Can “enough” equal success?
I say it can. Here's why and how.
More is better, right?
I feel like in general people feel inclined to say yes to that question.
👉 More time.
👉 More money.
👉 More sex.
👉 More sleep.
👉 More energy.
👉 More vacation days.
👉 More choices. (I initially typed “more chives” but that doesn’t feel as universal 😂).
I intimately, deeply, desperately know the feeling of looking at the horizon and seeing that something better looking back at me and working diligently toward it.
Since my teen years, I’ve Fab Five makeover-ed my life so many times I could be called an optimizing queen (just ask my husband).
So, imagine my surprise when I woke up a few weeks after my friend Patty died with an overwhelming sense of having missed the point in my life.
I felt the goals I’d set for myself:
🤑 Make six figures so I could buy stuff for the house and a new car.
👩💻 More clients.
🎤 More notoriety.
👍 More followers.
👑 Build a “Femmepire”.
Didn’t feel right anymore. They felt empty. Not connected to my soul somehow.
Since then I’ve had to take a long, very hard, sometimes excruciating look at what I truly want from life.
Turns out, after staying with all the painful things that came up. Listening and validating all the parts.
What I ultimately wanted, and still want, is to be able to:
👉 Stop and rest. (Which before I could do for about a month after my kids were born - but that was about it.)
👉 Relax into life. To be able to trust that life has my back.
👉 Be me. To be able to be FULLY myself in all aspects of my life.
👉 Be surrounded by people who trust me, like me, and get me on a fundamental level.
👉 To only work with people who I profoundly believe in and respect.
👉 To be present for my children and value each day with them.
👉 To be able to be present for what I have and be grateful for the immense privilege bestowed upon me in this life.
👉 Turn my own suffering and lessons learned into something that can lessen the suffering and struggles of other people – even ONE person.
👉 To know what’s mine to do and what isn’t.
👉 To have moments in my life of wild abandon and bliss.
👉 To feel comfortable in my own skin.
👉 To be able to build long-term relationships built on both parties doing their own inner work so that the relationships are built on a stable foundation.
👉 To have space and time to deepen my connection to my husband.
👉 To have money enough to thrive as I define it.
👉 To have space and time every day to do nothing but be.
👉 To be able to follow the guidance of my soul and live by flow and inspiration.
👉 To be able to face life’s unavoidable twists, turns, pain, and tragedies with family and friends by my side.
To do my part in creating a just and habitable planet for us to live on.
Once I came to these truths, the most earth-shattering insight dawned on me:
I already had it.
Somehow in the pursuit of more, I’d created what I longed for without realizing it! It simply wasn’t flashy enough for me to notice. Or rather, I’d bought into the patriarchal myths that had trapped me in a false mindset that what I already have wasn’t enough. All the while my simultaneously honest pursuit to slow down, give up control, and let go of much of my ego’s plans had actually created something REAL.
As I realized all this (with the help of my friends and amazing therapist), there were still aspects of my life; relationships, behaviors, beliefs, and goals that didn’t align with my truth.
So I had to go through the very painful process of letting go of a business, promises of a certain income level to my husband, grieving and releasing old patterns, reducing the time I had been giving to supporting family and friends, changing the way I was parenting, generally releasing any form of false control, and codependent behaviors.
Because once I looked my hustle and fight for survival (disguised as “making six-figures while only working 12 hours a week”) straight in the face. I simply saw a façade hiding a little girl self that had survived by serving everyone else and their needs first.
A girl that had bought the idea that she will be safe when she’s in control by making people love and depend on her, had become “rich” and had proven herself worthy by being “successful”.
When the truth is that she was worthy all along, and there IS no way to shield yourself from life’s pain.
I came to know that there isn’t an answer at the end of the rainbow that magically makes the pain “worth it” (still working on this).
“I'm no longer interested in any forms of spirituality, self mastery programs, success mentors, coaches, healers, spiritual thinkers, or activists that don’t ultimately lead their communities back to responsible association to tending the Earth.
The never ending quest for self-realization, personal brand mastery, self-success “soul”-preneurship all strike me as bypasses that have only served to keep us disassociated from what’s actually going on here.
Which requires us to exit the cult of individual success, whether seen through foggy spiritualized goggles or not, and get our hands dirty in the immediacy of our grounded environmental issues around us.
The world dies while we buy in to yet another charismatic voice telling us how to heal some yet unmastered part of ourselves even more deeply into narcissistic individual “success.”
The world dies while charismatics make millions on their self help platforms. Sure.. and for that matter, Please: do your personal healing.
But if my healing only keeps looping back to myself, and doesn’t ultimately lead to reassociation with the Earth and my work to be part Of It, then I’m just a casualty of healing-themed consumerism. And still contributing to the problems that are destroying the planet.”
— Adrianne Tamar Arachne
I realized that the things that made life’s absolute torture and insanity bearable are:
💜 An inner connection to a “divine parent”, source, God - Bethany Webster calls it an “Inner Mother”.
💜 An outer connection with people I can melt into and say “I hate everyone in the entire world” or who I can belly laugh with.
💜 Nature.
💜 My kids.
💜 Pleasure (🥐 + 🛏️ + 🏖️ + 🎵 + 💃🏽 + ✍️ + 📚).
That’s it.
I’ve decided it’s enough. It’s enough. It’s enough.
It’s ENOUGH!!!!
From here I can keep creating magnificent things, adventures, and general magic. And I will. (Yay, you’re with me on the ride!).
But the creations are secondary to the inner peace that comes from not abandoning myself and knowing that God/creator/the universe/Allah/Love hasn’t abandoned me either. Never have. Never will.
And the same goes for every other living being on this earth.
Knowing this feels like peace.
Dude. It’s messy here on earth (as I’m sure you’ve noticed!!)
But despite all of it:
I’m enough.
You’re enough.
We’re enough.
What’s your relationship with success and being enough? Let me know in the comments.
Much love,
Karna 💜
Exercise:
If you’re curious about how to embody this in your own life here are some suggestions.
✍️ Journalling or discussion prompts:
What are your current measures of success?
Are there ways that I have internalized patriarchy’s values around success?
Are there any goals you can let go of right now that no longer serve you?
What does true success look like for you?
Reflect on what you already have and feel your enough-ness.
Often, success metrics that are based on scarcity and competition make us jam too much into our schedule.
Next, look at your to-do lists and activities. Find a few things that you can remove or delegate.
Use the free time as a water hole and fill your cup.
Find time in nature and soak in the abundance of nature and its inherent majesty and completeness.
Acknowledge that you are part of nature and equally complete and magnificent RIGHT NOW
Another helpful exercise by Lena Dunham via Instagram.
Here's a little checklist I made for myself when I was at a real low with love, sex and friendship. I didn't trust myself and my inner voice sounded more like some drunk girl I wanted to ignore at a party... I wrote these questions down and asked them to myself often and... gradually, but sort of miraculously, things changed. I hope this comes in handy for anyone who may need it- now, or down the road ❤️
Are you...
...Reaching out because you genuinely want to share something funny or beautiful? Or because you want to get some kind of assurance, validation or response that eases the uncertainty of being vulnerable?
...Agreeing because you *truly* agree or because you want to create a portrait of someone easy to know, a mirror without smudges, a creature impossible not to love because, well, they aren’t really there?
...Having sex out of true desire or to quiet the voice that says your body isn’t desirable, the feeling you haven’t been properly seen and heard that day, or the reality that the world is too noisy and you want the drug of infatuation/lust/passionate connection in your system?
...Moving at the speed of reality or at the speed of fantasy?
...Seeing the person who is actually in front of you or the person you conjure when you’re going to sleep at night and need a pleasant diversion?
...Hearing what they’re saying when they tell you what they're about and what they’re capable of? Or nodding absently as your ears ring with your own version of the story?
...Being honest about your own boundaries, limits, deepest desires, needs that must be met, dreams that must be fulfilled (even on a micro level!) in order to keep moving forward? Or are you saying "what, me have needs? Never!"
...Prizing your own journey and recognizing that any result is the correct one as long as it’s the result of you sharing your truth with love and care?
It’s so important to reevaluate goals and dreams - I’ve definitely had a few AHA moments when I’ve realized that I don’t even want the things I thought I want! Also, I’d take more chives!
Way to show up for yourself❤️ Talk to you soon love.