Your Are Enough

If you ever want to experience the true wonder and magnificence of the human voice, listen to Barbara Cook.

The 81-year-old, legendary Broadway singer was here in Santa Monica last week for a gala opening of a new performing arts center and to teach a master voice class.

In her voice classes she focuses on all the usual fundamentals. But as she says, the most important concept she teaches her students is “You are enough.”

Her message is:

You are unique. You are original. You don’t have to pretend to be somebody else. You don’t have to try to be the way people think you ought to be. You need to show us who you are. You need to show us those vulnerabilities. That’s what will resonate on stage and connect you with your audience.

That’s what will resonate in life. Barbara’s wise words say everything about how we need to be in order to have a loving, joyful, fulfilling relationship with others and ourselves.

If you really accept that you are enough, wouldn’t you be willing to just go for it with love and relationships? If you accept that you are enough, wouldn’t you be real and vulnerable with your date or your partner?

If you knew that you are enough, that you are unique and original, wouldn’t you be willing to be vulnerable and show us those things about you? I believe you would. It’s what makes this life worth living.

Your friends enjoy your uniqueness and they get to see that, most of the time, because you are vulnerable and willing to show it to them. They know how unique you are. They know how original you are.

Why You Believe You Aren’t Enough

Somehow you get in your head that you aren’t enough; that in order to be liked you have to behave in a certain way, you have to suppress your originality, you have to hide.

Don Miguel Ruiz, in “The Four Agreements,” says that is a result of being domesticated as a child. You start off as a loving, open, free spirit and in order to keep getting the love of your mother and father, you have to behave in ways that keeps their love coming to you. Most parents don’t mean to do that, some do though, but they make love conditional. If you’re a good boy or girl, then we’ll love you.

So you go through life thinking you need to act a certain way in order to be liked and loved. You develop a core belief that you aren’t good enough. And then from that place you forget how unique and original you are. And you become unwilling to be vulnerable. Not a chance you’re going to risk that.

How Do You Learn to Know You Are Enough?

The journey from feeling not enough to I am enough starts with accepting the possibility that you are enough. You came in as enough. You will always be enough. All souls are precious. All souls are magnificent. So you start with that fact.

It’s the circumstances that happened to you and what you created along the way that led you to believe you aren’t enough.

So you start with the idea, “Well maybe I am enough.” Okay, I’ll see how that feels for five minutes or an hour. Try it right now. Just take a moment and close your eyes and let yourself feel “I am enough.” Be with it for a moment.

Everyone will have a different reaction to it. Some will cry, others will laugh, feel relief, feel light, and others will be filled with joy.

At first, it might be fleeting, because the ego will come back in quickly to remind you that you aren’t enough and give you specific reasons why. Don’t listen to it.

It’s time to do battle with your ego! You know, that critical voice that likes to remind you, 100 times a day, that you aren’t enough. Tell it to shut up. Leave you alone. Because what is true is you are and always have been enough.

After you’ve sat with the idea of being enough for an hour, do it for a day. Don’t let any of the circumstances of life take it away from you. It’s not about how others see you or react to you. They can’t give it to you and they can’t take it away from you.

Then practice it for a week. You need to keep practicing it, because you aren’t used to this new way of holding, seeing and being. It’s the truth, but the ego will want to remind you that this is silly, that you aren’t enough, etc. Again, tell it to shut up. This isn’t the time to be nice to your ego. It’s keeping you in what it thinks is a safe place, but is actually a dead place. A false place.

Then after practicing, for a day and week, that you ARE enough, the next step is to be vulnerable with someone you usually don’t allow yourself to be vulnerable with. I mean take a risk!!! Again start small.

Suppose there is someone you see who never smiles, smile at them. They might not smile back right away, remember they are guarded and think they are protecting themselves. But if you keep it up, you might get a smile back. Don’t do it for that reason, just do it because you are unique and original and they will appreciate that, at some level. Even if they can’t show you.

The Benefits Of Realizing You Are Enough

You aren’t doing this exercise for others. You are doing it for the freedom from the tyranny of your ego. You are doing it for the opportunity to feel the absolute uniqueness of your spirit and to feel the joy that comes from living in this place of “I’m Enough!”

Keep taking risks. You will begin to notice that you’re not alone – there are others who don’t think they are enough. In fact, the majority of people feel they aren’t enough.

As you see yourself as enough, they will pick up that energy and want to be around you. Then you can introduce the concept to them. By gently encouraging them and not being judgmental, they will begin to give themselves permission to practice being enough. To let their unique self emerge.

Remember being enough, giving yourself permission to be your unique, original self, is a choice. It’s a choice. Did I mention it’s a choice? It really is just a choice. Try it.

Freedom, peace, joy, love and living full out come from knowing I Am Enough.

Imagine the possibilities…

© Carol Chanel