As I was drifting off to sleep Friday night my mind wandered to what the coming week’s mantra might be. The words “You are enough. You do enough.” appeared on my internal movie screen. I think I first read them in one of SARK’s books 20 years ago and while I appreciated them then, it took another fifteen years for their impact to sink in. In my mid-30’s, immersed in rebuilding a marriage, returning to school and trying to have a baby I finally realized how much of my story revolved around feeling like not enough.

In the happy, busy buzz of my birthday weekend I forgot all about these thoughts. This morning my normal writing time was handed over to the bookkeeper and it wasn’t until I found myself headed to the dentist at 3pm, crying in frustration, that the words returned.

A younger me might have rolled her eyes at this point. But for the newly-minted 42 year old me, these words provided just enough space to see the story I was telling myself. In the story getting our books settled and ready for the accountant didn’t count as “doing” anything. Neither did having a great conversation with a colleague, or supporting a client.

The mind likes to play tricks and today, I fell for them. These two short sentences helped me dust myself off, acknowledge the very real frustration of having to postpone some of what needed to get done and with a huge helping of compassion, take myself to the dentist.

Was the day perfect after that? Nope. Was it better? Unbelievably so.

If this simple mantra doesn’t work for you, then I invite you to reach for one that does. And in the meantime, I’ll remind you:

You are enough. You do enough.

Yep.