worth, all I deserved.

And then, the police walked in and set me free and I discovered, I was wrong. That existence was not all there was. There was a world of wonder, of joy, of beauty on the other side of my fear that 'this is all there is'.

On that day in May, 2003, I could not have known what was about to unfold. All I knew was that I had told the Universe I could not take the pain of my existence any longer. And the Universe delivered. For months at the end of that relationship, I kept repeating, "I can't take this anymore." I kept telling myself I was at the end of my rope. I let my fingers slip along the rope, but I couldn't let go. I was hanging on by a thread, I wanted to let go, but my fear of falling was greater than the pain of my existence.

Thomas Jefferson once said, "When you reach the end of your rope, tie a knot in it and hang on."

Sometimes, all we have to hang on to is a thread. And that thread is all that holds us back from letting go.

In my mind, at the moment of that relationship, letting go meant ceasing to exist. It wasn't that I thought of 'death' as an out. It was that I simply did not want to exist. To be.

I thought if I could just let go, 'it' would all be over. The pain. The sorrow. The fear. The suffering. It would all be gone.

And then, I surrendered and let go and the Universe caught me and I fell, in Love.

And that was my awakening.

The Universe was always there, holding me up, supporting me, Loving me. It was me, causing my pain. The Universe wasn't to blame for where I was at. 'The bad man' wasn't to blame for where I was at. I was responsible for what happened to me. I was responsible for my pain. And it was me holding onto pain. It was the holding on that was the source of my pain. It was a vicious circle. I wanted to believe in the disbelief of that relationship. I wanted to believe it was all true, when it was all part of the Lie. The lie that I am not enough, never good enough, not worthy.

In surrendering, I awoke to the wonder of being enough. Just the way I am. In that very moment of awakening. Bruised and battered. Beaten down and abused. I was enough. For that moment, it was enough, that I continued to breathe. Silently. Quietly. In place. Breathe in. Breathe out. It was enough that I breathed as I began to awaken and expand into the Truth of my being. I am enough.

I am.

Enough.

In being enough, it is enough that I live this one wild and precious life fearlessly in love with all I am and the world around me.

That is enough for me.

The question is: Are you enough for you? Are you holding onto the idea/notion/belief that you need to be someone other than who you are? That there is something better than being all of you? Are you willingto surrender your fear and fall into Love?