From Deficit to Enough

The Union Path Podcast - From Deficit to Enough
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I've spent a lot of time, going out into the world, being in the world, somewhat empty, somewhat, deficient, somewhat, wanting.

And what I was doing, in hindsight, was going out into the world with my unmet need beggar bowl in front of me.

It seemed that everyone I met, everything I did, in some way was colored by this idea of being in deficit.

Of being _*A*_ deficit. Of taking up space. Of needing to prove. Prove what? Prove my worth?
Prove my value?

Prove my existence that I'm meant to be here. I'm meant to be doing this. There's actually a place for me.

I don't have to carve it out on my own. I probably spent most of my life doing this.
I can see it so clearly.

Especially when any kind of performance was involved. I was constantly looking for approval. Looking for kudos, looking for pats on the head, wanted to be told I was a smart, good boy, and I did all the things I was supposed to.

I was good. I was right. It was exactly what I was supposed to be doing exactly what I was supposed to do. But of course there's a big problem with this.

There's a big problem going out into the world, beggar bowl in hand. Hoping the world will fill you up.
Or, even define who you are. Going to the world to tell you what's important.
What you should do. What, you definitely should never, ever do.

Going out in the world with a question. Am I good? Am I valuable? Am I real? Do I matter?

This is really hard. This is a hard thing to spot in yourself. Feels awful, it feels so desperate. It's so, just, gross. But there it is.

Like so many things we experience in life, a lot of the real work is just being able to spot it and accept it.
A lot of the real work is being able to first, understand what you did, understand, perhaps the reasons why you did it, and most importantly, have the courage to then do something different.

It's a tough thing, though. It's a tough thing to live your life built on external opinion.

Of who you are, of what you do, that's really tough. And a really a difficult thing to break out of. There's so many things in our culture that reinforced this idea that we are what other people's opinions of us are.

And the more powerful the person or persons who hold these opinions, the more valid they are.
But like any deeply held belief, there's value in asking yourself, is this true? Does this really matter?

Does this line up with what I know about myself? After all, I'm the one who's been living this experience. I've been here the whole time. I've seen everything. Does this actually comport with my own observations?

And in what sorts of ways have I compromised myself to fit in with someone else's idea of what I should or shouldn't be? These are hard truths to face. For me, it makes my stomach turn upside down, and do cartwheels. But it's really important.

The only hope of breaking a pattern is you really have to be honest about the pattern in the first place.
You have to be honest about what you were getting out of it. You have to be honest about why you think you were doing it. You have to look at straight in the face, warts and all, and say, yup, I did that. I did that for a long time. I did that over and over and over again.

But that's the beauty of life. We make choices, and in any given moment, we can make different choices.
Something seems to serve us for a while, when it becomes abundantly obvious that it no longer does, well, we can do something different. But how do we actually do this? How do we break away from, the gravity, the immensity, of these external opinions?

I mean, sure, it's easy to say, I do what I do and I don't care what anyone else thinks, but, boy is that are rare person who that's actually true. And, even worse, I'm not sure that's really all that good. Because if you really don't care about the effect you have on other people, whew, that doesn't sound great.

But it's more than that. Right? You do care, but you care from a place that is derived from an internal knowing. It isn't just consensus opinion. It's actually a felt truth.

But how do we get there? How do we, how do we find that truth within ourselves?
ow do we actually figure out, who we are, what's important to us? What do we need? What do we want? What do we like?

These all seem pretty basic questions. We asked toddlers, these questions. What's your favorite color? What do you want to be when you grow up? What's your favorite toy? Well, to the adult you,

What do you want to be when you grow up? What's your favorite toy? Who are you? Really. Sounds funny, but it can be really hard to look at ourselves this deeply.

Here's a fun exercise, walk up to a mirror and try to make eye contact with yourself for 30 seconds. That's interesting. Maybe it's not a challenge for you was for me.

In another exercise, record yourself talking for a few minutes and listen to it, and just, see what you think. It's fascinating, these minds that we have. Oftentimes always seem to have an opinion about something, and usually that opinion is negative.

But boy, is that a toxic weapon to point at ourselves. Because that's the real harm.
It's not having unmet needs, it's not having deficits, it's not measuring up or some way or another.

It's the judgment that gets layered on top of it causes the damage.
It's the chronic state of deeming yourself, not enough, wrong, faulty.

Whatever we say to ourselves, that really imprisons us. That really holds us back from being able to live as we really are.

I believe it's these demons that compel us to go out in the world and try to extract a certain outcome, a certain, overriding judgment.

That if we can just go on to the world and get enough people, and enough people who really matter really know what they're talking about to tell us we're good, maybe someday we'll believe it. Maybe someday it'll sink in.

Well, there's an obvious paradox in this idea. That if we require other people, other places, other things,
to tell us who we are, there were not really free, are we?

We're dependent on the opinions and the expressions of those things. We are tethered to these opinions, these ideas, these thoughts, forever.

You know what the funny thing is? I'd say, more often than not, perhaps a much more often than not,
the people that I meet, who seem to have everything, have the amazing, instagram life.

The big house, the amazing cars, the amazing vacations. The kids who are always just looked like they stepped out of a catalog.

Talking to them, really talking to them, I don't really get a sense they're much more satisfied or happy than I've been. Which is, just, really peculiar. It scrambles your brain to encounter people who seem to have all the things that I pursue, in the interest of being happy, but they're not happy.

Because, I believe, their happiness doesn't come from them. Their happiness comes from this marketing,
this branding, this PR. That's being done from a place of deficit. From a place of, really deep down, not believing they themselves are complete as they are.

And then it just feeds the cycle. Not enough, tell me I'm more. It's still not enough, and on and on and on it goes.

You see it everywhere, this isn't an isolated issue. In fact, how much of our economy is built on selling people things, with the idea that, hey, this will make you feel better. This will make you more. This will make you, more complete, more impressive, more worthy of admiration and respect, more important, more comfortable. More, more, more.

But why do we need so much? Why does it take so much? To be comfortable, to be enough?
I believe it takes so much because we go through life, looking for that enoughness from the outside, when it can only come from within.

Wholeness can't be earned. No matter if you've got a certificate on your wall, embossed and signed and everything, your certificate of wholeness, that's not what wholeness is.

Because, if you need to point to something on your wall, to say, look at me, look how whole I am, well, I think, we've kind of missed something there haven't we? Wholeness, is a knowing. Wholeness, is a state of being. It's a state of being that is internally derived.

It sounds kind of funny, but one way of thinking about it, how are you whole? Well, because you say you are. But it's more than that, right? How you are whole is because, you know, you are.

It's a state. It's consciousness. So, how do we get there? How do we go from going out into the world, trying to get everyone and everything else to prove to us, ultimately, that we're actually good and worthy and all the things that we want to be?

How do we actually do that? Well, I believe it starts with just something fairly simple. We accept. We accept the way we are. Finally, we decide, you know what? This is enough, for right here for right now, this is enough.

Because, who else is going to convince us of this? Who else is going to assuage our insecurity that we're not enough? I think it's an inside job. I think it's something we always have to do on our own. Because again, ultimately, if something external to us is providing this, then we're just dependent on whatever that external thing is.

Now, instead of chasing around the enoughness, now we have to maintain it. Now we have to keep it, and we're on this perpetual treadmill, of not only proving, but reproving, forever. Because if we ever stop we're right back where we started.

But that's not freedom. That's not liberation, that's bondage. And so instead, we find ways to accept ourselves as we really are. We find ways to sit down in a chair, to calm our mind, to take some deep breaths. In through our nose, out through our mouth. Feeling the air as it comes in, feeling it rush past our nostrils, feeling our chest and belly expand.

Feeling, as we breathe out, and just feeling it just being aware of this breath that's happening. And pretty often, we do this for a little while, a couple of minutes, and then we think to ourself, what do I need right now? What's incomplete right now in this moment?

At least I've found, the most common answer to that is nothing. That, with all my striving, with all my seeking, with all my endeavoring, to do more, so I can be more, in this moment, with these breaths, it's enough.

No more is required. And from this starting place, we can do the same thing with ourselves. That where we are right now, what if we just decided, this is enough?

We just decided to not believe that we're somehow less than everybody else?
Or conversely, somehow more than everybody else?

What if we just removed that comparison entirely? What if we just accepted ourselves completely as we are, and moved forward into the world from that place?

We put our beggar bowl away, and instead went out in the world whole. Doesn't mean we're perfect. Certainly doesn't mean we're better than anyone else. Because it's not about anybody else, right? We're just talking about ourselves.

We're talking about our own integrity. And not integrity from the perspective of honesty, or righteousness, which is definitely a part of it, I'm talking about integrity from the sense of wholeness.

Because when we go out into the trying to get the world to meet all of these unmet needs, or prove to us, or disprove to us, some set beliefs we have about ourselves, we're really living a split personality.

We're really going out in the world, with who we really are, in a diminished state. And what we really need at the forefront.

We bury ourselves, and instead construct a way of being that's really a manipulation. And I don't mean this from a judgemental perspective, most of it's unconscious anyway, but there it is.

For going out into the world with an agenda, with a set of needs that we need to get met, we really cut ourselves off from most of the possibilities in life. We cut ourselves off from true awareness.

Because our focus is naturally drawn to whatever we're trying to get. Whatever these unmet needs really are. Whatever these deficits are these holes inside of us, our focus is on those, front and center. And we miss a lot of what's happening.

Take insecurity, for example, it's been my experience when I felt particularly insecure, and I start talking to somebody new that I don't know, I'm not even remotely listening to a word they're saying.

My brain is so, hyper engaged, thinking about all the things that I'm going to say, that I'm barely even paying attention to what they're saying. I'm listening enough to get clues and cues that I can respond to, but really this is the Me Show, and I'm trying to be, what? I'm trying to be as special, as important, as impressive, as interesting, as I possibly can.

But all of those adjectives are conditions. All of those adjectives are ways that I am bending, and shaping, who I really am, to fit the mold of what I believe this person wants me to be. I am completely altering the shape of myself. To be appealing to another, but it's even more than that.

I'm doing these contortions to be appealing to what I think is appealing the other person. What do I know? Odds are they're probably doing the same thing as me. They're not really paying attention. They're not really listening. They're waiting for their turn to talk, and trying to achieve whatever they're trying to acheive out of that conversation.

But instead, when we go out into the world whole, it's beautiful because we can actually listen. We can actually see. We can actually experience what things are, instead of mostly experiencing our own reactions, to our perceived self judgment.

And it's a funny thing. It's a funny thing because we can choose to accept ourselves, whenever we want. If it truly isn't dependent on anyone else's opinion, well, what are we waiting for?

But it's, it's a funny thing. It's kind of like saying, I've graduated from some program without ever attending it. But that's the thing, it's internal acceptance. It's not about anybody else.

It's withdrawing all of these insecurities. All of these, unmet needs. All of this, manipulation, all of this striving, back into ourselves. And saying, you know what? Today, this is enough. And today, I'm going to start there. I'm going to go out into the world whole, not needing to get anything, and see what happens.

I'm going to lay as much as I can, all of my insecurities, my anxieties, my fears, down, and instead, just accept my own wholeness. Accept my own completeness. I going to choose to do things because they feel like they emerge naturally.

I'm going to go out in the world and look around. I'm going to listen, I'm going to feel. I'm going to experience what my life actually is.

And when I'm in interactions with other people, I'm going to actually listen. I'm going to actually say what feels natural to say, and I'm not going to try to get anything done.

I'm not going to make this interaction load bearing on my opinion of myself. I'm just going to put that away as a settled matter. And instead, go out and experience things from a place of peace, from a place of not needing anything, and just see what happens.

See what it's like to live from a place of wholeness. See what it's like to live from a place of being enough. And see what happens. See what changes.

Maybe we stop doing things that we never really wanted to do anyway. Maybe finally, we start doing the thing we always really wanted to do.

Because again, we're not trying to get anything. The value is intrinsic. The value is in the present moment experience, and how are we engaging in life, in the most enriching, honest, way we can?

How are we living a life of high integrity, of high wholeness? Where we aren't, this split being, this true self, who we really are, and this other person we present to other people, trying to get something done.

What if we let the second one go, an actually, be real? Actually go out in the world, as we really are,
and act from a place that there's really nothing we need to do to complete ourselves, that is already done.

So now the question is, what do we really want? We're not trying to get these unmet needs met, what do we actually really want to do? Why are we here? What's our purpose? What feels good? What feels bad?

What do we feel guided towards, inspired towards? What way do we feel ourselves naturally leaning, from this place of wholeness? And is that the thing that's been calling us all along? Is that really, the missing item in our life?

This, merging, these separate selves together into one, and then living from that place. Approaching life as something to be experienced, rather than a way, to solve the problems with ourselves.

Because the only person's acceptance that actually matters is yours. And if you haven't been accepting of yourself well, isn't today the day? Isn't now the time?

You can choose to accept yourself whenever you like. And when you do, the path of your life will not only be altered, it'll be enriched.