#494 – How much of yourself are you not living?

Through years of training to please and be accepted, perhaps you buried parts of your Self so deep that you forgot what they are.

That’s "under-being:" not occupying your whole self because not all parts of you are alive and present.

One day, a new friend jokingly-not jokingly said she saw herself as an underachiever, while, to her, I looked like an overachiever––restlessly doing to improve myself.

A little pride filled my chest––overachiever felt like a compliment. And I was surprised that she'd admit to being an underachiever––wasn't that supposed to be shameful?

Today, I see the truth. The balance is between being and doing, and achieving pertains to doing. When you do to prove your worth, you're skewing the balance over to the doing, while leaving your being partially vacant.

For the past few weeks, while struggling to convey my value through employer-targeted resumes that made me feel like Play-Doh, I've contemplated what it means to be yourself and feel like you're enough. If I am fully myself, I've pondered, will employers want me?

I've been trying to do my way into worthiness, thinking that doing more would make me be more––more valuable, more employable. 

But by trying to be more, I was confirming my under-being. I was asserting to myself I wasn't already whole.

The affirmation "You are enough" doesn't mean "you could be more but that's enough––for now." 

What it means is "your enoughness takes all of your being and there's no room for 'more' inside of you." Because you are enough.

Today I see that the more you do, the less you be. And wholeness requires being and doing in equal parts.

Who will you be when you stop doing as a way to prove your worth?

Love,

Carolina