When Will I Be Enough? (Coaching Session)

It is the surrender into the reality and loving the reality that allows a relationship to be good. It allows you not to lose yourself.

I'm Brett Kistler, and this is The Art of Accomplishment, where we explore living the life you want with enjoyment and ease. Today's episode is a coaching session where Joe coaches a woman who is struggling with a feeling that she needs to be good enough to be in a relationship. As she and Joe explore what it means to be enough for herself and for others, she discovers an underlying desire for control along with a deep fear of self-abandonment. Let's find out what happens as they unpack enoughness and how it reshapes her understanding of love, connection, and relationships.

Hi.

Hi.

Good to see you.

It's good to see you too.

So what are we working on today? What's the deal?

What's the deal? I can link this back to a conversation we had this summer where, um, you said to me something along the lines of, you appear to be like an attractive, put-together woman. Why aren't you in a relationship? And we talked a good bit about that, but what I realized is like The thing that you encapsulated in that sentence is something I've really deeply internalized, not from that conversation, but throughout life, of if I am put together and attractive enough, then I will be in a relationship. I will have this thing that I really want. And I have, yeah, I have this narrative of being better so that someone will love me that I want to unpack with you.

Great. What's amazing to me also is just that whatever I said, I'm pretty confident it wasn't that.

Probably not. It's what I heard. It's what my brain was like, ah.

Yeah, yeah, right. Great. So even you hearing it that way is a reflection of this idea.

Yeah.

Cool. So how good looking do you have to be to attract the man that you want?

I don't know. It doesn't seem— I don't think about it in terms of physical attraction as much as I think about it as emotional resonance and maturity and how put together.

So how put together do you have to be? You got to be like Mother Teresa put together? Do you have to be like— what's the level of put together that achieves the goal of your lovability?

I don't know. But like the narrative in my brain is like more than what it is now. More.

Right. And my assumption is that's always been no matter— like, my guess is you're more put together, for lack of a better word, than you were at 23. Like, my experience of you would mean that it would be impossible for that not to happen.

I would hope so.

And back then you had to be more, and now you have to be more.

There's a never-ending—

so there's— it's just always more.

The ceiling just keeps moving.

Right, exactly. Right. So who taught you that, like, you have to be more to be lovable? How did that happen?

Hmm, that's a good question.

What's that emotion?

Uh, curiosity.

Um, I'm noticing that As I think about that, if you couldn't feel curious, what would you have to feel right now?

What would I have to feel if I didn't feel curious? Hmm, like a sadness.

Sadness, yeah.

Um, the thing that came up is noticing that I've in the past settled into relationships that weren't good enough for me because I didn't think that Yeah, this is a weird bind. I both have this narrative that I have to be better and be more in order to find the relationship I want. And I have the narrative and the history of settling for less because I didn't think that what I deserved was available.

Yeah.

Can you hear the dogs in the background?

I can. It's okay. I don't mind. Sorry. Yeah. And both of those two things create sadness in your system, it sounds like.

Yeah, the noticing that I've settled for less and that's somehow part of this dynamic was what produced the sadness.

Yeah. I'm curious, what's the, if any, what's the need to save somebody?

Hmm.

In your system? Anybody? Friends, family, boyfriends?

It's this narrative of like, if I can be good enough, you can be good enough. If I can somehow create the space to hold whatever you have going on, then within that safety, within that love, you'll be able to become whole.

Yeah. And How does that—

how does—

how does you— how does it work that you helping people become whole makes you good enough, if at all? How much of your career, your education, is based on that same premise?

Mm, sorry, my thoughts jumped tracks a little too quickly and I lost the thread.

Yeah, no problem.

Give me one question to focus on.

The question was, how much of you being good enough is based on your ability to help people be whole? And you were thinking about it in the context of a boyfriend, and then I jumped contexts and said your career, your studies— how much of that is also an attempt to help make people whole so that you can feel good enough?

I don't know how much. I'm noticing there's a little bit of a paradox because my worldview, my framework for study, like my theological worldview, which is very much a part of my life, is that I don't have to fix people. I don't have to make people whole. I believe in a God who steps in—

Everybody but you.

—to do that. What do you mean everybody but me?

Well, you're not good enough to be loved. You need to be more. I think God loves me.

I think I am loved. I think I just don't have the kinds of relationship, the kind of relationship romantically that I want to have.

So God's able to love you, but the person you want isn't able to love you. How does that work?

I can't even find the person. It feels like—

How does that work? Like, how does it work that you're not enough? You need to be more to be lovable. Like, so God is not as smart as the men you date?

Foolishness of the cross and all that. Yeah, that works. Um, no, I think that God isn't bounded by human limitations, so the way that God's love works is different than the way that human love works. Ah.

But wait, I'm confused because that's how you're trying to love these people, to make them whole. Yeah. Yeah. How much are you trying to replicate God's love to love the—

Uh, yeah, I think I'm saving people despite believing that I don't need to do that.

Let's assume for a second you can't think your way out of this.

Okay. Now what?

So I'm going to ask the question again and don't try to think your way out of it. But let's try a different approach. Try surrender your way out of it. Hmm. So the question is, if God's love doesn't require anything of you, but apparently human love does, what makes it that you are trying to love people so well that it makes them whole and that that gives you value on some level, makes you good enough on some level? Yeah, there, that— from that place, what happens?

I don't know. Um, I feel warmth coming up. Yeah, I, I'm— I experience a sense of openness.

Great. My question is, what if you fully allowed a man's love in that loved you just for what you are? What, what do you— what are you potentially going to lose?

The first thing that came up was like, oh no, then I have to love them the way they are. And but that has been what's gotten me into trouble in the past, is trying to love someone the way they are when they're not good enough for me.

Um, like in the, in the Back to God for a Second, they that idea is that God loves you as you are doesn't mean that God puts up with it. Mm-hmm. What's the difference between loving somebody and being boundaried with somebody?

Hmm. I think I experience boundaries when I see them causing someone else discomfort, as hurting them. And hurting them is not loving them.

So, but how does that apply to you if you're being hurt?

I think it means I'm willing to love myself.

Back to the surrender. Back to the surrender. Like right now I'm loving you as you are. There's nothing in me that is like wanting you to be different. And yet I'm still holding this boundary with you of like, hey, Like, we're not going to think our way into a relationship. Hmm. What's the difference between the two?

You don't know me?

That's why I'm— it's— that's apparently why it's easy for me to love you as you are. I'm asking what's the difference between my love for you, however it is right now, and my boundary with you? Hmm. I'm not saying I love you just as you are and go ahead and tell me your story and make your assumptions and I'm just going to agree with all that stuff. But I'm also not asking you to change. You're asking me to change my—

you are asking me to change something.

What am I asking you to change?

The way that I'm showing up for the conversation.

Asking is a good word. I'm not not loving you as you are, and I'm proposing a way of being. If you said to me, no, I want to be in my head, I would be okay. I might not continue the conversation. I might not be like, well, then we're not going to get anywhere, so what are we doing here? But it's not going to stop— it's— I'm not going to harden to you. My heart isn't going to harden to you.

Yeah, I don't think that I have the same facility with that that you do.

Okay, how about we start with you? How can you love yourself as you are, like in this moment? How do you love yourself the way God loves you?

Hmm, something's coming up around, um, my imperfections and meeting myself with love there.

Specifically. Yeah, what, what, what, what's in— what's imperfect in God's world?

Oh, so much is broken. How is that not—

how is that not then a reflection that God is broken? And don't go into your head with me. From that place of loving yourself, how is God's world broken but God isn't?

I think God is broken.

Okay, great.

I'm noticing that using that word with reference to God shifts my definition of broken a little bit. It shifts my thinking around brokenness. I think God is broken because God chooses to love us in our imperfection.

When you said, oh, I think God is broken, I saw the same sadness in you that I saw earlier when you were thinking about how you accepted What's the core belief there? Like, what's the core belief around brokenness and love?

That things can still be beautiful when they're broken.

How else could they be beautiful?

They could be beautiful by being pristine, unbroken in the first place.

They could be beautiful by being healed. Well, like, like what? Like, what's pristine? What's fully healed? Yeah, so can you give that to yourself? The impossibility of your pristineness or your fully healedness.

This is getting— sorry, my— the inside of my brain is getting very metaphysical. Good, let it. And I'm anxious that it's taking us away from the heart of the conversation. It isn't.

Okay, we're, we're in the heart.

I think that there are realities that layer on top of one another, and that in God's reality, the reality that I believe is coming, all things are healed.

Right. Not, not in the head though. Yeah, I will go there, just not in the head.

Okay. I think that in that reality, all things are healed, and that, that's breaking into this reality, this felt reality. Yeah. Great. I think that those things exist at the same time. Yeah, great.

I love it. So how does it feel to give yourself that, that you're already healed, or you've never been not pristine, however you want to look at it?

I— there is a really deep tenderness there. Yeah, there is some resistance too.

Yeah, close, close your eyes. Get in touch with that tenderness. I want you to notice the resistance in yourself. And now I want you to move that tenderness to a man and notice what resistance arises if you actually give that same level of tenderness, not like the guarded level of tenderness, but that same tenderness. This will take a minute. Yeah. The tenderness doesn't require effort.

No, the focus does. The, uh, I— the resistance is actually difficult to notice and trace. Yeah. Um, what I notice when I move that, uh, tenderness to another person is just this really profound longing for connection. Yeah, like this primal want to be in a relationship, in connection with them.

Yeah. How is that not connection? The primal want, the longing?

Well, I think connection is a two-way street, so I've got one way.

So God only is connected with people who are connected with God?

I think God can do whatever the fuck God wants to do, but I'm not God. Great.

I, I, I, I am confident you have experienced connection for someone that is not experiencing connection for you. If you take it out of the romantic thing that, you know, I'm sure you've had that experience. So how is that yearning for connection not connection in itself? Yeah, forget your head. I know, I felt it.

Oh, I, I think it's a different quality than the connection that I want. I want to be met.

So your connection also needs to be a little bit more. You need to be a little bit more. They need to be a little bit more. Your connection needs to be a little bit more. What, what excludes God from this needing to be a little bit more? Or maybe maybe not excluded.

What excludes God from this needing to be a little bit more?

You need to be a little bit more to be loved. The connection needs to be a little bit more. The man is not good enough, needs to be a little bit more.

I'm having trouble connecting the two concepts, the needing to be a little bit more with the exclusion of God.

When you are, when you are in prayer, does God need to be a little bit more? Sometimes, yes. Okay, cool, great, awesome. Yeah, what does this protect you from in yourself with God, with the man, with connection? This idea that it needs to, needs to be a little bit more.

Uh, it protects me from a conviction that it's all on me. To be enough.

It protects you from the conviction that you're fully responsible for enoughness. Yes. Okay. And what if you fully are convicted to that? You— it's all on you. God is enough when you figured it out. You're enough when you figured it out. The man will be enough when you figure it out. The emotional experiencing that you're having right now will be enough when you figure it out. What's the problem with that? What's the problem with that?

With that conviction? I don't know that I see a problem. I think maybe that's the problem.

Let's test it. You're enough. My experience of you is that you're plenty enough. Yeah, what just happened there? You did this.

What did just happen there? I wasn't tracking.

What was the feeling you had when I said you're enough? My experience of you is enough.

It was a desire to like, um, shift in my emotional seat. It was, you saw the movement I needed to make in order to focus more fully.

Great. So my experience of you is that you're enough.

Mm, resistance. You don't know me. You don't know that about me.

Doesn't stop the fact that my experience of you is that you're enough.

Your experience is subjective.

It is. As is yours. You're not enough. You don't know yourself. You're not enough. Your experience is subjective. You're not enough. Connection is not enough. You don't know connection. Your version of connection is not enough. Subjective. What do you lose if this idea that you're not enough goes away? That you don't need to be a little bit more?

That I'm not in control of my experience, that I'm not in control of the life I'm living.

Yeah, that's true.

I've got some strong fuck that energy there. That's cool. Yeah, great.

So just say it to God. Fuck that.

I want control over my own fucking life.

I'm in control, you're not. Are you playing the role of God right now, Joe? No, I'm saying that's what you need to tell God. That's what I need to say, that you don't want to be in control, but you're like, you're like, if I believe this, I'm not in control. So that means you are in control. So say it like, yeah, I'm in control of all this.

You're not. I am in control of all of this. Oh, that's not fucking true.

Oh, no.

Okay, I want to be in control of all this. Yeah, yeah.

So you're accept— you're, you're, you're trying to make a trade of control over loving yourself. You don't get to make it, so there's a lot of friction in your world, but like, that's the trade. You don't get to see yourself as pristine and broken at the same time, or beautiful. Why not? You need to be in control.

Why does the need to be in control exclude holding both of those things at once? No, find out.

Hold it. See if you can love yourself just as you are right now, including your ability or your desire to be in control. So the last part of this is, if you let love in, I don't believe you haven't found the man. My belief, my, my experience in all this stuff is that We don't find the right person. We don't have— that love doesn't come into our lives when we're scared of losing ourselves. Or control would be another way to— another set of words for it. That resonates. Yeah. So the, the final part of this is like, how much can you surrender into love? And it doesn't really matter if you surrender into the love of yourself or the love of God or the love of a man, all of them are a loss of control.

How is the—

it's a dissolution of self. There's not even a self left to be in control.

Yes, that was the thing my brain was going to, was how, how is the loss of control not also the loss of self? That's right. Oh, I don't like that. I don't want to give myself away that way.

Oddly, you're not giving yourself away. It's not a giving away.

What is it?

Dissolution.

What does dissolution mean?

Let's start with God. Love God. Love God fully right in this moment and tell me what happens to you. Non-defended love. No armor-up love. No longer in control love. Just in that, what happens to your sense— what happens to you in that? Did you give yourself to God? Did it just dissolve? What happened? There's that sadness again.

Oh, I'm trying to— um, if it's— it feels like trying to catch a waterfall. It's just— yeah, it's all the emotions. It's, it's all of that yearning for connection. It's not just with What it means to love God is it means loving the world. And that's a fuck ton of shit to love, Joe.

Yeah, it is.

Yeah, fear is up. The fear of being overwhelmed.

No, no, just, yeah, it's a fuck ton of shit to love. Yeah, it's fucking overwhelming. Yeah, this is the dissolution of self here right now. This, this thing, this is what it requires.

I can't function like this.

Ah, she says, talking sentences. Yeah, you can, but you can't. Like, function happens, but the you in it isn't functioning. And from this place, like, really feel— like, if you feel this overwhelm Let's say you're in this over where you really allow that love in, and then I'm your romantic partner and I'm like, hey babe, I'm gonna like go out and get drunk tonight. I don't know what you wouldn't want me to do, or I'm gonna yell at you or something like that. From that place of dissolution, what happens? Not the head.

Oh, I feel distracted by the dog.

Sorry. It's okay. It's a shit ton of stuff to love.

I feel the love though.

Like, yeah, do that, do that, and just notice me breaking your boundary in a romantic relationship. If you feel the love, what happens when the self is dissolving?

No, I lose track of my own needs. That's what happens.

That's what you did. Stay in the overwhelm, see what happens. What's the thing— what's a way that you lose track of your needs? What does the man say?

The— I lost track of my needs in the sense of overwhelm. What I felt in that invitation was—

no, no, I'm saying like, if you— if I go back into your last relationship, what's, what's the pattern that makes you lose yourself? Not lose yourself as in dissolve, but lose yourself as in stop listening to yourself and, and follow somebody else's desires or wants or something. What's the pattern? What do they do? Hold you responsible for something, or they get really depressed and your job is to fix them. Like, what's the way you lose yourself in the relationship? What's the, like, a typical pattern that you get into that makes you betray yourself? Not lose yourself, but betray yourself in a romantic relationship?

It's the sense of that person articulating a need that is in direct conflict with my needs, and I choose between compromising and/or leaving.

Great, that's all I need. Great. So now let's Let's go back to that place of overwhelmed because there's so much to love just as it is. Go back to the place of overwhelm when you and I were both crying together.

I didn't notice you were crying.

Yeah, I was crying. Overwhelmed, but there's so much to love. If I— it's not— I just can't love God is what you said. If I do that, I'm gonna have to love the whole world. That's what you said, and that's so much to love. Yeah, just stay there and see what happens to this. I need you to stop being Christian so that we can be romantically involved. From that place, what happens? From that overwhelm of love? Yeah, take your time. I mean, it's sadness, it's grief.

Yeah, I'm noticing humor, like it's, it's funny. Yeah, because you, you can't take that apart. Like, yeah, right, you, you wouldn't have me, right?

That's right. It's you allowing that overwhelm heartbreak when somebody is asking you to violate yourself to stay in a relationship that prevents you from violating yourself to stay in the relationship.

Yeah, I buy that. I get that.

It's not even an option.

That's what my breakups have always looked like. It's just taken a long time to get there sometimes.

Yeah, if it doesn't— if that's the standard from the beginning of the relationship, and the relationship is over quickly, or it's a match, it is the surrender into the reality and loving the reality that allows a relationship to be good, that allows you not to lose yourself. Oh God, this sucks, and this is my truth, and I'm scared of losing you, and I don't know what to do, but I'm not willing to violate myself, and I don't want you to violate yourself. How do we do that? And we can be in here together in the heartbreak of it. That's what a functional relationship looks like. The dysfunctional relationship looks like Okay, I'm gonna manage my emotional experience so that I can keep connection with you and violate myself.

So I noticed in a sense of like, yeah, I, I get it. Like, I, I get it. I, I know that deeply, that thing you just said. Yeah. And I, I can— I live like that.

So you, you had this moment. I want to pull us back. You had this moment where you saw the path and you were like, oh, I'd have to love everything. And then you said, I'm not, I'm not functional here. And, and then you said, and if I'm here, then I'm gonna totally betray myself inside of a relationship. So intellectually, I get that you get it, but emotionally you're not there because you think you're going to betray yourself and you think you're not going to be functional. You're not loving yourself/God/the world/a man because you have this fear that you're going to betray yourself.

Okay, I can buy that. I can buy it. I can buy the divide between my emotional intellectual reality that feels real. Yeah. How do I bridge that? You already did.

That's a question your mind asked, but your heart already knows the answer to it. Allow the heartbreak of love. I mean, that's what love does, it breaks your heart open. Start with yourself.

So what's to stop me from just loving everyone? Like, I mean, like I can love everyone in the Christian way, but like, in terms of romantic options specifically, how do I— what— where— how do I discern?

You don't. It all, it all takes care of itself for you. Pheromones, hormones, family of origin issues, matching traumas. It all works itself out. You'll find the exact person that you need to heal your side, and they'll heal their side together. And that's how it always works, that way. The question is, are you just able to love yourself? The only real question is, how, how able are you to love yourself and take the risk of complete annihilation inside of love?

I'm noticing the part of myself that wants to ask what to do next, and I predict that your response to that would be, there is nothing to do.

I'd say let your heart break every time. Be overwhelmed by the love that you feel for the whole world and yourself. You want something to do, do that. Okay. Thank you, Joe. You're welcome. What a pleasure.

Wow. Beautiful, beautiful discovery. I hope you enjoyed this coaching session as much as I did. And if you'd like to see the video version of this episode along with other coaching sessions, check out our YouTube channel. You can sign up for our newsletter or learn more about our courses at artofaccomplishment.com. If you enjoyed what you heard today, share it with a friend, and we'd love it if you follow us and rate us in your podcast app. And tune in next week. I'm going to be talking with Tara Howley about the desire to be seen. Tara is Joe's partner and a co-founder in the Art of Accomplishment courses and practices, as well as a coach and facilitator. All of us have a desire to be seen and to be acknowledged, and yet it's something that many of us push away or we criticize in ourselves or in others. We hope you listen. The Art of Accomplishment was produced and hosted by me, Brett Kistler, and Joe Hudson. Munyi Kelly is our production coordinator, and Sarah Melody edited this episode.