Innately Powerful, Innately Enough

Like many of us, when I was a child I was taught that, rather than being celebrated for being exactly as you are, you needed to be certain ways to be loved and enough.

Even that you needed to be having certain experiences. Valid, successful, kinds of experiences.

I feel like this started in a really big way when I was at school - ‘it’s not ok to be that kind of happy -  you need to express, and be, and flow your energy in this way. These are the valid things to celebrate in yourself’, and with no explanation of really why these things were considered more ‘valuable’.

A big part of this conditioning for me was that I was taught to prioritise how it looked over how it felt, and to invalidate the desire for certain felt experiences all together.

For example - the feeling of quiet, aligned contentment not derived from any particular achievement.

Or the feeling of being connected to all things and being able to rest into and use that connection and power in ways beyond linear explanation.

The feeling of peace and knowing, unconditioned by thought or facts.

The knowing, with full conviction, of what I didn’t need to know. What my gifts and embodiment didn’t need me to accumulate in my mind and energy. And, indeed, the inherent value, power and fertility of a not-knowing and unformulated mind.

These things were defined as ‘distracted from what we’re doing’, or ‘lazy’, rather than being celebrated as what I was doing, and a big part of what I was here to do.

This then flows, or can flow, on to our adult life in our belief systems; where we all just know what are the ‘ok’ things to be doing and feeling.

What are the more successful states of being or doing.

But who came up with these?

And what is their function in our lives and society?

This glorification of certain modes of being and doing, rather than celebrating the feeling of alignment and truth that comes from following our own innate embodiment and gifts.

From knowing our natural flow and gifts will have a place, and value in the world, that they deserve to be celebrated, because otherwise we wouldn’t have them.

I notice these beliefs in myself and the collective even around leisure time, and or how we experience joy in our close relationships. 

I sometimes feel pressure to have the most covetable and successful relationship, rather than relaxing into and enjoying the innate peace, joy and enoughness of aligned relating.

Or, a felt pressure to be having the most successful leisure time - to be in another country to my own, or off the earth, or under the earth or something impressive.

There’s nothing wrong with any of these holiday options when they’re aligned for us, but I’m noticing that the natural and sometimes subtle state of following ourselves that is ‘how does it feel?’, has often been overridden by these programs of what's valid or impressive in pretty much all areas of our life.

What are we avoiding in all this noise, and ultimately, distraction from our true selves?

Our pain, and our power. Our spiritual nature, and our immense, and ever-present capacity to fully heal our world.

We are avoiding the questions: What really feels good? What are we really here to do? What are we really capable of when we each allow ourselves to be fully in our subtle, deep truth.

I’m on this journey too; this peeling away of the conditioning of many layers, from childhood, of taught forgetfulness of our true nature, our inherent gifts, and our innate value.

And I’m so grateful for the quiet, gentle, persistent call of inner knowing, ‘back to this, back to this’, which is calling myself, and many others, back to themselves, back to their soul, and back to their enoughness.

Back home to our collective power, to create, enliven, enrich, and heal our world by resting into the full power of who we each came here to be.

And maybe that’s why the fear, avoidance and conditioning in ourselves and our collective has been so strong - because that power is truly immense.

- Lora Radford