Enough Will Never Feel Like Enough

A Newsletter on Feeling Fully

i wrote a book. it came out last year. i went on a world tour, all around the so-called USA, canada, UK, australia, and finally asia. i’m coming down from it all, processing everything, listening to my body. i want to tell you about everything that has come up for me.

where do i start?

i’ve been treating myself like a machine my whole life. these systems call us to do so; for our parents to do so to us and themselves. i thought writing the book would get me to a place of stability and solid accomplishment, but the pressure feels impending and neverending. i realised that if i continue this self-punitive mindset, then enough will never feel like enough. i don’t even have a publishing house whispering deadlines in my ears; no, it’s my own voice. the one who hisses, who punishes, who calls me lazy. for lifetimes this has been my normalised state of being, and i have forgotten what it looks like to…simply exist.

i am going through post-book depression. i spent three years excavating my wounds and putting them to the page, treating the body of work like a marble sculpture, chipping away at the jagged edges and smoothening it down to prose. i loved the process of reading, researching, and writing, and i tried to be as present and hopeful as possible while the book came into being. my goal was to heal through that writing, to write a book that i would have needed as i went through an abusive relationship, and to allow it to resonate with whoever allowed it to.

when a project you’ve been working on that means so much to you is released into the world, it requires letting go. for the last nine months i spent most of my time promoting and traveling with it, revisiting it in different conversations with loved ones across the world. it is overwhelming and beautiful to know that it is branching out and making meaning in the hands of thousands of people. there is nothing more i can do.

as the book embarks on its own journey and i think about all that i poured into it, my brain is tired and my heart is fatigued. i still have not had a real break, because i live in a city that is so expensive that it is constantly nudging me to know what is next. what is my next project? my next big book? how will i pay my rent?

and while these questions swirl around my head, writing has felt tedious and like a chore. i have not felt this in a long time, and i started to panic and ask myself: what if i have nothing left to give?

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right now i am going through a lull. my inbox is quiet, i am not getting booked, BNAOL’s momentum is slowing down, i don’t know how many books have been sold nor do i want to, but i know it did not reach any NYT bestseller’s list, the accolade that institutions and publishing houses ask you to strive for. i started to panic about this period of quiet, “shouldn’t i be the busiest i’ve ever been right now? shouldn’t i be booked and even swatting opportunities away? was writing this book not enough?”

but enough for what?

enough to make me perpetually busy? successful? rich? is that why i had written the book? i had to breathe deep as these questions started springing to mind. i had fallen into a trap that i have always tried to be mindful of. i am embarrassed to even say it, but i had started to think of my book as a pillar of success, of a gateway to more opportunities, as something i made just to prove myself. i had reduced my book to a medal that would measure my worth and open doors, instead of the body of work i had poured my heart into for my survival.

there’s nothing wrong with wanting the book to be successful, nor with wanting to have access to more opportunities so i can continue a career of being a writer. i do not want to punish myself for thinking that way but i want to investigate the fear that exists beneath these questions, the egoic desires that have driven me to lose sight of what writing means to me.

writing has always been the tool that allows me to become closest to myself. it allows me to swim in the stream of my consciousness and be as candid and honest as possible so i can see all the hidden spaces of my internal world. now that it has become the work i make a living with, it is inevitable that i merge my financial needs with my spiritual needs. while i feel so lucky to be honest and get paid for doing so, i must question when the need for financial stability calls me to be dishonest with myself, to polish what i say or sell my words/self in the process.

this is the problem. living under capitalism forces us all to know our gifts, our talents, and what we love to do, and then package them to be marketable for us to make money. when the art you make is tied to the rent you pay, it is not surprising that the art can become compromised or controlled by somebody else. every moment of success, failure, loss, and slowness can feel deeply personal, like a direct reflection of our inherent worth, and there’s a panic that creeps up my throat that asks me to churn more out of me, when maybe for now, i want to be quiet for a while and just love the book that i wrote.

enough will never feel like enough. the race to remain relevant and stay busy makes slowness feel like a failure. we exhaust ourselves at high-speed just to prove ourselves, continuing the legacies we may have felt within our families growing up. it feels familiar, so we engage in these vicious cycles, in which we think peace and presence are “wastes of time” or “laziness”. the cycle continues within ourselves and opens up a bottomless pit. the greed within us widens, swallowing whatever it can consume, including ourselves.

if i continue listening to the frameworks of greed and capitalism that bleeds into my subconscious, no matter what i “achieve” with my book, i will always compare myself to writers who seem more successful than me. no matter how many book deals, manuscripts, or essays i write, no matter how many institutions and publications feature me, we are not taught a limit nor a time which we can be proud of and content with ourselves. we are taught to always want more.

if enough will never feel like enough, then when will i?

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the last nine months spent touring the world, i met so many new friends and readers. i have been to places i never would have imagined would reach my writing. people have told me that their book has changed their lives and even saved them, these feel like huge declarations, and i often get overwhelmed and do not know how to respond. when people tell me how the book has transformed them, it transforms me.

i do not want to regard these experiences as accomplishments. what that does is reduce the fullness of these connections to things i gain from, things that “serve” me. i know spiritually i am not interested in that.

i want to feel the fullness of these experiences. i want to feel fully how proud i am of myself for writing this beautiful and honest book. i want to feel melancholic about letting it go. i want to feel grateful for the people who took their time to read and understand the work and feel it all too.

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while experiencing perpetual fears of not-enoughness, i have not allowed myself to feel anything fully at all. or, i have squeezed my emotions out of me to generate some kind of essay or think piece about them. i have struggled so much with merging what i create with how i make money. i am not coping well with my writing also being some kind of business, it feels icky to say and is heightening many childhood wounds of needing to prove myself, to take care of everyone around me.

my therapist asked me to feel my fears, name them and then say to them, “ok, then what?”

i am afraid that i will never write again. i am afraid of being a “one-hit wonder”. i am afraid of asking for things, of asking people to pay me for my work. i am afraid of being forgotten. i am afraid of never being enough for these publications. i am afraid of never being enough for my friends. i am afraid of never being enough for my family.

ok. and then what?

do i hate myself, then? if i never write another book? if i do not live up to impossible standards? if i do not do any of those things, i still exist. can i find peace in that? can i love that foundational spiritual truth? what if i want to learn how to be a person instead of a writer? what if i just want to be a person who also loves to write?

maybe i have nothing left to give right now. maybe for a while, i can give to myself. maybe that is enough.

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PROMPTS

• when is the last time you let yourself feel something fully, without turning it into art, or a passage, or an essay? without sharing it? what will make you feel like you are enough?

• when is the last time you looked out the window and noticed an earthly element you had not seen before and been so moved and not know why? what was it?

• what will make you feel like you are enough?