"Do what you can, with what you have, where you are."
-Theodore Roosevelt
Oh dear friend.
I feel called to write to you this evening on the subject of being enough.
Since first grade, I have walked very closely with anxiety. My friend - although I wouldn't go so far as to call us friends - and I do nearly everything together. Anxiety follows me around like a shadow, trailing alongside and directly behind me, sometimes stepping on my heels and causing me to trip, appearing to those around me as if I'd stumbled over my own feet because Anxiety doesn't make himself very visible. Anxiety isn't graceful. Although usually subtle, he has the worst timing and his entrances are unforeseen, so I'm almost always caught off-guard.
"Hey Han, how's it going? I'll be coming along on all of your adventures today!" Anxiety says, cheerfully.
"Um, hi, Anxiety, thanks for checking in, but I'm doing okay right now, really, and I won't be requiring your companionship."
But Anxiety invites himself along anyway, and he's a real difficult pursuant to shake.
On days when the little lump attaches himself to my person, I feel very heavy. I am sluggish and silent and slow, and it feels as if my very breathing is labored. Every step takes effort, eye contact is a feat. I don't feel very useful when I'm anxious. My willpower is diminished, my creativity and imagination become clouded...all of my energy goes into holding back tears or constantly seeking out the nearest exit, should I need an escape. I am aware of how this limits me and my ability to contribute my gifts to the world each day that I find myself held captive by Anxiety, and this has been something I've wrestled with recently; how to be and feel seen, needed, useful, enough, even on days when the simplest tasks loom like so many storm-raged mountains.
Since first grade, I have walked very closely with anxiety. My friend - although I wouldn't go so far as to call us friends - and I do nearly everything together. Anxiety follows me around like a shadow, trailing alongside and directly behind me, sometimes stepping on my heels and causing me to trip, appearing to those around me as if I'd stumbled over my own feet because Anxiety doesn't make himself very visible. Anxiety isn't graceful. Although usually subtle, he has the worst timing and his entrances are unforeseen, so I'm almost always caught off-guard.
"Hey Han, how's it going? I'll be coming along on all of your adventures today!" Anxiety says, cheerfully.
"Um, hi, Anxiety, thanks for checking in, but I'm doing okay right now, really, and I won't be requiring your companionship."
But Anxiety invites himself along anyway, and he's a real difficult pursuant to shake.
On days when the little lump attaches himself to my person, I feel very heavy. I am sluggish and silent and slow, and it feels as if my very breathing is labored. Every step takes effort, eye contact is a feat. I don't feel very useful when I'm anxious. My willpower is diminished, my creativity and imagination become clouded...all of my energy goes into holding back tears or constantly seeking out the nearest exit, should I need an escape. I am aware of how this limits me and my ability to contribute my gifts to the world each day that I find myself held captive by Anxiety, and this has been something I've wrestled with recently; how to be and feel seen, needed, useful, enough, even on days when the simplest tasks loom like so many storm-raged mountains.
In a culture where we are constantly surrounded by the hustle and bustle of a society that is ever-finding new ways for us to improve ourselves, it can be difficult to feel like anything we do will ever be enough. And that feeling is both overwhelming and underwhelming at the same time: overwhelming because the call to fix yourself until there's nothing left to fix (or, on the worst days, you feel as if you are so broken that you don't know where to begin) is completely and utterly exhausting. It's the kind of pressure that makes you want to turn and scream into the void, "AM I ENOUGH FOR YOU NOW?" after you've exhausted all the possible ways you've felt that the world has demanded more of you.
The feeling is underwhelming because that call disappoints you a little. Makes you whisper to yourself, "But...there's something that's supposed to be different about this for me." Makes you wonder what that something is. Makes you wonder, in all the hustle and bustle, if there will ever be room or time or space or energy do discover what that something is. And then makes you fear that there won't be room. And then makes you fear that there won't ever be anything different for you at all.
The feeling is underwhelming because that call disappoints you a little. Makes you whisper to yourself, "But...there's something that's supposed to be different about this for me." Makes you wonder what that something is. Makes you wonder, in all the hustle and bustle, if there will ever be room or time or space or energy do discover what that something is. And then makes you fear that there won't be room. And then makes you fear that there won't ever be anything different for you at all.
And all of these worries feel very heavy and add to the weight you're already feeling because Anxiety is still along for the ride and he's like a sack of dang potatoes. And it's very difficult to fathom that you, small, shaking, uncertain you, could mean anything in this great big world when you feel like this. I know. Oh friend. I know.
On days like these, I have to work really hard to be intentional about inviting inspiration and beauty. Sitting in one place and feeling sorry for myself is not helpful or productive. So I write words, or read other people's words, or go for a walk and look for places where the light meets the dark and then pause to read the simple poetry hidden there. Once I leave my self-constructed cocoon of quiet discontent, realization strikes and recognition dawns and truth reveals itself to this tired, tense soul. There is too much wonder in this world to remain in one place. To be content with staticity. It seems ironic to be bored in a place you've never thought to leave.
And so I left. I spent this spring break in Chicago - packed a bag, boarded a plane, and flew to an unfamiliar city without much of a plan aside from where I would stay once I got there. All the while, Anxiety trotted along behind me, tapping me on the shoulder every few steps.
"Um, Han, I think it's time to turn back now. Enough adventure for today. Time to go home and cry for a bit."
I'd brush him off.
"No, Anxiety, this is good. This is what we need and we're going to do this together."
And so we did. This week has been an adventure, and some moments have been better than others. But the highs have been soaring, and when all is said and done, I did it.
And I have been enough through it all. The low moments, although initially discouraging, have been met with unending grace and overcome and conquered by the beauty and truth that I wear like armor. Anywhere that there is light, there is grace and that grace is power. This city, however strange and still unfamiliar, is power and I am empowered by the unknown which used to cause me fear.
On this trip, I learned that I am enough for myself first, and enough for others second. I cried on the L twice this week. I avoided eye contact with other passengers, but I'm reasonably certain that I got some odd looks. (For some reason it's uncommon for people to cry in public??) And yet I didn't feel shame or embarrassment because in those moments, crying was what I needed to do. I realized that if I could accept myself in every moment of fear, joy, anxiety, melancholy, excitement, peace, etc., then that was all the validation I would need. I am content because I am enough for myself.
Even so, sometimes I glance behind me to find Anxiety hot on my heels. This is when quickly I don my armor of Truth and recall a quote by Arielle Estoria:
And what a beautiful truth that is. Putting on this Truth Armor doesn't mean that I'll never feel anxious again. But what a comfort it is to remember that the Creator wrote me into this story for a reason and would like to see me play my part because he knows that I am enough, despite my anxieties or feelings of unworthiness. We are good and loved because we are love. We are strong and the world is big, but the world is wide open and the sun is warm and the very earth is for you. You are more than you know. You are able. You are enough.
Have hope, take courage,
have faith, dear
one.
Onward.
// A song for hope and courage.
h,
On days like these, I have to work really hard to be intentional about inviting inspiration and beauty. Sitting in one place and feeling sorry for myself is not helpful or productive. So I write words, or read other people's words, or go for a walk and look for places where the light meets the dark and then pause to read the simple poetry hidden there. Once I leave my self-constructed cocoon of quiet discontent, realization strikes and recognition dawns and truth reveals itself to this tired, tense soul. There is too much wonder in this world to remain in one place. To be content with staticity. It seems ironic to be bored in a place you've never thought to leave.
And so I left. I spent this spring break in Chicago - packed a bag, boarded a plane, and flew to an unfamiliar city without much of a plan aside from where I would stay once I got there. All the while, Anxiety trotted along behind me, tapping me on the shoulder every few steps.
"Um, Han, I think it's time to turn back now. Enough adventure for today. Time to go home and cry for a bit."
I'd brush him off.
"No, Anxiety, this is good. This is what we need and we're going to do this together."
And so we did. This week has been an adventure, and some moments have been better than others. But the highs have been soaring, and when all is said and done, I did it.
And I have been enough through it all. The low moments, although initially discouraging, have been met with unending grace and overcome and conquered by the beauty and truth that I wear like armor. Anywhere that there is light, there is grace and that grace is power. This city, however strange and still unfamiliar, is power and I am empowered by the unknown which used to cause me fear.
On this trip, I learned that I am enough for myself first, and enough for others second. I cried on the L twice this week. I avoided eye contact with other passengers, but I'm reasonably certain that I got some odd looks. (For some reason it's uncommon for people to cry in public??) And yet I didn't feel shame or embarrassment because in those moments, crying was what I needed to do. I realized that if I could accept myself in every moment of fear, joy, anxiety, melancholy, excitement, peace, etc., then that was all the validation I would need. I am content because I am enough for myself.
Even so, sometimes I glance behind me to find Anxiety hot on my heels. This is when quickly I don my armor of Truth and recall a quote by Arielle Estoria:
"LET IT GO. You are a child of the author of life itself.
What in the world do you have to be anxious for?"
And what a beautiful truth that is. Putting on this Truth Armor doesn't mean that I'll never feel anxious again. But what a comfort it is to remember that the Creator wrote me into this story for a reason and would like to see me play my part because he knows that I am enough, despite my anxieties or feelings of unworthiness. We are good and loved because we are love. We are strong and the world is big, but the world is wide open and the sun is warm and the very earth is for you. You are more than you know. You are able. You are enough.
Have hope, take courage,
have faith, dear
one.
Onward.
// A song for hope and courage.
h,
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