Unity at the Lake
Unity at the Lake is a thriving, diverse spiritual community that celebrates God, nurtures wholeness, embraces oneness and embodiesthe Truth of our Being.
Unity at the Lake
Enoughness
Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.
Dr. Stew Bittman
Is there? It's almost as if I knew you were gonna do that song. I did a uh a podcast interview last week, I think, and I was asked what kind of legacy I hope to leave behind. I noticed nobody asked me that when I was young. But I guess they thought I was thinking along those lines. Anyway, I'm not even sure what I said, but I know I got a piece of the a glimpse of it just a couple of nights later, amazingly enough. I went out, which is unusual. I got out of the house and I went to see Jerry's middle finger, which is the name of a band. Hey, hey, hey, I didn't go to see his middle finger. Jerry Garcia was missing part of his middle finger, which I guess is uh where the name of the band came from, because it was a Jerry Garcia cover band. Anyway, um I knew the scene would be chill because of that, but but I ran into people that I have not seen in 20 years, a lot of my former practice folks, and everybody had beautiful things to say. It was almost like I was at my own celebration of life. And I don't know, you know, beer might have had something to do with it. Loosening people's tongues and maybe having them say things they never said to me before, but it was wonderful. It was lovely. I need to get out more often. But what I wanted to talk about today has nothing to do with that. I just was bragging. Anyway, um I thought that part of my legacy might be all the words that I've invented. And one of them is what I want to talk about today, and that's enoughness. I I'm not sure if I invented the word, but I'm taking credit for it anyway. Enoughness. I want to talk about enoughness because a synonym for an uh enoughness in my mind is abundance. And abundance is obviously a core unity idea. Yes? Peace, love, abundance, and joy. Third place. So I also want to talk about it because not enoughness seems to be so prevalent still, not only in my own consciousness, but in people I talk to and interact with. All right. So since I believe I've made up the word, I thought it would be good to define the word, enoughness. All right. Enoughness is the feeling of enough. Isn't that profound? The feeling of doing, having, and especially being enough. And maybe a possible synonym besides abundance is contentment or wholeness or oneness. Because if we are in a state of abundance or wholeness or aware of that state, then what would we feel other than enoughness? Get lost in the grammar. Anyway, enoughness is not the same as enough because the definition of enough is a number or an amount that is sufficient. But have you noticed that what you might think is enough or sufficient is not enough for somebody else? Have you noticed that what is enough for you today, tomorrow is no longer enough? Have you ever called tech support? I say that because, you know, Einstein, in an attempt to explain the theory of relativity to lay people, would say, imagine ten seconds. This was in the weekly newsletter, imagine ten seconds sitting on a park bench with your lover. Now imagine ten seconds sitting on a hot stove. Is ten seconds enough to sit on a park bench with your lover? Is it enough to sit on a hot stove? So it has nothing to do with ten seconds. Are you with me here? Has anybody here experienced enoughness? And did it have anything to do with numbers or amounts? No. And this becomes a challenge when our entire culture is based on more. You need more. Yes? Have you ever seen a commercial that told you you had enough? Enough already. Stop buying. Did you ever see a commercial that said you were enough? No, because you obviously don't have the right car. You don't smoke the well, we don't have cigarette commercials anymore. I I haven't had TV for a long time, as you could probably tell. Yes, yes. The other problem with defining enough is that, again, it's the same problem really. The feeling often is totally independent of any amount or number. Have we all experienced enoughness? So, yes, you can probably acknowledge. It wasn't about a number, it wasn't about an amount, it wasn't about somebody else saying it was enough, it felt like enough to you. And how many of you felt like enough while you were doing the breathing in the meditation? Please just humor me. At least three of you, I hope. Yeah.
unknownYeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00I I I experience enoughness uh just by being in nature, just by sitting by water. I experience enoughness just walking and holding Hillary's hand. When my daughter comes to visit, when I watch a sunset, when they handed me my baby for the first time. I was not looking for more in that moment. In fact, if God took me in that moment, it would have been okay. Do you know what I'm talking about here? Good. Because it wouldn't be worth continuing to talk if you didn't know what I was talking about. Yeah. Yeah. I experience enoughness when I experience God, which to me means when I experience states of consciousness that I attribute to God, like love, peace, abundance, and joy. When I am in my joy, it's enough.
SPEAKER_01You too.
SPEAKER_00And I think I think we've all experienced not enoughness too. Anybody? Is it safe to say enoughness feels better? I I'm like, we can we can affirm that we are more than enough or we are enough till the cows come home, and it's not going to do us much good if we don't feel it. And what stops us from feeling enough? This usually on Labor Day I used to talk about the fact that labor means to totter under a burden. We're all tottering under a burden. And it's always telling us not enough. It's always telling us more. Yes?
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_00So enoughness is not an amount, it's not a number, it's a state of consciousness, it's a choice, it's an attitude. It's like one of Elizabeth Taylor's forty-nine husbands. That was enough. Mike Todd, who was a Broadway producer or something, he said, I've been broke many times, but I have never been poor. That's exactly my point. Broke is a temporary situation. Broke is a snapshot of what's going on in that moment. Poor is an attitude, poor is a state of mind. I tell you a story that I probably told you before, but apparently it wasn't enough. When I was in chiropractic practice, Juliet was working for me at the time, or working with me at the time. Often felt like I worked for you, but that was I had a goal of the number of patients that I wanted to take care of in my chiropractic practice per week. It was it was a it was a number. It was a number that was considered uh the gold standard or something. I don't even know why I wanted this goal. I might as well use numbers. The goal was 500 people a week. It's a lot of people in three days. And so uh we literally adjusted between 450 people and 499 people for about eight months, which is another talk altogether about imaginary ceilings and stuff. But I literally we literally saw 499 one week, and I went home. Guess who I was thinking about? I was thinking about the person who didn't come in. I I for promptly forgot about the 499 people who, to me, got their life turned on. 499 was not enough. It had to be 500. So, so I finally, and I joking, half-jokingly say I called my mom and a bunch of friends to come in just to bump my number up. So, so you know, we saw 500, and for about 11 milliseconds, I was ecstatic and I was on top of the world. And then this voice, loud and clear in the back of my head, says, Do I hear sex? And all of a sudden, 500 was not enough. Can you relate to that even though you're not chiropractors? Say it crazy. So I I learned, I relearned, or I got another big piece of a very valuable lesson in that moment. It was that my brain has trouble spelling enough, let alone experiencing enough. It's a weird word to spell. Whereas my heart, my God consciousness, my Christ self, whatever you want to call it, knows nothing but enough. Which organ do I want to hang out in? You got it. My head, and I don't know about yours, I can only speak about mine, because this is the one, this is the l burden I'm tottering under. Enough is not part of it, it's lexicon, right? It's it's it's too much of a time traveler, right? It's too much of a what's missing detector. Or what might be missing, or what might be missing in the future. That's what my brain's interested in. And it's really hard to feel enoughness when I'm concerned about what's missing or what could be wrong, or what or any of those things. Anyway, once I'm in my heart, though, all of a sudden it's very easy for me to experience enoughness from next to nothing. Like being here, like speaking, like like again, all those things I mentioned before, like the simple things, like family and connections with people and engaging in life and all those and breathing and being. It's enough. It's enough. Doesn't mean I don't want more. You know, I don't think God works this way, but assuming God is up there, you know, judging and giving when I do things right and not giving when I do things wrong. I mean, I assuming that God is like that, if I'm not grateful for what I have, why on earth would God give me more? I'm glad you can't answer that question. Yeah. And the things that we and we this is such a basic unity idea. The things we value most in life are here, are here in unlimited amounts. Yes? I have to open my eyes, I gotta take the blinders off, I gotta, I gotta stop saying it's not enough because as long as I'm saying it's not enough, I can't see it. I and I certainly can't feel it. And those things, unfortunately, that are here that we we desire the most are also the things we take the most for granted. So to me, the answer is to appreciate the 499. My gosh, how arrogant of me. And we won't talk about you, but you can think about that for yourself. Can you give a little more acknowledgement and appreciation for the things you have in life? The things that maybe many people don't have. The things, you know, I mean, I complain about tourists up here. You know, I tend to forget they spent, you know, maybe saved up for their entire lives to come here for two weeks. And if there's like three people at the beach, I'm upset there's too many people. It's amazing how it rains. It's either not enough or too much. There's a George Carlin joke like that, but I can't say it here. It's something about something about, did you ever notice that everybody's driving 10 miles an hour slower than you is an idiot? And if they're driving 10 miles an hour more than you, they're a maniac? I changed the words a little. Okay. And perhaps the most damaging not enoughness thought I know that I have is when I tell myself I am not enough. And as long as I tell myself I am not enough, then having more will still not be enough. That's the most important thing I have to say to you. I think about the mission trips I used to do in chiropractic, and we went to Panama and Costa Rica and stuff in the more of the poorer areas of Costa Rica, but definitely very poor areas of Panama. And I these people had more enoughness than anybody I know. And they had nothing.
SPEAKER_01They had nothing, but they wanted to share it all with you. They wouldn't have needed this talk at all.
SPEAKER_00But we do. Because we have so much. We have so much that we've forgotten what it's like to appreciate and acknowledge the simpler things. At least I have. So yeah. Wherever we got the idea that we were not enough, maybe we even blame ourselves or are busy blaming ourselves right now for having thoughts of not enoughness. It's not my intention. Wherever it came from, again, let's start reclaiming our own enoughness. Can we do that? Yes, I think we do that every time we reclaim our heart or access our God self or meditate or look beyond what the five senses are telling us about enoughness or not enoughness. We have to reclaim our heart, I believe. Because I believe this is the spokesperson for my God self. Establishing this as the island of peace in our soul, as the safe haven from the storms of our own head. This is what allows us to totter under this burden and thrive. And once I access it, I'm somewhat aware of the enoughness within me, it's a lot easier for me to see it in you. And out there. Yes. You know, the truth is to be alive is enough. That's a weird thing to say, isn't it? Yeah. To have at least some idea of a purpose in life and to live it is more than enough. To open our heart to life is enough. To engage in life is enough. To to connect with life and to connect with other people and other beings is enough. To open our heart and experience a little more love is enough. To inspire one person to open their heart is enough. And I think it's fair to say that we've all done this. We've all done a lot of this, yes? Do we have to be like George Bailey and have an angel come down to point out to us that it's enough and that our life has been enough, and that we have helped and served and made a big difference in a lot of people's lives? I mean, that would be cool, but we could be our own angel. Because you and I are more than enough, and we can again we can be our own angel and remind ourselves of that. Let's close our eyes for a moment. And just take that one deep cleansing breath into our heart space and let it quickly fill us with this knowing. This knowing that again we are celebrating God, nurturing wholeness, embracing oneness, embodying the truth of our being. Every time we just give that a little more attention. We are more than enough, and we can be angels for ourselves and actually allow ourselves to feel it.
SPEAKER_02Thank you, God.
SPEAKER_00And so it is.