complete exhaustion, however late at night? Or when the clock strikes a particular hour? Is it when we finish replying to all the e-mails in our inbox? How do we know when we have taken on too many projects? Is it when we get sick—or when so many mistakes start happening, each piling one upon the other, so that our life and work seem to just freeze up, paralyzed, unable to go on any further? What teaches us when to speed up, when to slow down, when to stop?
Most of us will find that the cacophony of external voices, demands, expectations, e-mails, and responsibilities from ourwork, our culture, even our families, are the most powerful factors driving our sense of enough. This makes it difficult for us to listen, attend to, or rely on our more subtle, internal wisdom or intuitive responses—such as a cramped feeling in our belly when we’re invited to an event we’d rather not attend, or a gentle energetic leaning toward, or away from, a certain person, task, or responsibility.
When we feel compelled to comply with these external demands that determine what we will or will not take on—when we refuse to listen to, or even acknowledge, our inner sense of what is the most nourishing or right action for us to take in this moment—we gradually weaken the capacity of our inner thermostat to provide us with reliable, trustworthy information. Over time, we compromise our ability to tune in to our own knowing and live from our own unique and grounded sense of enough.
How do we know what even a single moment of enough feels like? Here, at the beginning of our journey together, it is useful for us to discover tools and trustworthy resources we may already have within ourselves. Using the clarity of our own quiet wisdom, we can sharpen our capacity to listen for what is necessary and true. We begin to live our days making choices from within the reliable wholeness of who we are and what we know. We use our heart’s best inner knowing of how to nourish, rather than deplete, the fullness and sufficiency of a day well spent and a life well lived.
Let us begin to experiment a little. We can start by trying to calibrate our own inner thermostat with one simple question. When approaching a task, a responsibility, or some choice between this and that, take a moment before you begin and askyourself: Am I truly able to say that I really love this? Or is it more honest to say that I can handle this?
You will know instantly which is true.
How you answer this question, the information you receive, may or may not cause you to stop, start, or change anything right away. But over time, if you step back for a moment before approaching any task, event, relationship, or responsibility and keep asking this same simple question, you will gather a tremendous amount of clear, useful, trustworthy information about your heart’s authentic desires, preferences, and dreams—as well as your sadness, discouragements, or regrets. Each and all of which, over time, shape a life of enough .
If we find that we love less and less of what we do, what we choose, or what we agree to—and feel more and more like we are barely able to handle our days—it is likely we will experience relatively few genuine feelings of enough in our daily life. On the other hand, the more we choose the next right thing based on what we love, and less on what we can handle, we are likely to have many sources of sufficiency and nourishment.
Perhaps, armed with this clarity of trust and assurance in our own wisdom, we may begin to make more mindful choices and listen more carefully for the love or sufficiency in the next right thing with a greater sense of clarity and courage.
Deadly Sins and American Values
H ow did we get here?
When we imagine the kind of life we dream of living, what images come to mind? When we envision our most beautifully perfect day, what do we dream we are doing? Who is with us, what are the feelings or experiences we yearn for, how would we fill our
Most of us will find that the cacophony of external voices, demands, expectations, e-mails, and responsibilities from ourwork, our culture, even our families, are the most powerful factors driving our sense of enough. This makes it difficult for us to listen, attend to, or rely on our more subtle, internal wisdom or intuitive responses—such as a cramped feeling in our belly when we’re invited to an event we’d rather not attend, or a gentle energetic leaning toward, or away from, a certain person, task, or responsibility.
When we feel compelled to comply with these external demands that determine what we will or will not take on—when we refuse to listen to, or even acknowledge, our inner sense of what is the most nourishing or right action for us to take in this moment—we gradually weaken the capacity of our inner thermostat to provide us with reliable, trustworthy information. Over time, we compromise our ability to tune in to our own knowing and live from our own unique and grounded sense of enough.
How do we know what even a single moment of enough feels like? Here, at the beginning of our journey together, it is useful for us to discover tools and trustworthy resources we may already have within ourselves. Using the clarity of our own quiet wisdom, we can sharpen our capacity to listen for what is necessary and true. We begin to live our days making choices from within the reliable wholeness of who we are and what we know. We use our heart’s best inner knowing of how to nourish, rather than deplete, the fullness and sufficiency of a day well spent and a life well lived.
Let us begin to experiment a little. We can start by trying to calibrate our own inner thermostat with one simple question. When approaching a task, a responsibility, or some choice between this and that, take a moment before you begin and askyourself: Am I truly able to say that I really love this? Or is it more honest to say that I can handle this?
You will know instantly which is true.
How you answer this question, the information you receive, may or may not cause you to stop, start, or change anything right away. But over time, if you step back for a moment before approaching any task, event, relationship, or responsibility and keep asking this same simple question, you will gather a tremendous amount of clear, useful, trustworthy information about your heart’s authentic desires, preferences, and dreams—as well as your sadness, discouragements, or regrets. Each and all of which, over time, shape a life of enough .
If we find that we love less and less of what we do, what we choose, or what we agree to—and feel more and more like we are barely able to handle our days—it is likely we will experience relatively few genuine feelings of enough in our daily life. On the other hand, the more we choose the next right thing based on what we love, and less on what we can handle, we are likely to have many sources of sufficiency and nourishment.
Perhaps, armed with this clarity of trust and assurance in our own wisdom, we may begin to make more mindful choices and listen more carefully for the love or sufficiency in the next right thing with a greater sense of clarity and courage.
Deadly Sins and American Values
H ow did we get here?
When we imagine the kind of life we dream of living, what images come to mind? When we envision our most beautifully perfect day, what do we dream we are doing? Who is with us, what are the feelings or experiences we yearn for, how would we fill our
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