Welcome 2023 with Enoughness
Many of us spent the last week in what often feels like liminal space between the years - closing off 2022 and entering 2023. We long to be like the caterpillar suddenly transformed into a butterfly on January 1, reborn and ready to soar. Yet the reality is that after a hard year in the world, particularly as a woman, most of us were in a sprint to the finish line in December, and then spent last week trying to both recover and be festive and present for all of our family and friends, while simultaneously also getting our full plan for 2023 in order… Ha!
Last week, the theme that circled me was Enoughness.
First, I found myself questioning whether I bought ‘enough’ for my daughters for Christmas, and then anxiously ruminating on whether I was doing ‘enough’ work or relaxing ‘enough’ to use the holiday break sufficiently. But then a loud “ENOUGH ALREADY” surfaced within. Enough already of this pressure we put on ourselves!
I ended 2022 with a message to you that our work is so resonant to our souls, yet often counter to dominant culture. Those of us in the Northern hemisphere are still very much in the darkness of deep winter (and for those in the Southern Hemisphere it is deep summer). This is not the seed planting season. This is not the time to commit to lofty (and often shallow) new year's resolutions based on the premise that we need to do something to be enough, or to use our will power to drive us forward because we always need to operate on one speed - GO - in service of the more, more, more paradigm.
I want to offer an alternative way forward that starts with a posture of enoughness.
For many Type A’s such as myself, this can feel like a call to complacency or lack of ambition. But it is far from that. Rather it is a call to see and to allow ourselves to live from the abundance that we have and that we ARE, versus from the scarcity of what is not. It might not always be preferred but it is enough. When we do not allow ourselves to see what is abundant, we are either living in the past or in the future, and often missing the incredible ingredients which we already have right now.
So, I invite us to think about resolutions more as intentions of WHO we are and are becoming, not about lofty goals of doing that we quickly abandon. And instead of having all of the answers, I want to encourage us to commit to generative practices and rituals that encourage our being. It is from this place that we can see afresh and truly enter this period, which the Celtics called Dreamtime, where we can create our grounded vision for our futures and be even bolder and brighter. It is from this place where we can find home.