Enough
Hi, I'm Liz Moser, and I’m a Mayo Clinic Certified Wellness Coach. Today, I want to talk about enough.
Having enough, doing enough, and ultimately being enough.
When I was 6 years old, my mom signed up my older sisters and me for swimming lessons on Saturday morning during my cartoons. I know, child abuse, right?! Every week I cried because I didn’t want to miss Scooby Do and Josie and the Pussy Cats.
Each Saturday, my sweet sisters brought me my clothes and dressed me in front of the TV. Then led me with tears in my eyes to the car. Off we went to the pool, where I ended up having a good time, and more importantly, I learned how to swim.
Fast forward a few decades and imagine me at the dining room table facing my sweetheart and eating dinner because I'm in week 5 of my no TV challenge, and most nights, we eat together at the table.
Around week 2 of our new routine, my guy says to me, “What are you doing?”
And I answer, "I don't know eating dinner?"
He says, "Yeah, but you're scraping all of the food up with your finger and then licking it.”
Yep, in fact, I was.
I can't say I was utterly clueless about this. When we were at restaurants, I wouldn't eat with my fingers, but when we were watching tv, I would put my salad bowl up to my mouth and spoon the last morsel in, and then I would use my finger and scrape the rest of the food out of my bowl.
Every morsel of quinoa.
I did it surreptitiously in front of the tv, but now he had a front-row seat to this embarrassing habit.
Nothing like someone else being aware of a behavior you’ve chosen to ignore to bring it to a whole new level of your consciousness.
I sat with this for a few days and got curious:
I meditate twice a day! I have a gratitude practice! I’m centered, calm, and I live with a sense of contented enough-ness. Yeah, sure, if I grasp every crumb that’s owed me. Ouch!
Here I was faced with a disconnect between my actions and my beliefs, and I decided to reach out to some of my friends and get their feedback.
One friend I shared this with, who's in a right-sized body like me, sympathized, saying she could relate, “Because we get so little food." Yikes! Is that what I think? What I truly believe? That I get so little food, therefore I need to ingest every morsel? I cringed a little when she said that because, on the one hand, I couldn’t deny that my actions appeared to agree with her, yet my heart and my conscious mind rebelled against it.
On the opposite side of the spectrum of the responses I received:
A more spiritual friend of mine suggested that I leave a full bite on my plate. It would be equivalent to tithing, she explained. Tithing is about giving without any expectation of receiving. I believe in that concept, and my hope is I'm that generous in other areas of my life, but as of today, I'm apparently not spiritual enough to leave a full bite of food on my plate. Baby steps!
I genuinely believe that I give myself the exact amount of food to maintain this healthy, vibrant body. I have an abundant amount of food without going to the extreme of scraping my plate with my finger and licking it.
We are in control of our actions. Our actions influence our beliefs, while our beliefs also govern our actions. It's a 2-way street.
I’m discussing leaving some food on my plate, but it's also about more than that. I want my actions to be consonant with my belief that I have enough and that my life's abundant.
Having your thoughts, beliefs, and actions working in synchronicity both behind closed doors and in public is living a life with integrity. And that’s my intention.
Three weeks after My fiancé’s comment at the dining room table, I no longer use my spoon or my finger to get every tidbit of food out of my bowl. I do not tilt my bowl, pick up my bowl, or put my bowl to my mouth and shovel the last morsel into it.
My new tongue-in-cheek mantra is my finger is neither a spoon nor a spatula, and I'm consciously choosing to eat in the same manner when I’m alone as I would in public.
Until my sweetheart pointed out my propensity to scrape my bowl and lick my fingers, I wasn’t completely aware of how the 6-year-old part of me that was crying over not getting enough of her cartoons was driving the bus and influencing my thoughts, beliefs, and actions.
I’m now an adult, and I choose to believe that I give myself precisely the right amount of food. I also choose to have my actions reflect that belief by leaving some food on my plate, whether I'm eating alone or in public.
Maybe you’ve never used your fork to scrape the last bit of cake off your plate or upended a bag of chips and poured every morsel in your mouth.
However, if you take an honest look at your life, there might be another area where you come from a sense of lack, and you inadvertently find yourself grasping at the last shred of something as my 6-year-old self clung to her cartoons.
For instance, are you chronically late? Maybe you continuously need to squeeze one more task out of every activity, leaving you running behind and playing catch up. Or maybe your efforts to save money fall short because you spend every penny of each paycheck.
If that’s the case, I invite you to examine your actions to see where you are showing yourself that you don’t have enough. Or perhaps it’s more conscious than that. Maybe you believe wholeheartedly that you don't have enough time or funds.
If, in all honesty, you lack resources in your life, then my heart goes out to you, however, if like many of us, your actions belie the truth that you have an abundant life. Then I invite you to see where you can adjust your actions, your beliefs, or both to live a life of more integrity. A life where you have precisely what you need instead of living in scarcity.
A life where you have enough, do enough, and ultimately are enough.
I’m Liz Moser, a Mayo Clinic Certified Wellness Coach. Thanks for listening/reading to this video/blog and if you have any questions about this video, or if you have any questions about health and wellness or wellness coaching with me, please contact me through my website at lizmosercoaching.com
Bye for now! Liz
Where in your life so you think or act like you must or should or have to as opposed to living from choice.
So fellow bright Lifers, can you relate to this? Where are you on your journey with food neutrality?
I’m genuinely looking forward to reading your thoughts on this subject.
Love you guys and bye for now, Liz
We weigh and measure an exact amount, and if you are hungry in weight loss, I can see the urge to ingest all of your allotted amount of food; however I’m in maintenance, and I don't experience much hunger if any.
Furthermore, we aren’t sentenced to either the weight loss plan or the maintenance plan. We ultimately choose this lifestyle and hopefully re-choose it each day.
I'm not one to judge your current relationship with your food and whether you use a spatula, spoon, or your finger to capture every morsel. Heck, it took me 2 ½ years of ble to reach this awareness and to choose this new level of food neutrality. So, who am I to judge?
I am inviting you, though, to examine your thoughts and beliefs: is your relationship to ble one of choice or does it look more like a prison sentence where you feel you must or should or have to eat this way.
Are you giving your body precisely what it needs to either lose weight or maintain weight, or do you experience scarcity?
Remember, that even in weight loss, you have enough fuel, it's merely a combination of what you are consuming today and what you already consumed (your stored adipose tissue). You intrinsically have enough.
The definition of tithing is an act of obedience and should be given freely with pure motives. In other words, we give without expecting anything back in return. And it teaches us to be good stewards of what God has given us.
I laughed and said that I’m not quite ready to leave a whole bite and my higher power will just have to be ok with that! Baby steps, OK?
Instead of using this opportunity as a teachable moment where I was taught the lesson that happiness doesn’t in fact lie in grasping at the momentary pleasure rather it’s in the curiosity of what’s coming next or in the optimistic spirit that says yes, this activity is over and the next one may be enjoyable, as well.
My parents weren’t particularly philosophical and let’s face it; would that message have sunk in to my 6-year-old brain?
I know this is just about leaving some food on my plate but it’s also about a lot more and I’ve been asking myself a lot of questions and I’ve been curious with what’s come up.
What is enough food? Enough food is the amount that nourishes my body, allows me to sustain a healthy body and my right size. Whatever size I decide to be. A few morsels on my plate will not tip the scales one way or another with my hunger.
How does this behavior add to my life? Grabbing every morsel is my saying to the universe: I have so little I need to make sure I get every crumb. That feeling of needing to wring every ounce of pleasure, joy and fulfillment from every experience. Allowing myself to still clean my plate yet not succumb to over the top measures I’m not only allowing some civility into my day to day life , but I’m also saying I have enough, I am enough and I do enough. It’s another level of food neutrality for me.
What’s the message? It’s ok to act another way when no one is watching. There’s no integrity in that. Integrity is doing the same thing a lone that I would do if another was watching. Integrity: Do what we do in private as we would do in public
I eat most of my meals alone and it feels more respectful to myself and my values that I’m acting alone as I would if I was dining with others.
When I lick my bowl I’m telling myself? I don’t have enough. I deserve every crumb and my life is lacking
How does this activity add to my life/ How is it better? A life of intentionality? A life of reflection?
A life where my thoughts and actions add value to my life
Make conclusions about ourselves by what we see ourselves do
Spiral up or spiral down.
Enough-ness are you chronically late? What if you walked away from all of your current tasks 5 minutes earlier? What if you decided that 5 minutes of less work on every project was enough?
Enough-ness:
