Your Best Will Always Be Enough

Usually at the outset of a new month I have a big burst of energy. There is something about turning the page on the calendar that feels refreshing and uplifting and while I won’t say that none of that new month optimism is present for me at the moment, it would be dishonest of me to pretend that it is not coupled with a great deal of weariness. The cumulative strain and grief of a full year of navigating a pandemic, some recent news from a doctor that was not devastating, but certainly left me shaken, and the uncertainty about what lies ahead for me and for us finds me arriving at this new month with a little less vigor and pep than is typical for me. And I’ve decided that that’s okay.

As someone who, more than anything, wants my legacy to be one of uplifting others who are struggling, I often find myself walking a fine line with what I share with my community here online. I, of course, want my words and images to bring hope, inspiration, and nourishment to anyone who comes across them, but I am also committed to being real and honoring the full spectrum of my/the human experience. If you’ve been following me for any length of time you know that I do not have any interest in bypassing or toxic positivity. 

And so, my message for the beginning of this month is a tempered one and draws from a lesson that my father gifted me with when I was in 6th grade. It was a tough year for me. Up until this last year I would have said it was the toughest year of my life. My home life was chaotic and overwhelming that year and for the first time in my academic career, my grades suffered to the point that my report card required a parent’s signature. As I handed the report to my father, my hands shook. I was ashamed and also scared of what his reaction might be.

He reviewed my grades and then looked at me and calmly asked, “Did you do your best?”

I answered “yes” honestly as tears welled up in my eyes and then he placed his giant bear paw hands on my shoulders and said, “Then, I’m proud of you.”

I broke down into sobs of relief and some other feeling that I still can’t quite name.

To know that it was enough, that I was enough, despite the ways I felt I had fallen short, shattered me.

I have thought about that moment so much over the past year and especially in the past handful of months, none of which has looked anything like I would have hoped. 

There have been days where I have been able to create meaning and purpose out of these odd times, but there have also been days where I have struggled to hold myself together or do anything of substance at all. On the days where I’m in the latter experience, I have noticed the voice of my inner bully piping up, telling me I should be doing more, or that I should be handling things better. And then, I remember the question my father asked me and I ask it of myself: Am I doing my best? 

And as long as the answer is yes, I take a deep exhale and begin the practice of releasing myself from the grips of shame and not-enoughness. 

Some days, our best is what we envision it to be. For me that looks like taking good care of my mind and body, showing up in my power and light, and engaging in meaningful work that serves both myself and others. 

But some days, our best just looks like making it through. And whatever that looks like for you, please know that you deserve grace on those days, too.

As I look to this new month ahead, in this wildly strange time, I don’t feel the need to set any big goals or place high expectations on myself. The only thing that I am asking of myself in this moment is that I do my best. And my hope for myself, is that I truly know in my heart that it’s enough, that I am enough. I hope you know that you are, too.

The Long Journey Home

I honestly can’t remember a time in my childhood when I felt comfortable in my own skin. I’ve had to work pretty hard for that and only now as I am on the tail-end of the third decade of my life am I starting to embrace the full spectrum of the being that I am. Not that that’s always a graceful or seamless process even these days. 

I still feel like I talk too much and manage to pull off astounding levels of awkwardness in some of the most seemingly straightforward social situations. For anyone who has ever seen me as “cool” for even a brief moment in time, God love you. To me the essence of true coolness is being so deeply secure in who you are that you just radiate ease and warmth. No need to judge others or to get too ruffled by anything anyone does because you just love and accept who you are and are therefore able to extend the same grace to others.

I work on this practice daily. It’s a mix of shadow work, radical self love, and authentic embodiment work and I don’t imagine I’ll ever run out of material to dig into. 

I can remember coming home from school in first grade, marching upstairs and into the bathroom, and climbing right up onto the sink so I could get as close to the mirror as possible.

I would look not really at but into myself. I would search for who I was inside the little shell of a girl who never felt like her spirit matched the body she was given for this go round. 

I sometimes stared into the mirror for so long that my features would stop making any sense and I’d no longer be completely sure which side of the mirror I was even on.

I started a new school at the beginning of sixth grade and decided that, since I wouldn’t know a soul there, it was my chance to try a different version of myself on for size.

On my first day of school, when my teacher called my name during roll, I raised my hand and told her with a nonchalant smile that, “I actually go by Dottie.” 

She seemed confused and I said something vague about it being a family nickname and that no one calls me “Ashley”.

I’m still not sure how, at 10 years old, I was able to summon enough bravado to tell such a lie with a completely straight face, but my teacher either bought it or decided to just forgo trying to sort through what was going on with the odd little new student in her class and for the rest of that year, I was “Dottie”.

The next year my father moved my sister and me out to the outskirts of Houston where we lived part time in a commune and part time with the mother of one of my dad’s friends while he lived in an apartment in downtown Houston. I never saw anyone from my sixth grade class again, but all of the farewell notes from my friends in my yearbook from that year say things like, “See you next year, Dottie!” and “Have a great summer, Dottie!”.

I guess if I ran into any of my friends from that school on the street today, I would still be “Dottie” to them.

I’m not sure that my family ever really fully knew about my little sixth grade social experiment. My dad did seem somewhat bemused when friends from school would call our house and ask for “Dottie”, but I just told him that it was just something friends from school called me.

At home, to him and my sister and any of the other cast of characters that might be living with us at any given time, I was always “Ashley”.

I never tried to change my name again but that certainly wasn’t the end of my identity exploration.

From high school to college to the handful of years working odd jobs post-graduation and even into my time in graduate school, I shaped-shifted time and time again.

I jumped from one social group to another, tapping into different parts of myself within the context of each scene. 

Each version was a slice of the truth. But when you build friendships based on only a fraction of who you are, they often stop feeling like a fit once the full range of your being starts seeping through. And it always does eventually.

It took years for me to stop playing the roles of whoever it was that I thought people wanted me to be and to just start allowing the full weight of who I actually am to land and to be willing to deal with the consequences of that.

But what a relief it was to finally stop trying to keep so much of myself tucked in.

I still have moments where I catch myself in the mirror and wonder who is in there, behind the eyes inside this vessel that still doesn’t always feel like mine.

The difference now though is that the question feels lighter because I know the answer will never be one thing. And that I don’t need to go searching for myself.

I’m right here. I’ve always been right here. 

All I needed to do was create space for my truth to come through and then welcome every bit of it  in, without exception, when it does.