When is enough enough?
I have a voice in my head or voices shall I say. They tell me things. For instance, no matter how ahead of the game I remain in my work, these voices tell me it is not enough. No matter how clean my house is, it could always use more. No matter what I’ve done to keep myself in shape, healthy, and fit, my voice tells me that it’s not good enough.
These are the voices in my head. They are amplified under any sort of stress to the mind or body.
I am a relatively happy and confident person, so these voices or harpies in my head are incongruent but they are entrenched.
At meditation on Sunday morning, we had our dharma talk afterwards and the topic was Emptiness. The underlying theme is that chaos exists and we have to learn to create emptiness and steady our thoughts so as not to succumb to the allure of chaos.
The harpies that hide behind every nook and cranny in my mind are always on alert whether I’m aware of them or not and they always come out and try to tear me down. It’s not good enough, they tell me, you, you’re not good enough, or my favorite because it has an apocalyptic feel to it, it will never be good enough.
This morning as I went through my exercise routine and thought about how I feel like I’m getting back on track after a long illness (read: two weeks), I started chastising myself but another voice was answering, “What? I was supposed to stay on track while sick?”
My head harpies are good for one thing and one thing alone – to invoke fear. Fear that no matter how hard I work or try or force myself that I’m on the brink of annihilation. Thankfully, I have the other stronger voices in my head telling the harpies: “Namaste Bitches.” But on days when I’m coming out of a period of illness, my resolve is weak and they find their way to the podium and begin their assault and it is then I feel defenseless.
What I’m aiming for – is to bury those suckers. Because enough is enough. And so today, I am lighting a candle to ask my ancestors to help me over this hump – they gave me these glorious genes, now I need help to goose the low flame once more.