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Light In The Dark: It's Never Enough · Unlocking The Paradigm Portal

• 0:00
  Hey, it's Sarah again. I am really glad that you came
• 0:04
  back to join me. So think of my voice as a light
• 0:07
  in the dark tonight. And I'm not here to fix anything
• 0:10
  or to tell you what to do. I'm just here to keep you
• 0:12
  company for a few minutes while you rest.
• 0:16
  And I want to ask you something, and I want you to just let the
• 0:19
  answer land without doing anything about it.
• 0:22
  When did you last feel like you'd done enough?
• 0:26
  Not productive enough, not almost enough.
• 0:28
  Just enough, full stop. Like you could close the laptop,
• 0:33
  put the list down, stop measuring, and actually feel OK
• 0:37
  about it. And I'm going to guess that's
• 0:40
  not a feeling you have a lot of access to.
• 0:43
  And I'm going to guess that enough is a place you've been
• 0:46
  trying to get to for a very long time.
• 0:49
  And somehow, no matter how much you do, it keeps moving.
• 0:54
  The finish line isn't moving because you're failing, it's
• 0:57
  moving because you were never told you'd already arrived.
• 1:02
  And I want to talk about the hum.
• 1:05
  You know the one. It's not loud.
• 1:06
  It doesn't announce itself. It's just there, underneath
• 1:10
  everything, this low grade running commentary that says
• 1:14
  there's more to do. You should be further along.
• 1:17
  You haven't earned this yet. Keep going and it might sound
• 1:21
  like this. I'll rest when I finish this, or
• 1:25
  I'll slow down when things settle.
• 1:28
  I'll feel good about myself when I hit that milestone.
• 1:31
  When I lose the weight, when I get the promotion, when I finish
• 1:34
  the project, when I become the version of myself I'm working
• 1:38
  toward, then I can rest. And then you hit that milestone.
• 1:43
  But the hum doesn't stop. It just finds the next thing.
• 1:47
  Because the hum was never actually about that milestone.
• 1:52
  The hum is the sound of a wound that was never yours to carry
• 1:57
  trying to keep you moving so you never stop long enough to
• 2:00
  question him. And I want to talk about rest
• 2:04
  for a second. And I don't mean sleep.
• 2:06
  I mean rest the kind where you're not doing anything and
• 2:11
  you're not supposed to be doing anything and your body is still
• 2:14
  and the world is quiet. And for a lot of people, that
• 2:18
  sounds like peace. But for you, if this wound is
• 2:23
  yours, that sounds like anxiety. Because the moment that things
• 2:27
  go quiet, the hum gets louder, the list surfaces, the guilt
• 2:31
  arrives. You start calculating how much
• 2:34
  time you've spent not being useful, and you tell yourself
• 2:38
  you'll just do one more thing, and then one more.
• 2:41
  And then somehow it's midnight and you're exhausted and you
• 2:44
  still don't feel like you did enough.
• 2:48
  So I'm here to tell you, that's not laziness and that's not a
• 2:52
  lack of discipline. That is what it feels like to
• 2:55
  live in a body that was taught very, very long ago that your
• 3:00
  worth is tied to your output and that you have to keep earning
• 3:04
  your place. And that stillness is something
• 3:06
  that you have to deserve. But you know what?
• 3:10
  You were never meant to earn rest.
• 3:13
  Rest was always supposed to be yours just because you're here.
• 3:19
  So I'm not going to explain this to you tonight.
• 3:21
  This isn't that kind of episode. But I want to name something
• 3:25
  gently because I think you already feel it, even if you
• 3:28
  haven't found the words for it yet.
• 3:30
  Underneath all the doing, underneath the achieving and the
• 3:34
  delivering and the proving and the pushing, there is a
• 3:38
  question. You might not even be aware that
• 3:41
  you're asking it, but it's there.
• 3:43
  And the question is, am I OK as I am, not as I could be, not as
• 3:49
  I'm working toward, but as I am right now without credentials,
• 3:53
  without output, without the performance and the next
• 3:57
  milestone, just me, is that enough?
• 4:02
  And if that question hits somewhere tender and soft and if
• 4:08
  it lands with a little bit of an Ouch, I see you.
• 4:12
  I know what that feels like, and that bit of pain, that
• 4:16
  tenderness, is information, and it means something got in a long
• 4:21
  time ago that told you the answer was no.
• 4:25
  And your whole beautiful, driven, exhausted life has been
• 4:29
  organized around trying to prove that wrong.
• 4:33
  You've been working this hard not because the work required
• 4:35
  it, but because some part of you has been trying for years to
• 4:40
  answer a question that, frankly, nobody should have made you ask.
• 4:46
  And I'm not going to tell you to stop.
• 4:48
  I'm not going to give you a list of things to try.
• 4:50
  You've got enough lists. I'm just going to sit here with
• 4:53
  you for one more minute, and I want to say something out loud
• 4:58
  that maybe no one has said to you clearly enough, or often
• 5:02
  enough, or at the right moment. You are not a project to be
• 5:08
  completed and you are not a performance to be perfected, and
• 5:15
  you are not a debt that needs to be paid off before you're
• 5:19
  allowed to rest. You are a person, and you are
• 5:23
  enough right now, tonight, exactly as you are.
• 5:28
  Not because of anything you've done, just because you're here,
• 5:33
  because you feel things, because you showed up for this, whatever
• 5:37
  this is tonight when you could have looked away.
• 5:43
  And that hum might not go quiet tonight.
• 5:44
  And that's OK. You don't have to fix it
• 5:47
  tonight. But I want you to know that I
• 5:50
  see it and I see you carrying it.
• 5:53
  And I think you've been carrying it for a very long time without
• 5:57
  anyone telling you that you were allowed to put it down.
• 6:02
  You are enough, just as you are, and I'm going to leave this
• 6:08
  Lantern right here next to you so that you continue to have
• 6:11
  some light and feel a little bit less alone.
• 6:15
  And remember, you don't have to do anything else tonight.
• 6:19
  There's no milestone to achieve. There's no one to impress.
• 6:23
  You've done enough. You have always done enough.
• 6:27
  Now rest.