Navigating Life with Ease – What Enough Means from a 3 Principles Perspective

Welcome. This podcast is a series of candid conversations exploring the human experience from a completely new perspective. In it, we will be diving deeply into the meaning of commonly used words and pointing you away from that old, stressful way of looking at life and towards a new paradigm. This will help you find a sense of calm, cultivate meaningful relationships, and create harmony in every aspect of your life. Here is Navigating Life with Ease with Michaela Ellis and Claire Downer.

Claire, Hello.

I'm good. Good. Yeah. Another beautiful day in the uk.

Still nice.

We're having a lovely spring straight. Well, it's not even summer yet, is it? Really? Officially, yeah, it's beautiful. Yeah.

Really good here, too, in Alberta, Canada. It's a beautiful, beautiful day. Mild spring.

Yeah.

I hear you have a word for me.

I do.

I was jumping right in.

Yeah, everything's very green. It's lovely. I do like spring. It's probably my favorite season. Yes, I do have a word for you, and the word is enough.

Yeah, well, context with enough, right? What is enough? It depends on, of course, your perspective and how you're looking at it and the meaning that you're making. I kind of see two things. I see that our true nature is already enough. Of everything, there is no even enough. There's not even a measurement of enough, because it's always there.

So.

Yeah, so from this one perspective, there's always enough. There's never. There's no measurement of it from our true nature, and yet our true nature is infinite. So from that perspective, there's always more that's being created. So when you bring those two words together of more and enough, it's like they're flying in the face of each other. So the feeling, so coming from true nature, there's always enough all along the way, no matter what we're creating, what we're doing more of, or maybe creating more looks like less of something, because we're always just creating what's coming through us to create. There's a feeling to it, and that is always enough. That will always be enough. When I look at it from this personal mind perspective, this ego mind perspective, everywhere I look outside of me, I'm lacking or have too much. Like, I have too much paper more than enough, or I have not enough space, or not enough time, or not enough of this, or not enough money, or not enough. Yet, pulling my. My gaze, my observance from. From out there, the outside circumstances, and sort of pulling it back in. And sort of settling into, you know, we all have that space where we can come from. We may not always have words to describe it, but there's a feeling of it. For me, it's almost like settling back, settling in and being sort of cradled or supported. And it's like internal. And from that place. E. When I look from. You know, with presence consciously from this internal. And looking at those things outside, I can see that they're not too much or not enough or anything. They just are. Until I let my. Until I let myself go out there. And then I can look at this paper, which I've actually neatly organized now. And I can still look at one pal and think, oh my gosh, those are things to do. And it feels like too much. So it's really so subjective when we're coming at it from this outside in. Like, you know, everything that the meaning that we're making of everything out there is affecting us and it's feeling like too much, we're not enough scarce. And that place inside, it's just. It's always just a feeling of. Like when I'm present, it is a feeling of enough. I may not even call it that word, but it's like it's what is. And there's no judgment on it. That's kind of. If I'm going to like, try to put the word enough to it. It's like that's just what is. And there's no meaning or anything about it. That's a starter. It's.

It's riddled with comparison, isn't it? There has to be something to. Even if it's imagined, something that is to compare with. And that quite. I mean, often is imagined. Especially when we talk about ourselves not being enough. There's this imagined idea of how we're supposed to be doing enough or being enough or earning enough or the most. The time that comparison we're making is with something that doesn't even exist. It's never existed. It's just. And I just thought about that as you were saying. Something you said just sparked that thought in me. That it has to be grounded in comparison because it's a comparative language. Isn't it enough? It has to be to do with. Well, there's something that's less than something, that's more.

Or.

And. And then. But actually, like, if I say I've not done enough today, according to whom. According to who's. Whose version of reality is that is like. Well, it's just nonsense, isn't it? It doesn't really. It's just nonsense. It's nonsense. That word is. Is almost nonsense. Isn't it? How do we know what enough is when, like you said that there's something about the infinite. Infiniteness of. Of life that is infinite. It is. It can't be compared with anything. I remember Michael Neal once saying when you're talking about this, I don't know, energy of life. I quite like that phrase. But Sydney Bounce called it. Mind that when you're talking about that, you can't really. You can't get it. You can't grasp it really. And he said it's like pointing at ice. Sorry, Pointing at fire with ice. And the closer you get to it, well, the ice just melts. You can't really grasp hold of it anymore. It's not describable. And that's what we are. So how can that not be enough? It doesn't even. The word looks ludicrous, doesn't it, when you start to just even. But we use it a lot, and I think we use it a lot to beat ourselves up. I'm not tidy enough. I'm not organized enough. I don't do enough. I'm not, you know, this afternoon I've not been sleeping very well, so I had a very long lunch with a business lady I've just met through networking. And I came back and I did a bit of chopping for the tea. And then I just lay here and listened to a yoga Nidra. I just. I just knew that I needed to rest and. And that comes a little bit easier now rather than just busying. Busying myself all the time. Because that's been. That's been such a driver in my life that enough. And I'm never. I was never quite enough. Doing enough or perfect enough. That's another one, isn't it? Like those two things, I think, enough enoughness and perfection, they go together, don't they? They're like little. They're like little cell mates. In fact, they should be cell mates. Would you put them both in prison and throw away the key? Never let them out again? That would be lovely. They're just. They're quite cruel words, really. We. We use them to be quite cruel to ourselves. I. I talk about, obviously, the inner critic in a knowing Journey. And we just. We do some that. I think that's. That was the battle cry, I think of my inner critic was, you're not doing enough. Do more. Not enough yet. It's not enough yet. It's not enough. Do some more. Do some more. To the point of, you know. You know, to the point of my mind exhausting my Body. She's mad when you think about it, that my mind demanded so much more and more and more and more to. To try and be enough, whatever the heck that supposed to be. To the point where my body said not doing that anymore. Actually, no, my body said enough. It said stop it now. Now. But that's crazy that we do that. And I know I'm not the only one who is living that life of chasing enoughness, whatever that is, to the point of crazy really. To try and get Lord knows where. Like there is somewhere to get to. Yeah.

Yeah. I like what you said about. Well, two things that kind of struck me is this, you know, not enough according to who. And. And it's like. And really it's like not enough according to which thought that pass by and we like I, you know, I saw you swiping at a fly that or some bug that was. And it was just like yeah, like that got it.

I know someone definitely more than enough. There's definitely more than enough flipping flies in my flipping motor home at the moment. I have to tell you. Definitely enough flies. Don't want any more of them.

Right. And there's things you could do, you know, you could open up the door and let them go out and isn't that what our thoughts do? Our thoughts come and go, but you know, we'll grab on to those that. That something, something along the way has told us. Right? That's an important one. We need to be enough or. And we can use it either to like beat the heck out of ourselves or just like push us down and put us in a little like a little box or a little like just that. Nope, stay down. Because I've used this word a few times this week, even this morning, about not enough, not knowing enough, not being enough, not speaking enough, not doing this enough. It's like oh my gosh. Or like that I'm not enough and I shouldn't be speaking or you know, there's all kind. You can, you can like it's such a versatilely abusive word. Self abusive word. You can use it in any way you want.

And it could come from all the different directions because it's like you're not doing enough but. But you're, you're. You're being a bit too much. You know what I mean? Like it's not like the same like ah, it's just horrible.

Yeah.

And where do we. Like it's like where, where. Where do we end up with this nonsense of. I think compa. I think comparison's got Something to do with it or some sense of where we're supposed to be. Because at some point when we were little, maybe somebody said, I don't know, I think maybe our parents were the gen. That generation who just. You just have to work hard. Just keep working hard for the rest of your life till you literally. Or you might get to retirement if you're lucky, but you'll probably drop dead before that. You know, it's just like work hard kind of thing. I don't know. Maybe it's something about that. But it's. It's like you said, it's so insidious, like, how much we use that word to. To beat ourselves up just all the time. And it's nonsense. It is.

Even with not enough sleep, because I too, experienced that. I actually almost called you, sent you a note about an hour and a half ago, say, hey, do you think maybe, is there another time this week we could do this? Because I didn't get a lot of sleep, and then I was dwelling on it. Oh, I'm tired. Oh, my eyes are. It's like, oh, for God's sake, get with it. So I just got present. And just like, I actually feel really good. And as soon as I put my attention on, I'm okay. I'm functioning. I've done some things this morning. I'm totally capable of doing more. And the more that I got on, like, we can create this little. A little snowball, little momentum, whatever you want to call it, just with our thoughts. So this. More earlier, I was creating this snowball effect, this momentum that was going. It was like rolling off the back of the clip. I'm going backwards. And it's just like, no, I'm fine. I'm just. I'm just feeding this thought that I'm tired. I'm okay. I have a whole day ahead of me that I have plans for that I want to do. Like, I'm excited to dive in. I am not. And then as soon as I started down this path, I didn't even get all the thoughts out, right? Like, now I'm forming the thoughts. But there wasn't even fully formed thoughts. It was more like it happened like. Like that, right where it's like, I'm fine. And then it turned in the. In the other direction, like, just like that. We can shift everything where not enough or enough becomes like, I'm good, I'm good, and carry on. Funny that. Funny how that happened, truly.

Like, the minute you see through it, it ceases to exist, doesn't it? Like it's, it's that like you say, like the clouds passing across, it just, it's just in, out, in, out, in, out. And then you move, and then you move on. Because I, I think it, like, it if with mine is always like, not enough, not doing enough. That was all the time, never doing it. I never was doing enough. But interestingly, the thought of I'm not doing enough didn't actually make me more productive. Because there's an irony, isn't it? Because as you start to think I'm not doing enough, then you start to feel terrible about yourself, then you feel low and then you go do some procrastinating and faffing around because you want to get rid of that horrible feeling. And so that's a vicious. It's like a part similar to the overwhelm, sort of vicious cycle when you know. And actually you can get really caught up in trying in, in that, in that cycle. And actually it is that step back like you said, and just. Oh, I'm aware there's some really silly thinking here going on like that I don't have to engage with. Like I can just step. I feel like almost the awareness piece is almost like a. Just a step backwards to watch the thinker doing the thinking and then go, oh, yeah, but that's all just complete rubbish. And I think as well, like, I think if you think when we think it's not enough, we probably feel urgent, overwhelmed. We feel that in our bodies and that's brilliant because that's like that massive cue that our thinking is utter rubbish. That's it. Like you feel terrible in your body. That is a great, great. It's a gift. It's a just. I remember one, I can't remember which 3P. It was a 3P older lady who I can't remember might have been Elsie Spittle, who said they're like love letters from. When we, when we get those, when we get those physical sensations which we of course have been taught to suppress and get rid of and that they're a problem. No, if we're feeling like that rushed up urgent feeling or that overwhelmed feeling, this probably is the inner critic saying, not enough, need to do more. You're not doing enough. And that's a lie. Yeah. Because back to the beginning, there is no measure. There's no measure. It's not a ruler. There isn't a ruler measure enough over you. Well, you're 30 centimeters now, so you've cracked it. There isn't. That doesn't exist. And I think For. For entrepreneurs, business owners who might be listening to this, it's huge. Is this for our businesses? Because we're the ones setting the expectations. So we go, there's a list of 25 things and I haven't done them, so I've not done enough. You made that up in the first place and now you're making up the fact that you failed. It's not a thing. It's not true, and it feels terrible. So, you know, you're off. You know, you're thinking is often rubbish. Not true. Because you feel that. Crazy. It's a good word.

Yeah. Yeah.

Well.

And where there's all that. Just a. A note. I'm having a hot flash, so I'm fanning myself a bit. I'm sorry if it's. If it's sounding windy in here.

Especially as it gets warmer.

Right. I could say, enough, enough of this. When is this gonna stop? But it's like, really. It's like I'm kind of feeling really hot and getting, like, uncomfortable. So why don't I just fan myself and just let it go? Because it's gonna pass. Just like those thoughts. I was gonna say those. The.

The.

And comparison. Even that. Because I didn't used to get hot flashes and now I do. I want it like it was before. I could stay caught in that. Of too much of this, not enough of that. And. And. And what's happening? I'm just suffering. I'm just suffering more, but only at the cause of my own focus, of my own. What I'm hanging on to. So it's crazy. Yeah. So you're right. You had mentioned earlier about comparison. It does all start there. It is. But I mean, that's the nature of being human. Right? We live on a spectrum of what's most delightful and what's not. So. So. And everything from one end to the other is available to us. Just knowing that it's there and it is a choice because we are these amazingly creative beings. Like, so simply we can just choose with our own thoughts which direction, what we're going to look towards, focus towards. Hey, yeah, I'm. I'm good. Even though I only had a few hours sleep, it actually was enough. How do I know? Because I'm here, functioning. I've done a lot of things today and I'm able to do more. I'm not.

Join the podcast. It's good news. This is marvelous. That would have been a bit weird because then I be like, how do I wake Micha up? Shout down the mic, Micha wake up. Just here. Let's go. Works out fabulous.

Yeah, it's very good. Really good word, Claire.

Yeah.

Thank you. Very good. Thank you.

See you soon.

Ciao.

Bye. Hey.

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