Acceptance is the ultimate paradox

I often feel insatiable.

I want more food, drinks, love, connection, money, likes, clothes, followers, laughter, kisses, hugs, dinners, physical touch and more. I want more more more, I never want it to end, and no matter how much I get it never feels like enough.

To quote the wise Meredith Grey, “I’m a sink with an empty drain. …(it) runs right out. There is no enough.”

Because, goddamnit, our whole lives we’re fed a lie; not enough.

“I’m not enough.”

“I’m not doing enough.”

“I don’t have enough.”

“There isn’t enough.”

So I ate the belief that I needed to change and become more in order to be enough and finally feel full.

Little girl Deanne internalized that because she was born with a broken body it wasn’t that she did something wrong… it was her being, her very existence, that was “bad”. She was wrong. She was not enough.

So she’d try and be a good person — do, do, do — in order to prove her enoughness and earn good, but she constantly felt like she was in debt to the world because she was wrong, imperfect, flawed, and therefore, not enough.

Is it fair when things came so easily to her? “No,” said the story. “I don’t deserve that.”

So I denied my desires and resisted receiving.

Is it fair that I’ve had so many surgeries? “Yes,” said the story. “That’s what I deserve; the struggle, the hard, the bad. I can handle it and it feels fitting.”

So I started down the road of personal development because I thought it had to answer to my feeling of not enough, and then I could finally live the life I really wanted.

And so it began — this striving for being, doing, having more in order to finally heal; never-ending personal development.

Personal development became addictive.

It is/was, at least, for me. I drank the koolaid trying to reach the “Promised Land” of there because here wasn’t okay.

I never realized how much it further perpetuated the not enoughness. There was always something to heal, improve, develop. No matter what I couldn’t find a stopper to put in that drain.

This empty wanting continues lacking.

The irony of the personal development industry is that it can make money off people’s insecurities, unworthiness, wounds just like the diet, plastic surgery, and car manufacturing industries.

We have to remember that humans are designed to be perpetually dissatisfied. We’re hardwired to look for things that might harm us and always be on the lookout for better. A healthy amount of stress, called eustress, keeps us going and growing. (Sitting on a beach for months might sound great but it gets old quicker than you think.)

Just ask Harry how boring life was before Voldemort.

The problem is we think that if we were to simply accept our shortfalls, inadequacies, insecurities, wounds, bodies, bank accounts, love lives (or lack thereof), then surely we wouldn’t strive for more and better.

We think acceptance means complacence.

And this world that profits off us feeling not enough doesn’t want us to accept what is.

So no matter how much more we get, have, do, we endlessly feel like not enough. Why? Because that insatiable part in us that’s seeking, thinking that thing is the answer to this not enoughness, will find something else to be unsatisfied about when you get that thing.

You’ll be stuck on a never-ceasing hamster wheel, striving for betterment, reaching for this elusive “enough” end-point that never arrives.

And ‘round and ‘round we go.

The way I see it is that we have two possibilities;

1. Realize you’re inherently enough just because.

*insert shrug here*

Because really, what qualifies someone to be good enough?

Do we say to our kids, “You know, once you become CEO, Billy, make 6 figures, and drive a Porsche THEN you’ll be good enough. But not today, Billy, not today.”?

(Well, maybe not explicitly but often through our modeling of how we live our lives. If not for yourself, do it for what you’re teaching Billy.)

So then why do we set ever-distancing goals for ourselves and even when we reach them it’s not enough?

2. Accept that you’re never going to be enough.

Which — shhh! — ergo, means you become enough.

Either way you first have to stop resisting or pushing against or trying to improve aka change that feeling of “not enough” and just feel it. Sit with that hot, uncomfortable sensation of emptiness.

Or wait! Actually, there’s a third option…

3. Keep going as you are and never feel good enough.

“But but! Deanne,” I can hear it now. “If we were to simply accept that it is what it is, then wouldn’t we have no drive to do anything?”

Not a stupid question. I thought the same, mon ami.

Because we think shame motivates us.

When really, shame keeps us stuck.

It wants you to keep your shortcomings a secret.
It whispers in your ear that you’re not enough.
It tells you not to believe that you are worthy, powerful, and capable as you are.
It implores that you must change in order to be loved.

And this paralyzes us.

Curse you, Shame.

If you don’t accept you’re either a) in denial, b) think you deserve that shit, or c) keep trying to change it from the same lacking place you’re in — which is the number one thing that keeps you stuck.

If you achieve change from that lacking place, the change/accomplishments/success still are never enough.

It’s like an incessant hole, gnawing for more, a bottomless pit.

It will never be enough there if you haven’t accepted this here.

And so begins the self-perpetuating cycle of self-help.

“Because of x I’m disqualified from being_doing_having y.” says every bullshit belief.

Again and again and again.

The truth?

You don’t have to have it all figured out before moving forward.

You don’t have to be fully healed before being loved or making money.

You don’t have to not be scared before taking action.

First of all, those x’s are impossible. And second of all, *cough* BULLSHIT *cough*.

What if you don’t need to do any more work?
What if you’re ready, worthy, etc?
What if you can handle it?
What if it was just… easy?

Our dear old friends Denial and Disapproval get us nowhere.

Why not give radical compassion, generous grace, and the constantly-talked-about-but-hard-to-practice unconditional love for all and most of all, yourself?

Trying to change before accepting it first only perpetuates the lacking.

Acceptance is the ultimate paradox.

PAR·A·DOX (noun): “seemingly contradictory ideas that upon deeper inspection contain truth.”

(I have a weird memory… Certain things are burned in my brain; the way he looked at me that night, the first verse of Golddigger, and this definition of paradox from high school English class.)

Acceptance is the ultimate paradox because the seeking of something is the very thing that keeps us from having it, while the allowing of the absence of it means we have it.⁠

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Huh?⁠

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By seeking control, we always feel out of control. But by accepting the fact that mostly everything is beyond our control means we then feel in control.⁠

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By seeking security, it means we feel insecure. But by allowing ourselves to be insecure it means we then let ourselves experience that desired feeling of security.⁠

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By seeking approval we’re not approving of ourselves so then don’t let others approve of us. But by accepting we’re never going to have all the approval we want means we no longer need it from others so then we’ve given ourselves it.

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Capiche?⁠ You can do this with just about anything.

Alan Watts’ called it “The Backwards Law”; the idea that the more you pursue feeling better all the time, the less satisfied you become, as pursuing something only reinforces the fact that you lack it in the first place.

This can go for wanting to feel better, wanting a positive experience, wanting to be rich, wanting to be sexy and desired, wanting to be happy, wanting to be loved, etc etc.

But the more you accept the current situation without trying to change it, means you no longer feel like you lack. And that’s where/when the magic happens.

The secret to life, I tell ya.

Not easy to do when we’re fed the lie of “not enough” our whole life.

There’s a bigger picture as to why you can’t let yourself feel like enough and be happy.

If we were all magically “enough” then where would that leave us? And the world?

Why, it would change everything we know to be “true”.

If we were to stop feeling insecure, no longer ashamed, and don’t feel bad about feeling good anymore it means we wouldn’t be seeking something outside of us as an answer to feeling good. Our way of living, consuming, buying, social constructs, and outdated institutions driven by our insecurities and shame would collapse.

The right amount of pain causes us to get uncomfortable and change for something; believing that’ll make us feel better.

The right amount of shame means we’re insecure and separated from our own power; therefore easy to control.

Freedom is a dangerous thing in our world.

Insecure and ashamed people are easier to control. Shame means we stay docile, submissive, passive, compliant, complacent.

When our power is outside of ourselves it means we change our bodies, buy clothes, buy cars, fixate on the guy/girl, and have to keep up with the latest trends, TV shows, TikTok challenges.

Because if we don’t do those things… then we won’t be enough.

Because if we don’t do those things… then we’ll finally feel that hot, emptiness of not enough.

Because if we don’t distract ourselves, consume mindlessly, fixate on changing ourselves, then we’ll feel more.

And if we feel more it’s not always comfortable. But it means we’ll know what’s not right, we’ll threaten the way we’re used to living, and we’ll stop playing by outside rules.

Not enough and never happy is actually shame that silences us, keeps us stuck, and maintains oppression within individuals, systems, and social orders.

If we free ourselves from shame it means we have to be ready to self-govern and master ourselves. If we aren’t able to then we want others to govern over us.

It’s time to see the world as it is and the lies of not enough. At first, you’ll feel guilty and doubt who you are for desiring something else, something more. These stories are insidious for a reason.

Because if you are free from shame, you claim your power, and you are uncontrollable.

It becomes really simple for you and complex for everyone else.

That’s why the keepers of social order fear liberated power.

If we’re kept in our place and stay quiet, they can keep their power.

If we feel the injustice, it means we demand change.

If they feel the wrongness, it means they feel the discomfort.

But it takes seeing the lies, feeling the uncomfortable truth, and accepting it before being able to move forward.

A whole, present, easy happiness without needing anything outside yourself is the ultimate fuck you to our consumeristic society that controls us through fear and shame.

Freedom and fullness isn’t only possible, it’s needed to create a new world. But the first step is honest acceptance.