In 1980, I was thirty-seven, divorced, a single parent with a full-time job in broadcasting and twenty-one credits toward a master’s degree in communications. Picture that with the caption: “Middle-class, Black woman/feminist/humanist, tries to do it all and prove herself competent, capable, authentic, and enough to be a credit to the race. That is a heavy burden, and it weighed heavily on me.
The cues I was getting from society and my family fed the directive to do it all, but inside, I felt crazy. Beneath my struggling and juggling, I was constipated and stressed. I developed TMJ (temporal mandibular joint dysfunction). There was not enough time, not enough energy, and not enough of me to go around and do all that was expected of me and all that I expected of myself.
It felt like I was being ripped in half. I needed to find an answer to the question, “What does it mean to BE enough, and do enough?”
I tackled the ‘do enough’ question kicked in. This was a tough one because I am a recovering perfectionist. By the mid-1990’s, I was in an unhappy second marriage. Marriage counseling failed when my wasband (former husband) refused to continue. So, I spilled my sad story in run-on sentences and heavy paragraphs to my no-nonsense, down-to-earth social psychologist. She listened. Then told me in no uncertain terms that I was a perfectionist with co-dependency issues, and I’d have to deal with that before we could even talk about the marriage. My mouth dropped open. I didn’t believe her, so I checked out a few books from the library and discovered that she was right. I realized that I was the one doing most of the judging and ‘shoulding’ on myself and others, and I was closer to the edge of maladaptive perfectionism than I was comfortable with.
What helped me move toward recovery was the wish to recover, the strength to take on the task, and a sense of humor to help me through. I knew that if I didn’t find a way out, I’d drown in an ocean of tears, which would not be a good look for someone striving to be perfect in all things.
About the same time, I came to grips with BE-ing enough question. I figured that if I could recognize or create an internal sense of contentment, I would be able to manage my existential angst and be enough, at least to myself.
What turned the tide for me was a psychological and philosophical model from a 3,000-year-old wisdom tradition from India called (in plain, down-to-earth English) the five layers of self-awareness.
It blew my mind. Understanding myself through five layers instead of two (mind/body) gave me a 360-degree view of what it means to be human. The five layers are:
- One: Physical, Me — my size, shape, gender, race, anatomy, and physiology.
- Two: Energetic, my breath and energy levels, and understanding how they work together to help me navigate all that life brings.
- Three: Mind, my thoughts, beliefs, and emotions – how I think, what I think about, what I believe, and how I experience and express myself.
- Four: Intuitive wisdom, this is my ability to observe and understand the ‘how and the why’ I got to where I am and how I can consciously make (or not) wise choices.
- Five: Bliss, this is a connection to something larger than myself. For me, it was finding positive ways to express myself creatively.
Because mental pictures and stories help with understanding big ideas, I created an analogy that really brought this home. It’s my shit-sugar wheel.
I imagine my life as a wheel that steadily turns. Half the rim is coated with sugar and is all that makes me happy, excited, and feeling good, the ups. The other half is coated with shit and is all that leaves me feeling scared, empty, and sad, the downs. Since the wheel of life is constantly turning, I ‘got’ that if I stayed on the rim, I would have no choice but to go round from sugar to shit and back again over and over and over.
This wheel has five spokes – the five layers of self-awareness. The hub of the wheel is where I could find the contentment I was seeking. The trick was to use the spokes wisely to move my mind from the rim to the hub, where I could watch the wheel go round, but with a bit of detachment. This way, the highs are still wonderful, and the lows are still painful, but I know that both are temporary. I learned to be concerned, but not consumed by them. As a result, I have found the balance and contentment I was looking for – well, most of the time. It’s a process.
When I look back, I realize that it took 37 years for the threads of external directives, striving and feeling not enough and not doing enough, to tie themselves into knots big enough to feel. Does it matter that it took another 41 years to untie those knots and let the threads dissolve? Nope. In the end, the only thing that matters is that I’ve found a way to work through the knots moment-by-moment, bit-by-bit, and thread-by-thread.
Today, I am a lot better at managing stress. I haven’t been constipated in years. My TMJ bite plate sits unused on the top shelf of the medicine cabinet. I can rest amid the chaos and be present in my life with its problems and joys. I am a Black woman/feminist/humanist of a certain age, and I can experience my life, and me at the same time. I am competent, capable, and authentic. And that is enough.
Author’s Note: This essay was originally published in Enlighten Up! Finding Clarity, Contentment, and Resilience in a Complicated World, 2020, Emerald Lake Books, page 233. It has been revised and modified for Grit, Grace & Gratitude.
This was written by our contributing writer, Elizabeth Gibbs.
Image Source: Unsplash, Sheila C.
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