We are currently living in what I call the Never Enough Story, a cultural myth characterized by ideas of separation, unworthiness, and scarcity. It is a culture that indoctrinates each and every one of us to the idea that we are separate, on our own, and there is never enough to go around. By extrapolation, this also means we are not enough, and we never will be.
We are taught to believe that we are flawed beings, lacking in talent, perseverance, initiative, discipline, or wisdom. We must strive to overcome our inadequacies. We must work to prove we are worthy; prove that we can compete and win. We must also exchange precious time and energy to accumulate material objects that will serve as tangible proof to the world of our worthiness.
This is the Never Enough culture creating an illusion of a less connected, less abundant, less helpful universe than I know actually exists. What I know is that we are far more precious, divine, wise, and gifted than we allow ourselves to believe. What I know is that we do not need to be manipulated, tricked, or coerced into being productive or “good.” If we were completely free to choose, it would be our greatest joy and our most natural impulse to bring maximum value to the world.
Divine Inspiration: Our Hidden Source of Abundance
Why do I believe human beings are inherently good? Many famous thinkers and artists throughout history—Socrates, William Shakespeare, Johann Sebastian Bach, Thomas Jefferson, Albert Einstein, Nikola Tesla, and John Lennon, to name a few—have openly acknowledged a direct connection to divine source. Both the ancient Greeks and Romans had a word to describe the “spirit,” which they believed spoke to people and brought them in-spir(it)-ation. The Greek term for this, daemon, has since been associated with evil, while the Roman term, genius, has been reduced to refer only to one’s IQ. If the original translation of these terms had been preserved, we would recall that divine inspiration requires no effort and is not earned. It is freely offered to anyone who is open to receiving this connection.
This important detail is central to understanding the Enough Message, because the abundance we seek can be found in subtle and deeply subjective places that the Never Enough culture would never take seriously. And yet, the survival of our species may depend on us taking these sources very seriously. We are enough to solve any practical problem before us because the fullness of who we are includes divine in-spir(it)-ation, our ability to source unanticipated grace and genius directly. It is the hidden key, our ruby slippers.
A Word with a Hidden Message
As a poignant example of how transformative, timely, and surprising the Enough Message can be, as I was writing this book, it occurred to me that it was incredibly bold to write a book about one word without investigating its etymology. As illustrated by the words daemon and genius, learning the origins of a word can reveal enlightening information that has been hidden for a very long time. I had hoped this would be the case with enough.
I couldn’t have been more delighted about what I found: In the original meaning of the word enough was a crystal clear pronouncement of humanity’s collective liberation! Enough has its roots in the 1300s Old English word genog, which is a compound of ge- meaning “with, together” and –nah, “to reach or obtain.” In Hittite, the root is –ninikzi, which means “lifts, raises.” Together we rise!
Together with divine inspiration. Together with one another. This points to our inherent enoughness as beings who are inseparable from and essential to the whole of humanity, the whole of nature, and the whole of spirit. We belong to one another, to Earth, to the whole that can never be complete without us. We are enough because the whole to which we belong is and always has been enough.
We are recovering the deep sense of belonging that has been stripped away from us by the narrow-sighted Never Enough cultural paradigm. The Enough Message is coming to the surface of our collective consciousness to assist us in understanding the scope and dynamic of humanity’s planetary transition. The days of the lone wolf are over. We belong. We are enough. Together we rise!
It took me about a week to gain clarity about my role in serving the Enough Message. I would write about it. As I worked with the Enough Message, it became a compelling mystery to unfold. It had much deeper layers than its initial simplicity revealed. Those deeper layers surfaced through an organic blend of synchronicities, research, scientific data, help from others, and divine guidance. I very soon realized that volunteering for this assignment meant that I would become just as much a student of the Enough Message as an interpreter.
We Are Learning to Right Ourselves
What I have come to understand is that when the mainstream only consults the intellect without also consulting intuition and heart-knowing, we miss a great deal of the picture. Intuition, our innate capacity to sense solutions from a holistic, instantly knowing perspective, looks too effortless to garner the respect of the Never Enough establishment. And yet, heads without hearts are what have gotten us into messes such as climate disruption, war, poverty, and ecosystem collapse. Heads without hearts cannot perceive wholeness, and tend to assume we are not responsible to a larger, interconnected, and interdependent family of living beings.
Our gridlocked political and economic systems have revealed their inability and their unwillingness to serve the wellbeing of the whole. When the information we use to make decisions is referenced only from the same old Never Enough mindset, we can only repeat the errors of the past rather than create the world we truly want.
Luckily, the entire world, including human consciousness, is constantly evolving. What passed our notice yesterday piques our interest and invites scrutiny today. Everywhere we see evidence of humanity breaking through the boundaries between the head and the heart. Quantum science is a leader in this understanding and has confirmed we are connected at all times with the vast intelligence of the universe.
Quantum physicists discovered another amazing fact: When they conducted the famous double-slit experiment with quantum particles, they noticed that the behavior of the particles and where they appeared were influenced by the presence of a human observer.
What is known as the observer effect in quantum physics reveals that the world is not made up of autonomous particles suspended in empty space. What we had previously thought of as empty space separating observer and observed is actually teaming with consciousness, a virtual network of energy and information exchanges that connect the observer and the observed.
We are far more magical and inwardly abundant than we realize, hardly the lowly, disempowered, “not enough” creatures we have been taught to believe that we are. Clearly, a deeply intimate co-creative relationship with the cosmos is baked into us as human beings, one we have yet to fully utilize.
A Heart-Led Revolution
A paradigm shift is an incredibly significant thing. By all accounts, we have not had a major paradigm shift in over five thousand years. Two hundred generations is plenty of time to develop amnesia about what came before our current paradigm. It is not surprising, then, that we would make the perceptual error of assuming that the Never Enough Story is the only story humanity has ever lived or ever could live.
We owe an incredible debt to the indigenous wisdom keepers who have preserved the stories of a much older paradigm. Through their perspective as well as that of cutting-edge science, we are realizing that in terms of the 13.8-billion-year-old universe story, as well as the 4.4-million-year-old hominid story, the very new 5,000-year-old Never Enough Story represents only an infinitesimal blink in time, not the big story or the only story at all.
What story will come next? We tend to expect that something as big as a paradigm shift must involve a drawn-out and perhaps violent revolution. I don’t believe this has to be the case at all. These expectations come from within a Never Enough mindset and not from the broader understanding that the Enough Message offers.
The emerging paradigm is not just the next in the long string of revolutionary power shifts we have seen over the course of millennia. The Enough paradigm is a different story entirely, one that does not create change through violence, war, power, competition, tribalism, and force, but negates these less evolved tendencies through a greater awareness of love and interconnectedness.
Enough is very much a quiet heart-led revolution arising from the inside out, and this is perhaps why it has taken us so long to recognize it as a revolution. Many will not see it coming and will be surprised to find out who will lead the change.
What the Enough Message has taught me is this: We are a whole which is perpetually reaching toward a more profound and loving awareness of itself, a formerly Never Enough culture waking up to its much broader, ever-present roots in Enoughness. As we welcome expanded heart awareness, the answers that come to us are increasingly holistic and collectively harmonious. They are natural and loving. They unlock our joy, creativity, and sense of belonging.
We are enough to awaken to our full potential as co-creators of the better world we imagine. This is the mission of the Enough Message. It is my assignment. I hope it may, in some way that is completely unique to you, become your assignment as well.
Time for a New Story
When a story becomes dangerous, it is time to stop telling it. The Never Enough Story is by far the most dangerous story told on Earth today. We are being nudged by our evolving consciousness to rejoin the bigger story of the cosmos, the story of the universe, the story of Earth, which is a wholesome, life-sustaining story: the story of Enough.
This is our new story:
I am enough.
I have enough.
We are enough.
We have enough.
Enough!
©2016 by Laurie McCammon. All rights reserved.
Reprinted with permission of Conari Press,
an imprint of Red Wheel/Weiser, LLC.
www.redwheelweiser.com
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Enough!: How to Liberate Yourself and Remake the World with Just One Word
by Laurie McCammon.
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About the Author
Laurie McCammon, founder of the Women's Institute of Maine, holds an MS in Adult Education, with a thesis on transformational learning. She has served as an NGO delegate at the UN International Commission on the Status of Women where she presented Enough! in 2013 and 2014. She has been published in numerous magazines including Soulful Living, Inner Awakenings, Spiritual Renaissance, and Allies for the Greater Good. Visit her at www.weareenough.com.
