Do you have enough? In my house, this question is playing on a non-stop loop. Enough paper towel? Enough soup? Enough frozen vegetables? Enough pasta? With two teenagers, a four-year-old-puppy named Apollo, and a husband who is an electrical engineer with prepper tendencies, you can imagine how often we’ve discussed enough.
It took me a while to realize that the safety in enough – that my husband continues to seek in the Costco check out line – will never be available there. The lens of transition helped me find it in a different place. One that may surprise you….
Hopeful signs of spring
First, a little background
Transition has not given me the answer to ‘enough.’ It has, however, taught me a very simple truth; we are all here to grow. Growth is like motherhood and apple pie. Of course, we grow.
But growth is trickier than it appears. True growth, the kind that can deliver exponential value in our lives, requires a willingness to partake. In a word, it requires choice.
When we enter adulthood – at 18 or 22 or later – we establish our expectations and definition for ourselves based upon inputs that are external to us. Our families. Our religious affiliations. The communities where we live. Where we go to school. What we choose to do for work or for play. Together these constitute our personal eco-system, a space within which construct who we are.
Social norms encourage us to celebrate this space once we arrive. We are feted. There are accolades.
Life invites us to grow beyond this space – an invitation that compels us to leave the comfort zone where we’ve come to know ourselves.
When we accept this invitation, we detach from the confines of our earlier identity and replace it with a set of self-defined beliefs. We renew our expectations and definition for who we are.
It is a shift. A transition. One that is enlivening and expansive and freeing. Best selling author Julie Cameron described this shift by saying, “We become more able to articulate our own boundaries, dreams and authentic goals. Our personal flexibility increases and our malleability to the whims of others decreases. We experience a heightened sense of autonomy and possibility.”
Our growth – the growth we experience when we shift away from the initial assumptions about who we are – is transformational. Through it we choose to let others see us. All of us. In the fullness of who we are.
Sounds awesome, doesn’t it? Shouldn’t everyone grow?
Sadly, society conditions us to misread invitations to grow, a misperception that can leave unclaimed the incredible potential that resides in each of us.
How does this relate to Enough?
I believe this crisis is letting us glimpse in many individuals the gifts of transformational growth. These gifts are woven throughout our response – in reaching out a helping hand to a neighbor or connecting with a long-silenced friend by phone. Our response seems to be drawing on who we are in new ways. There is new connection and gratitude and creativity and other traits we often leave hidden in the normal course.
Maybe the unintended consequence of this crisis will be realized in our desire to not defer these essential qualities any longer. If we choose growth, real transformational growth, the gifts available to us and those around us are many and unparalleled, like joy and peace and freedom and hope. Said Cameron of the value of growth, “the process leads us to acquire and eventually acknowledge our connection to an inner power that has the ability to transform our outer world.”
In the uncertain days ahead, I hope that you recognize that there may be enormous gifts unclaimed by you. They lie in your willingness to live by the fullness of who you are.
Trust it. Cultivate it. Explore it. Embrace it. It alone can provide true ballast in uncertain times.
May you and yours be safe and well throughout this crisis. May you be reminded of the incredible gifts that you alone possess and that the world cannot live without. Maybe now is the time to recognize that your potential is saying a simple word, enough.
Please take one more minute to read my note below about those on the front lines of our crisis. I hope you join me in sending them our thoughts and prayers as we make our way forward together.
Warmest wishes, Linda R. (linda@WomenAndTransition.com and @LindaARossetti)
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Thank you to all of the incredible folks on the front lines of this crisis – our healthcare providers, first responders, in-home care providers, store clerks and many others. A special shout out to my brother-in-law, Henry, who is coordinating the COVID-19 response at Elmhurst, one of New York City’s largest public hospitals located in Queens, NY. I am inspired by Henry’s and his staff’s incredible dedication and selflessness as they care for everyone, including the most vulnerable, with dignity and respect. Henry, you set an incredible standard! May love and good will surround you and those for whom you care.
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