I struggle with this too and have to remind myself of my limitations and that that is just a part of me. I can’t wait to be fixed and the one I am now is good enough. I do have grief seeing a lot of people on Substack produce consistently and with in-depth, well-researched essays, something my brain just can’t do with this illness. Every day I have to tell myself that what I do and put out there is good enough. Thank you for sharing your struggles.
Big time good enough! I’ve found myself in the same comparison trap at times this year. I’ve taken a big step back from my work because the flip side of the well researched written work we see is that behind some of it lies burn out, push, struggle, force. For the same reasons as you, my body says a big fat no more to that, it won’t allow it. So I take the research I’ve done over the years and weave it in an out of content as it flows and as it comes up, alongside my own lived experience and findings. Reminding myself that is good enough. Interestingly, readers are something like 22 times more likely to remember facts, figures, etc when it’s woven into story. So it’s win win all round - saving us the time and precious resources for giving our body’s what they need🙏
Sep 1, 2023·edited Sep 1, 2023Liked by Michelle Spencer
Fabulous ! It’s interesting because I felt a bit daring suggesting it when I’ve only just connected with you for the first time on this thread but something made me post it anyway! I had this feeling you were well researched, knowledgable and had so much insight to share too. I’ve been quick off the mark to subscribe to your page and look forward to reading your content.
Thank you for sharing that vulnrrable grief. I share that grief - for me it rises as a benign envy and longing, I never thought to call it by its true name.
“Creatively constipated” that one tickled me😂 ahhhh the topic of enough! Been working on that one myself this year. It’s been a long ass journey, a lot of soul searching, deep healing, inner work and awareness at an all knew, unknown before level. There are many times when I am now able to affirm to myself “I am enough. I’ve done enough”. When I remember this before an impending attack, my nervous system is so soothed it lessons the level of pain and symptoms every time. There are also still plenty of times I come from a place of not enough. On goes the journey.
I’m so glad you’ve been able to achieve that - for you and for the world. Thank you for sharing. Just when I think I have a bit of a handle on Enoughness I slip again. On goes the journey, we are in good company!
We sure are! Listen, I’ve left a fair few lengthy comments because I cannot get enough of your writing this morning. However, please do not feel obligated to response because I became aware of where your energy levels might be at, only after leaving the last lengthy one! My energy is reasonably ok today so I’ve loved reading, engaging and interacting. But I appreciate yours may not be and that’s ok. No expectation on my part to hear back from you xx
I have achieved much, and after each success on my terms, I couldn't resist the snake and ladder effect of self-beration and continued to bring myself down a rung or two until I wrung myself out. I relate to so much of your writing. Being autistic and having been chronically burned out in my 30s and more.
At 47 now, I am no pun intended staying alive, but in that space, trying to make sure elders, animals, and even my husband don't die (at 47 too, he had recently just had an open heart surgery), it's a shitshow within a cyclical shitshow, and writing and monetising it cannot be a priority. But writing does help me to self-regulate when I can prioritize it, but it is knowing what enough represents. For many years, for me, it was just waking up. Congrats on all your subscribers! I am slowly making my way to 100, and they will arrive when they are meant to and I will then maybe write about my journey to 100 also. Thank you for sharing such a heartfelt and relatable piece. To having, knowing and being enough this weekend.
I feel for and with you in navigating a shitshow with energy issues. This round of health crises is so different from the times I pushed through and could burn out later. Life presents us with so many opportunities for struggle and growth, we don’t have to make them harder on ourselves but too often do. Thank you for taking the time and energy to comment. Here’s to writing and keeping going and finding a few (& a few more) people who receive out offering 🙏🏻
Sep 1, 2023·edited Sep 1, 2023Liked by Michelle Spencer
Congrats on 100 subscribers!!!
"I will keep showing up. I hope you will too. Together we can untangle ourselves from some of this very dodgy programming." I will keep showing up!
I'm learning to disentangle enough as a person (yes always, unconditional, but easy to forget) from enough for a specific output (e.g. if I want a dish to taste spicy, there is such a thing as "I didn't add enough spice to create 🔥")
The neural highway from I didn't add enough spice --> I'm not a good enough cook --> I'm a not enough human is well paved, and it delivers an oft reinforced story. The pain of this repeating story is real, but the story itself is untrue.
Isn’t it funny how easily we can lay down. A path that leads to “I am defective”. As Brene Brown says, if we walk through the world looking for evidence that we don’t belong (are not good enough) we will find it.
Michelle, congratulations on the 100 subscriber! I am not surprised (you got there lots faster than I did :) because you have such heart in your posts. I love getting your emails, and honestly, there are so many emails these days, it feels sometimes like they are raining nonstop. So having yours show up occasionally as a surprise is always a delight, a gift. Seriously. I might read a 15% of another newsletter that comes out like clockwork three a week but 100% of yours. So I don't think the lower frequency or surprise schedule is a bug at all, it's a feature. Keep writing whenever you can and want to. You are more than enough.
Thank you so much for your generous encouragement, that is very humbling to hear. I’m tearing up in a good way! The praise we didn’t know we wanted to hear falls very sweet on our ears.
Firstly, congratulations Michelle! 🎉 so much to celebrate in your post, and I love the invitation to reflect on my own milestones and beliefs around effort and reward. I am feeling all of the feels myself at the moment. Feeling less than on the time, talent, readers you name it front in amongst so much amazing writing and regiment on Substack. Like life, there is so much messaging on Substack about how to go about things - some of it helpful, a lot of it noise. Anyway, I’m playing with putting less pressure on myself to deliver a long, researched piece every week. I read last week that some folks engage producers which made me feel a little better about my one woman show. I’m here for whatever you send out whenever you feel able to do it. Much love
I am deciding to believe there is room for both. Kate Hill compared substack to a Farmer’s Market and I quite like that. At markets around here you have fully professional stall holders with a tricked out van, signage etc who clearly attend 5 markets each week, but you also get the odd Jam Lady with a table and an embroidered cloth from the Op Shop and a small selection of yummy jams AND I AM HERE FOR ALL OF IT as a maket-goer, but more Jam Lady than professional fresh flower producer to the stars myself. And maybe that means sometimes we don’t turn up, sometimes we have a few jars of excellent marmalade and sometimes we have an array of glorious summer soft fruit jams and passionfruit curd and even some toffee apples because that’s what ingredients were available & where our energy was that week. Much love to you too & thanks for the supportive comment.
I was so thrilled (in a way) when you posted a pared down offering. Your exquisite essays and multiple poems was gratifying to receive and also out of my league. So YOU Amanda Cooke have been one of those desirable-admirable-and-ever-so-slightly-intimidating substackers 🫣🙏🏻
Was also just thinking that my MO is I go hard and fast when I feel good then go oh oh 😅. I keep reminding myself, I can do what I like, what is right for me and the folks who generously give some of their attention to what I offer. Your piece this week has really helped 🙏
"Am I allowed to be disabled, imperfect, intermittent?" YES. And think you're really not alone on that last semi-embarrassing thing, achieving something and feeling less worthy. That's pretty normal, I think, experienced way more than anyone might realize...
I struggle with always feeling like I’m not doing enough. But i try to remember that if I was giving myself advice - I’d say to be kinder to be myself.
One rule for everybody else, a different rule for us. Sigh. I’m familiar with that pattern. Glad you try to remember. You might like an earlier post about the best of all possible friends. Thanks for being part of this community
Brilliant Michelle and yes and yes but I have come a long way in apologizing for not enough effort. Brene Brown's book "The gift of imperfection" was a game changer for me.
You are enough. Just keep writing when you have something to say. The rest will come.
Thank you for that encouraging feedback John.
I struggle with this too and have to remind myself of my limitations and that that is just a part of me. I can’t wait to be fixed and the one I am now is good enough. I do have grief seeing a lot of people on Substack produce consistently and with in-depth, well-researched essays, something my brain just can’t do with this illness. Every day I have to tell myself that what I do and put out there is good enough. Thank you for sharing your struggles.
Big time good enough! I’ve found myself in the same comparison trap at times this year. I’ve taken a big step back from my work because the flip side of the well researched written work we see is that behind some of it lies burn out, push, struggle, force. For the same reasons as you, my body says a big fat no more to that, it won’t allow it. So I take the research I’ve done over the years and weave it in an out of content as it flows and as it comes up, alongside my own lived experience and findings. Reminding myself that is good enough. Interestingly, readers are something like 22 times more likely to remember facts, figures, etc when it’s woven into story. So it’s win win all round - saving us the time and precious resources for giving our body’s what they need🙏
I love this, Amber, it’s exactly the conclusion I have come to, too.
Fabulous ! It’s interesting because I felt a bit daring suggesting it when I’ve only just connected with you for the first time on this thread but something made me post it anyway! I had this feeling you were well researched, knowledgable and had so much insight to share too. I’ve been quick off the mark to subscribe to your page and look forward to reading your content.
Thank you so much for your kind words, it means a lot. I look forward to reading more of your content too!
Great reminder! Brene Brown says stories are data with s soul 🫶
Thank you for sharing that vulnrrable grief. I share that grief - for me it rises as a benign envy and longing, I never thought to call it by its true name.
“Creatively constipated” that one tickled me😂 ahhhh the topic of enough! Been working on that one myself this year. It’s been a long ass journey, a lot of soul searching, deep healing, inner work and awareness at an all knew, unknown before level. There are many times when I am now able to affirm to myself “I am enough. I’ve done enough”. When I remember this before an impending attack, my nervous system is so soothed it lessons the level of pain and symptoms every time. There are also still plenty of times I come from a place of not enough. On goes the journey.
I’m so glad you’ve been able to achieve that - for you and for the world. Thank you for sharing. Just when I think I have a bit of a handle on Enoughness I slip again. On goes the journey, we are in good company!
We sure are! Listen, I’ve left a fair few lengthy comments because I cannot get enough of your writing this morning. However, please do not feel obligated to response because I became aware of where your energy levels might be at, only after leaving the last lengthy one! My energy is reasonably ok today so I’ve loved reading, engaging and interacting. But I appreciate yours may not be and that’s ok. No expectation on my part to hear back from you xx
‘Creatively constipated’: if you know, you know.
I have achieved much, and after each success on my terms, I couldn't resist the snake and ladder effect of self-beration and continued to bring myself down a rung or two until I wrung myself out. I relate to so much of your writing. Being autistic and having been chronically burned out in my 30s and more.
At 47 now, I am no pun intended staying alive, but in that space, trying to make sure elders, animals, and even my husband don't die (at 47 too, he had recently just had an open heart surgery), it's a shitshow within a cyclical shitshow, and writing and monetising it cannot be a priority. But writing does help me to self-regulate when I can prioritize it, but it is knowing what enough represents. For many years, for me, it was just waking up. Congrats on all your subscribers! I am slowly making my way to 100, and they will arrive when they are meant to and I will then maybe write about my journey to 100 also. Thank you for sharing such a heartfelt and relatable piece. To having, knowing and being enough this weekend.
I feel for and with you in navigating a shitshow with energy issues. This round of health crises is so different from the times I pushed through and could burn out later. Life presents us with so many opportunities for struggle and growth, we don’t have to make them harder on ourselves but too often do. Thank you for taking the time and energy to comment. Here’s to writing and keeping going and finding a few (& a few more) people who receive out offering 🙏🏻
Congrats on 100 subscribers!!!
"I will keep showing up. I hope you will too. Together we can untangle ourselves from some of this very dodgy programming." I will keep showing up!
I'm learning to disentangle enough as a person (yes always, unconditional, but easy to forget) from enough for a specific output (e.g. if I want a dish to taste spicy, there is such a thing as "I didn't add enough spice to create 🔥")
The neural highway from I didn't add enough spice --> I'm not a good enough cook --> I'm a not enough human is well paved, and it delivers an oft reinforced story. The pain of this repeating story is real, but the story itself is untrue.
Isn’t it funny how easily we can lay down. A path that leads to “I am defective”. As Brene Brown says, if we walk through the world looking for evidence that we don’t belong (are not good enough) we will find it.
Michelle, congratulations on the 100 subscriber! I am not surprised (you got there lots faster than I did :) because you have such heart in your posts. I love getting your emails, and honestly, there are so many emails these days, it feels sometimes like they are raining nonstop. So having yours show up occasionally as a surprise is always a delight, a gift. Seriously. I might read a 15% of another newsletter that comes out like clockwork three a week but 100% of yours. So I don't think the lower frequency or surprise schedule is a bug at all, it's a feature. Keep writing whenever you can and want to. You are more than enough.
Thank you so much for your generous encouragement, that is very humbling to hear. I’m tearing up in a good way! The praise we didn’t know we wanted to hear falls very sweet on our ears.
Firstly, congratulations Michelle! 🎉 so much to celebrate in your post, and I love the invitation to reflect on my own milestones and beliefs around effort and reward. I am feeling all of the feels myself at the moment. Feeling less than on the time, talent, readers you name it front in amongst so much amazing writing and regiment on Substack. Like life, there is so much messaging on Substack about how to go about things - some of it helpful, a lot of it noise. Anyway, I’m playing with putting less pressure on myself to deliver a long, researched piece every week. I read last week that some folks engage producers which made me feel a little better about my one woman show. I’m here for whatever you send out whenever you feel able to do it. Much love
I am deciding to believe there is room for both. Kate Hill compared substack to a Farmer’s Market and I quite like that. At markets around here you have fully professional stall holders with a tricked out van, signage etc who clearly attend 5 markets each week, but you also get the odd Jam Lady with a table and an embroidered cloth from the Op Shop and a small selection of yummy jams AND I AM HERE FOR ALL OF IT as a maket-goer, but more Jam Lady than professional fresh flower producer to the stars myself. And maybe that means sometimes we don’t turn up, sometimes we have a few jars of excellent marmalade and sometimes we have an array of glorious summer soft fruit jams and passionfruit curd and even some toffee apples because that’s what ingredients were available & where our energy was that week. Much love to you too & thanks for the supportive comment.
Oh I love that Michelle. What a fantastic metaphor. And yes there is room for it all!
I was so thrilled (in a way) when you posted a pared down offering. Your exquisite essays and multiple poems was gratifying to receive and also out of my league. So YOU Amanda Cooke have been one of those desirable-admirable-and-ever-so-slightly-intimidating substackers 🫣🙏🏻
Ah I’m touched, and encouraged, friend. So many universes of awesomeness here hey. So grateful that our rad condiment stalls collided! X
Was also just thinking that my MO is I go hard and fast when I feel good then go oh oh 😅. I keep reminding myself, I can do what I like, what is right for me and the folks who generously give some of their attention to what I offer. Your piece this week has really helped 🙏
"Am I allowed to be disabled, imperfect, intermittent?" YES. And think you're really not alone on that last semi-embarrassing thing, achieving something and feeling less worthy. That's pretty normal, I think, experienced way more than anyone might realize...
Great piece. Very honest reflections.
I struggle with always feeling like I’m not doing enough. But i try to remember that if I was giving myself advice - I’d say to be kinder to be myself.
Thanks
One rule for everybody else, a different rule for us. Sigh. I’m familiar with that pattern. Glad you try to remember. You might like an earlier post about the best of all possible friends. Thanks for being part of this community
Thanks, I’ll be sure to check it out.
Brilliant Michelle and yes and yes but I have come a long way in apologizing for not enough effort. Brene Brown's book "The gift of imperfection" was a game changer for me.
Absolutely Leanne, Dr Brené has been a game changer for me too.