Lessons from Tolle: Being enough as you are

Do you ever have the feeling of not being enough as you are? Or feeling like there is something missing? Do those thoughts affect what you buy, what you wear, what you choose to do with your time - how many qualifications you get, the job/professional success and recognition you seek, the relationships you get into?

Eckhart Tolle says:

"Another aspect of the emotional pain that is an intrinsic part of the egoic mind is a deep-seated send of lack or incompleteness, of not being whole. In some people this is conscious, in others unconscious. If it is conscious, it manifests as the unsettling and constant feeling of not being worthy or good enough. If it is unconscious, it will only be felt indirectly as an intense craving, wanting and needing. In either case, people will often enter into a compulsive pursuit of ego-gratification and things to identify with in order to fill this hole they feel. So they strive after possessions, money, success, power, recognition, or a special relationship, basically so that they can feel better about themselves, feel more complete. But even when they attain all these things, they soon find that the hole in still there, that it is bottomless. They they are really in trouble, because they cannot delude themselves anymore." The Power of Now', Eckhart Tolle, pg 37

I don't think that this means that it is not good to be successful, learn things or engage in special relationships. Instead it is more about the intention you have behind this. Is it with an aim of trying to feel complete, better about yourself, fill a 'hole' or is it genuine curiosity and desire to learn and experience things?

Through mindfulness, the intention is to just be and for that to be enough and to spot and be aware of when the mind has other plans. I find this very interesting and will blog more about this and related themes in the future....