Sheridan Stewart - I Am Enough: the 90-day challenge to find contentment

My journal Day One: Too much of a good thing is still... too much!

I find myself wishing I had a new notebook to start this journal in. I love opening a new, purpose-bought exercise book and putting pen to pristine paper for the first time. Never mind that I have a dozen or more partially filled notebooks, empty pages languishing: I still crave just one more.

Isnt it ironic? Alanis Morissette once asked. Well, yes.

Its Day One and already I want more.

To be honest, I thought food would be my first hurdle. Mine is the caf generation: we meet and eat in cafs daily, sometimes more than once, scouring the menu for that perfect meal to satisfy the eternal question What do I feel like? Usually what my friend ordered seems to be the answer. Even when we order the exact same meal, the waiter hands the larger portioned plate to my companion as though attempting some sort of karmic balancing. As though waiters have an inbuilt sense of who has already had more than their fair share. Body dysmorphia, it seems, is not the only wonky judgment that has taken up residence in my brain.

Lets see if I can bring you up to speed on my, um... Quest? Endeavour? Experiment? Journey? I think I like quest best. No, quest sounds like Im searching for the Holy Grail, something eternally out of reach when what Im really seeking is contentment.

I Am Enough! came to me as a mantra:

I have enough, I do enough, I am enough.

The idea is to explore these concepts and lean into what I already have, do and am. Is it possible to be content with who I am, what I do and what I have?

I love a challenge, so, for 90 days I have decided to contemplate what it means to have, do and be enough and journal my findings.

No cafs. For 90 days, I will eat only foods that I prepare or am offered. If someone says Lets meet at such and such a caf, my response will be, Lets go for a walk instead, or How about I cook for you?

For the next 90 days I will resist all non-essential shopping. I will wear the clothes I already have. Read the books I already own (or visit the library), suspend my on-line memberships (what!?!). Write on the blank pages in my partially used exercise books; create from my abundance of untouched art supplies. Get my hands dirty in my Garden of Neglect.

Its not about punishment, austerity or restriction. Its about utilising the incredible abundance I already have. I suspect I could journal every day for 90 days and still have blank pages in notebooks at the end of it! How will I find all my writing? Thats where my lifetime supply of sticky-notes will come in handy.

For 90 days I will attempt to go home from work on time. This just might be an even bigger challenge than staying out of cafs. In my line of work going the extra mile and unpaid overtime are the unspoken expectations that come with the job. But is it true?

So, how has Day One gone so far?

I am writing this journal entry in a half-filled notebook and have eaten foods I have prepared myself = I have enough.

I mowed the front lawn (but not the back) and entered this journal in my Writers Mastermind, an online writing community (but havent worked on my novel) = I do enough.

My hope is that this 90-day challenge will reveal I not only have and do enough, but that, maybe, I am enough. I want to be free from the tyrannical belief that I should have more, do more and be more.

The content of your character is your choice. Day by day, what you choose, what you think and what you do is who you become.

Heraclitus

Think of a time someone said something that really hurt you. I bet those words stayed on your mind and that each time they surfaced you felt their sting anew. If our self-talk is made up of habitual negative thoughts, we develop negative beliefs. The good news is, the same principle works for positive thoughts. Lets take a deep dive into affirmations why they dont work and how they can!