I watched a talk a little while ago by Marisa Peer. Her entire philosophy was around the power of one simple phrase –

“I AM ENOUGH”

You can watch her talk here:

After watching it something in me had changed. Perhaps I’d remembered something, or maybe I’d learnt it for the very first time; but either way it was impacting me in a way I didn’t know before. I scribbled on our bathroom mirror in lipstick “I Am Enough” – which was as radical an action as it was the fact that I actually owned some lipstick.

Why did I do this? Why was this phrase in any way different from the many affirmations that are floating around the spiritual world these days?

Because for me this got to the very core of it.

This in fact was all there ever really was.

You either thought you were enough or you didn’t, and every other self-sabotaging, self-depreciating thought stemmed from here.

Think about it for a second. Do you think you are enough?

Deep down, in your darkest thought, do you believe that you could possibly be enough?

And what does being enough even mean? Enough of a mother, enough of a lover, enough of a success in the world?

What are those things that you constantly critique yourself on?

Imagine for a second, suppose, that the belief that you were enough could be true.

I AM ENOUGH.

How does that change the way you approach things?

How does it impact the hope and possibility that you feel in your life?

For me it changes things immensely.

It means that I don’t beat myself up for every perceived mistake or cut my ideas down before they’ve even had a chance to grow. Because I believe that by being enough I could have good ideas and the sum of my errors is not just someone who is an idiot but is someone who is willing to grow.

It means I believe the part of me that knows I am trying my best to be a wonderful mother to our children and knows that I am desirable in the eyes of my love.

All these things that are actually huge aspects of my life suddenly I see as so deeply linked to this one simple thought.

It’s the thought that is so automatic when we lay eyes on our child for the very first time. In that moment there is nothing but acceptance and love.

“You are enough, my darling child, you will always be enough.”

And we believe it with every bone in our body.

There is nothing about that tiny ball of perfection that ever, ever needs to change.

But the world changes us, and it makes us believe that the beauty and perfection that we once knew as true is no longer real. We need to fight to prove ourselves as valid and to be loved.

When did it change? And how?

Because every time I relive the moment that those beautiful, precious souls entered into my world I know in my deepest truth that they are the Universe expressed as perfection. They are the truest sense of the divine god.

And if I know this to be true then the same must be said of me. When my parents first gazed upon my face in that first instant that my life on this planet became their true reality, did they not see the same expression of the divine in my body? Did they not know that I was the most perfect thing that had ever been laid before them?

Of course they did.

And so it is for you, and you, and you.

At the very moment each of us stepped forth into this world we were completely and utterly divine.

We were perfection.

And we were absolutely 100% enough.

So every night when we take Sunday and Stevie out of the bath we hold them up to the mirror and ask them to speak that same truth into their own eyes.

So that even now they know this truth to be their own.

They look into their delicious little toddler eyes and earnestly speak to themselves, “I AM ENOUGH”.

It’s habit for them now and something that often we don’t even have to prompt them to do.

I hope that this truth becomes so ingrained in them that nothing anyone in this world can ever do or say to them will be enough to shake the unwavering belief that they are, and always will be, enough.

I offer you the chance to reset the start for yourself. To go back to that moment where your perfection and worth had never been challenged.

Take one act and one moment of courage to look deeply into your own eyes and speak the three words that have changed the way I view myself in the world.

I AM ENOUGH.

Sit with how it feels and nurture yourself through any discomfort that might come. Just keep trying each day until it starts to feel like something you could believe.

Really own it and think about what it means to you.

You too are enough.