Enough
Hi, Thinking Out Loud here :D
Welcome to Mindful Monday Week 11
Here is the link for this week’s playlist. https://open.spotify.com/playlist/27QOy94eYMW2DSWtyyJTSs?si=0d5004ad01df4283 I hope you enjoy this listen along whilst you are reading. A little reminder that if an ad plays for those of us who don’t have Spotify premium, please pause reading and wait for the ad to finish as I try to time the playlist to the blog post.
This week is a bit of a long post.
Get a drink, maybe even a snack, and find a comfy seat to relax. Let go of all worries and enjoy the next five deep breaths. If you have breathing problems, please take an extra mindful moment here. For those joining me in the breathing exercise, breathe out.
Now time for your first deep breath; take one deep breath in through your nose for five 1..2..3..4..5.. hold for 1..2.. breath out through your mouth for five 1..2..3..4..5.. Hold for 1.. Breath in for five 1..2..3..4..5.. hold for 1..2.. And out through for five 1..2..3..4..5.. hold for 1.. Breathe in for five 1..2..3..4..5.. hold for 1..2.. And out for five 1..2..3..4..5.. hold for 1.. two more to go; breath in for five 1..2..3..4..5.. hold for 1..2.. And out for five 1..2..3..4..5.. hold for 1.. last one deep breath in for five 1..2..3..4..5.. hold for 1..2.. And out for five 1..2..3..4..5.. hold for 1.. now go back to your regular breathing pattern. I hope you now feel calm and relaxed.
Over the years, I have learned that some people will always try to make you feel like you aren’t enough for one reason or another. Still, the thing to know is that they are probably insecure about themselves, so to make them feel better, they are projecting that onto other people, but know that you are and will always be enough. So whether other people think you are or not, you believe in yourself, and you believe that you are enough because I also believe that you are enough.
I have had a few instances where people have made me feel like I wasn’t enough as being just who I was, but those moments have taught me that I am enough as I am, and I don’t need to change or be cooler. Here are a few of those memories. I don’t hold on to them anymore, but I am using them as an example for today’s blog post.
I was probably around the age of nine going on ten when a friend told me that another friend said I wasn’t cool enough to have a designer Jane Norman bag (which was the bee’s knees in the early 2000s) like every other girl in my year group had the bag. For a second, it made me feel sad and like I wasn’t enough (I must add she wasn’t a popular girl, we didn’t have popular groups at my primary school.) But then I realised pretty quickly that I didn’t actually care what my friend had said to me about what this other girl had told her, as I was proud of my new bag; it made me feel grown-up and not like one of the youngest in my year group which I was, the only downside to having a birthday in the summer holidays. However, I knew that I wouldn’t be at that school for much longer as I was moving to NZ in a few months.
I learned that I didn’t need to be cool enough to have the bag; I had it, and that was enough for me. It didn’t matter what anyone said to me because it wouldn’t make me stop using it or even take it back to the shop. I can’t remember if the other girl had the bag or not, so I can’t say if she was jealous of me having it and her not having it. What I can say is, I continued to be happy and ‘cool’ enough to have the bag like most kids around the UK at the time and when I moved to NZ, I was the only kid at my school with the bag, so the little comment that had been said in England didn’t matter.
At my new school in NZ, there was a moment when I again felt that I was not enough. It was my first day, and it had been a few months since I had been in a school environment, so it was a little scary, and I knew the curriculum would be different, which it was utterly foreign to what I had learnt in the past six or so years. I got placed next to two girls; one was from England, and one wasn’t; they were obviously best friends; I didn’t want to encroach on their friendship by any means. But I got placed next to them, through no fault of my own but the teachers. I sat down at my desk, which was entirely different from the tables I was used to. I started my work, and the girl I was sitting next to was like, “oh, my friend thinks you should move your desk” I was obviously a bit baffled as to what she was saying, so her friend came and parted my desk, so there was a decent gap between my table and their two tables. I hadn’t had anything like this happen before. I hadn’t ever been told to move my table and chair; I hadn’t ever been told to not sit next to anyone. I have no idea why they wanted me to move and sit on my own, on my first day, in a new school, and in a new country. It’s safe to say that that day, I felt not only alone, in fact, isolated, but like I again wasn’t enough. They didn’t know me, and I didn’t know them. From this, I learnt not everyone is in favour of the new kid. A year before this, I had been the one to take a new kid under my wing, she needed a friend, and I was the one who made her my friend.
But I was enough when another girl who was a year below me and the girls who had so kindly moved my desk. It was a mixed class of yr 5&6 (which, again, I hadn’t been in a mixed class of year groups before.) She came to me and said, “would you like to sit next to my friend and me,” to which I said, “yes, please” those few words meant a lot to me and showed that I was enough.
Another time I was made to feel not enough was when I was at a friend’s house in NZ. It was a year or two after we had moved, and she had another friend over who I was in the same year as; my friend was a year below us. I’ll be honest, I knew of this other girl, but I didn’t really know her, and she didn’t know me. I had had a nice time playing with them and had thought they’d had a nice time playing with me. So the next time I went to my friend’s house, she was like, “oh, my friend said she didn’t like you,” and again, that made me feel like I wasn’t enough. Still, truth be told, this other girl didn’t know me, hadn’t taken the time to know me. We were in different classes and a different friend group, so again I learned pretty quickly that she had no ground to judge who I was, just like I had no ground to judge who she was. However, I was starting to think that she was someone I didn’t want to know.
I don’t expect everyone in life to like me, and I certainly don’t go through life with such a big ego thinking that everyone I’m walking past should like me. But I would rather and do deserve for the person who has said it to own up first. Everyone deserves to hear it from the sayer and not the teller; it’s simple courtesy and human decency.
It isn’t nice feeling like you aren’t enough, but all of these lessons have taught me that I’m not enough for everyone, and that’s ok. I don’t want to be enough for everyone. But I am enough for those I love, care about, and myself, and that’s enough for me. Just like you are enough for your loved ones and those you care about, you might not be for everyone, and that’s ok. We don’t need everyone’s approval; we, in fact, don’t need anyone’s approval but our own because if we are enough for ourselves, then that is pretty damn good.
Let’s finish with a three-deep breath breather.
Take one deep breath in through your nose for five 1..2..3..4..5.. hold for 1..2.. breath out through your mouth for five 1..2..3..4..5.. hold for 1.. breath in for five 1..2..3..4..5.. hold for 1..2.. and out for five 1..2..3..4..5.. final breath in for five 1..2..3..4..5.. hold for 1..2.. last breath out for five 1..2..3..4..5.. no hold here you can now go back to your regular breathing pattern.
As always, thank you for taking the time to read this week’s Mindful Monday. I really do appreciate everyone who takes the time to read them and listens to what I have to say.
Love always
Thinking Out Loud xx :D
You are always enough.
