Enough as a practice
Finding our current experiment showing up in other parts of life.
Normally I write about our Making, Again experiments on a Friday and about something else on a Tuesday, whether that’s motherhood or small business, or whatever else I’m thinking about or noticing that week.
But this week, as I started writing today’s essay, I realised that the different parts of my life, and this little Substack, have started overlapping. I couldn’t workout if I was writing about a making experiment or life in general.
If you’re new here, a Making, Again experiment is an invitation to explore one small idea through your own creative practice. Rather than focusing on finishing projects or following a set of rules, each experiment offers a theme, prompts and simple invitations to help you notice what happens when you approach making in a different way. I hope to encourage you to become more curious about your relationship with making, one small experiment at a time.
When we started our current Making, Again experiment, Enough, I thought it was mostly about making. It seemed like the natural next step in our range of experiments. Enough fabric, time, energy and finished projects. Enough of the impossibly high expectations we put on ourselves when it comes to making. I was feeling particularly stretched for time when I was working on the playbook and it felt like an early test in accepting that sometimes enough is just that. Enough.
For me personally, I thought this experiment was about accepting that I have enough fabric, thread and tools in my garage studio. That I don’t need another pattern, or an uninterrupted afternoon stretching before me, to just get started. That I have enough skills for now. That ten hand stitches on a calico shopping bag while my baby sleeps on me counts.
Those things are still true, but over the past few weeks I’ve realised that “enough” has infiltrated more deeply than my making practice. It’s been teaching me about self compassion.
Last week I was out and about with my two little ones. I received a text message that instantly sent me spiralling and overwhelmed my nervous system. We were at a local playgroup and my eldest wanted me to dance with her while my youngest needed a feed. Of course I could barely do either because I was feeling so overwhelmed. I felt myself becoming snappy with my eldest, even though she hadn’t done anything wrong. To her, my mood had just shifted for no reason and she didn’t know what had happened. I barely knew what had happened.
For so many years I have responded to moments like this by becoming my own harshest critic. Asking myself why I couldn’t handle it better. Why I looked at my phone instead of being completely present with my two children. Why I couldn’t regulate faster and be more patient. Why I couldn’t let it wash over me like it seemed to for the other mums.
We were leaving playgroup, the little one in the pram and the big one skipping along beside us, and I decided to stop my spiralling thoughts in their tracks.
I reminded myself that I’m enough. Even when I’m overwhelmed or snappy, or not the best version of myself. I’m still enough. I took some long slow breaths and found it in me to try something different. To stop those negative thoughts before they took over.
How could I regulate both myself and my daughter in this moment so we could have a fresh start to the afternoon, rather than beginning it on the wrong foot?
As we walked along the footpath on the busy main street, we tried something I’d never done with my daughter before. I asked her to notice what she could feel. Could she feel the warm sun on her face like I could? Could she feel the pavement under our feet? What could she hear? The bus as it roared past us? Could she hear the birds chirping quietly in the background if she tuned out the traffic?
We walked into a café and bought her a gingerbread cookie. We smelt her gingerbread biscuit before she took her first bite. We let the baby smell it too.
I felt myself exhale, realising that I had turned our afternoon in a different direction. Nothing drastic had changed, but for a few minutes I stepped out of fight or flight and back into the present.
Although I started this experiment hoping that it would help me find a way to get needle and thread through fabric (it did), it has also made me realise that this experiment is so much bigger than that. It’s about questioning the stories we keep telling ourselves when we’re in the middle of them. It’s about accepting the situation or resources we have, but not following the usual script that assumes we need more of something, whether that is fabric, time or, in this case, patience.
Last night it got to 9pm and somehow both our children were asleep. We have two little night owls, so they’re often up quite late. I was exhausted, but I was already planning to stay up and fold the overflowing basket of washing. I still needed to wash the dinner dishes. Maybe I could take advantage of this extra time and reply to a few emails.
But then I wondered if I could flip the script and try something new like I did when we left playgroup. Could I practise some self compassion and just go to bed? Could I look back on the day and see all that I had done to keep two little people alive and fed and comforted and entertained, and see that that is enough?
I told myself that I’ve done more than enough. My body is allowed to rest. I don’t need to optimise every minute of the day.
I’ve been surprised to realise that this might be the real work of this experiment for me. Right in this moment, when I need the reminder most, that I’m enough. That I’m doing enough. And maybe over time, to actually believe it.
It’s been interesting to realise how many different ways I can practise enough, and to see how these experiments around making can weave in and out of so many aspects of my life.
Every time I choose ten stitches instead of waiting for a long stretch of time, I’m practising enough.
Every time I stop before I’m finished because the baby wakes up, I’m practising enough.
Every time I choose rest over squeezing one more thing into the day, I’m practising enough.
For the first time in a long time, I’m practising tuning into my body and asking what is enough in this particular moment? That is a question I keep reminding myself to come back to. Because often times we have already done enough.
I'd love to know: where in your life could you practise enough this week?