What’s Enough for the Holidays?
Here we are in the crack between Thanksgiving and the New Year… That overstuffed time when our bodies desperately want to slow down, curl in, and take a long winters’ nap. But our culture asks us to speed up, spread out, and and stay up long into the night manufacturing magic.
The refrain this time of year is “Not Enough”: “There’s not enough time in the day” “There’s not enough money” “Not enough presents” “Not enough special food” “Not enough traditions” “Not enough decorations” “Not enough self-care”
This refrain eventually rolls up into a big ball - “not enough…” “not enough…” “not enough…” gathering momentum until it culminates in: “I am not enough” “Nothing is ever enough”
Overwhelmed and exhausted we crawl home to discover that we have started so many projects we cannot possibly complete that we have to scrap it all and decide what’s most essential.
In this decision is the turning. We turn our attention from “not enough” to what IS enough. Is it enough to decorate simply with greenery from the yard? Is it enough to cook a single favorite meal to savor by candlelight? Is it enough to drink a cup of tea by a fire and while gifts sit in re-used gift bags? Can it be enough?
The turning moment is the one that brings us home again, back to our own values and back to the deeper call of the season. The end of autumn invited shedding, not collecting excess. And the darkness this time of year invites contemplation: weighing and measuring what’s accumulated to find what has value and discard the rest. By letting go, we remember what’s most important and strengthen our connection with it.
What’s most important is more than enough.
We must ask the question: What is most important to me? Oddly, answers are slow to come - surely everything is important, or maybe none of it is. We’re so wrapped in the cultural mandate to do more, more, more that doing less seems impossible. Time for consideration is needed if we’re to get to the heart of our answers. And … we each have our own answers.
For some, gathering with loved ones is most important. For others, a specific meal holds the place of honor. For another, gifting is a love language that brings tremendous joy.
That which is truly enough acts as guide this season. It asks the one most important wish to direct your energy and your attention. It allows us to let go of the rest. And helps us turn from “not enough” to “this is more than enough” when we forget.
Beyond that, those “more than enough” moments invite us into savoring. Allowing everything else to drop away we become present, open, and deeply deeply content. Treasuring the moment, we see with the eyes of the Heart.
In those moments it is enough. In those moments we are enough.